Gifted Centers

Overview

The centers are of course a very important part of the entire picture. The development of centers will primerily be inside Bulgaria, but I expect to take this wherever we go.

The center/s will be the hub of testing, assessment, mentor training, data gathering and analysis and communication with external but linked individuals, entities such as schools, councils and others, families, support agencies such as pshycologists.

Staffing and Access / Availability Aims

The ideal will of course be to have unrestricted access to the most experienced members of the team, and this is the target. Like all targets, hitting them accurately and reliably is something that can take some time. The same will be true for us. There are some challenges not least of which is the finding and providing appropriate training and experience in the staff we find.

(We will look at funding later.)

Staffing Core Members

In order to set a sound base as an organization we will no doubt need a small number of core roles both identified and filled.

Those roles might be full time depending on availability competencies and funding. For instance the co-ordinator competency profile will be quite unusual in both competency type and depth of knowledge / experience. The same can be true for other roles and it might be more realistic ( measured in effectiveness and efficiency ) to take on two people who cover a broader competency range, overlapping in some areas, who are able to work within the organization and present the best of what we are and do to external bodies, families etc.

Suggested roles and competencies for ;

Co-ordinator/s

Administrator

Mentor / Trainer

Location

In the early stages of the development of this program it might not only be convenient to base ourselves in a small office but it might be the extent of realistic possibilities.

At the moment I am looking at options such as:

• Of course see what BuCu Foundation see as possibilities
• To house ourselves within a suitable educational center ( Tenant )
• To search for a flexibily sized location in an office complex for instance. The rents might not be as high as pre Covid as there is now a glut of office space.
• To be mobile (even in part is something we will need to do in any case)

Partnering

The development and provision of this undertaking is a substantial undertaking and intelligent, well defined partnering is one option to meet targets ( as yet not set ) when the need / demant outgrows our ability to deliver / support at the level and in the amount that is needed.

( This of course needs exploration and the generation of a framework to guide us from principle to a reality that can be developed or undone as the future decides )

Funding

Always a fun topic, funding will definately have an impact on what we do and the period over which we acieve our milestones. Of course it is not the only thing.

We are extremely fortunate to have tasted the possibilities of ‘what can be’ both with our collaborators and partners ‘Ron Vardi’ and our Latvian and Lithuanian colleagues. Each offering experience in the form of an organization operating over thirty years, country wide and in a different culture and closer to home a very similay project in the Balkans starting form nothing annd building over three years.

This will, no doubt offer substantian evidence, examples, models and profile of need to potential funding agencies. Tie that together with completion of other sucessfull projects from Horizon, Erasmus+ and others and the trust level is high.

Once we have opportunity to look at the different elements individually and as a whole we will be better placed to suggest options that are most suitable for us.

External Bodies

Just to mention some of my first thoughts.

Wherever possible I have a real wish to ‘future proof ourselves and what we do’.

One element of this is the inclussion of young professionals, both qualified and in training, within what we do.

An example that jumps to mind is the role of psychologist ( maybe educational , maybe not ) going to the university where psychology is taught and offering inturnships and or attachments to motivated students would potentially set a seed in their minds for the future and raise the profile of the GATE question in education at another level. We might also find a future colleague.

Monitoring, Analysis and Assessments “Of What We Do”

Testing and Interpritation Of Tests

One of the key functions in the center/s will be the testing of candidates and the interpritation of the results.

In order to reach a position of being consistantly accurate and reliable as compared to a known standard I have already asked ‘Ron Vardi’ if it will be possible to send all of our test results there to interprate them and then to have online meetings to discuss and anomolies or inconsistancies in what we do, whilst learning, as compared to their long standing competent history. This will surely develop our abilities to the desired and required level in a very efficient and developmental manner.

Who, When and Where to Test

As we will at least start to operate in Bulgaria I will focus here for now. Whilst not Bulgarian by birth, eighteen years of life here in BG has provided me with some insights to the ‘Balkan way’.

Lets get this out of the way first ( The elephant in the room as it were ) There will be many people who would wear the badge of gifted or attach it to their children like a badge of honour and jewelry. They would pay highly for the jewel. Bad luck, not here )

So moving quickly on, I have been lucky enough to work in education here in BG for the past almost five years now. You know my history. I have seen first hand and all too often the way in which many schools deal with ‘Problem Kids’.

I have also had the opportunity during the training of teachers to explore their understanding of the potential reasons the kids are ‘problems’.

Not even once has anyone suggested that it was because of the disparity between the intilect of the student /s and the content being offered.

That is not a knife in the back of teachers, it is an indicator of the lack of awareness training and flexibility of the “School Environment” that does not facilitate identification and support of the kids and the teachers who work with them.

The likelyhood of MON suddenly introducing a strategy to deal with this is, slight. That being so we have opportunity to begin to and eventually to fill that wound in the system. This has started already in 68th school in Sofia and with the private school Alphabet, again in Sofia. More schools have indicated that they would like to know more, the first steps are behind us thanks to the team at BuCu and all the colleagues in the project, not least of which ‘Ron Vardi’. We are now moving ahead with at least a degree of inertia, well done us.

MON (STEM)

I would like to mention immediately that while there are links to MON, especially the STEM element, we do not fall under their reach or influence.

They offer opportunities to ‘spread the word to schools and mentors about this subject and what is happening’here to support them.