A Little Nugget that Stuck

We are bombarded with 1000's of pieces of information on a daily basis. The vast majority of it doesn't stay with us, and even less of it actually impacts us. Then sometimes, something small, something that doesn't even seem that important at the time sticks, and later has an impact.

Two years ago I attended our regional homeschool conference with two friends. Talk about information overload. The two things that I learned from the conference; Tim Hawkins is even funnier live, and I loved the Notgrass curriculum. Not to take away from the conference. I really enjoyed it, but those are the highlights two years out. And there was one other tiny piece of information that my friends shared with me.

Mary & Angie's oldest kids are older than mine. They went to workshops about highschool while I just wasn't there yet. I do not remember which workshop or speaker it was they heard, but I do remember they mentioned a program through Duke University for talented kids.

I went home and looked up the information, and some how it stuck with me until the next summer. That year Kellen took the SAT through their talent search. He qualified to participate in their programs, but the programs filled up so fast (as in the day registration opened) that is all we ever did with Duke.

This year I wanted Kellen to take a college level standardized test again. Honestly, I didn't know if there was another way for him to take it except through a talent search (still don't know btw,) I searched google for 8th grade talent searches. I found Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth (CTY).

I really didn't expect much from the program. We had gotten excited the year before for Duke's program, only to be disappointed. I expected even less when I went to sign him up for the ACT and realized I'd waited a little too long, and he wouldn't take it until April. But we went forward. He took the test, and we waited to see the scores. They were good; very good.

Late last week, before the scores were even released to us, we got an email from CTY congratulating Kellen on his scores, and inviting him to apply for the three week summer program, and the scholarship for rural students. Tuesday morning, over the phone, he was awarded the scholarship.

We will get more details next week, but this July he will be spending three weeks with other talented students studying one of the class subjects that he picked. I'm so excited for him!

I am so glad that this nugget of information stuck with me! Thanks Mary and Angie for passing it along. I hope too that it might stick for some of you out there with academically gifted kids. We'll keep you updated on the program as we go.