What can I expect from a SAGE Classroom?
Students attend SAGE for reading and/or math, depending upon their area(s) of gifted identification. Students go to the SAGE classroom each day when the same content area is being taught in their general education classroom. SAGE students work one grade level above their actual grade level in their identified area of giftedness.
Curriculum, materials, and content are accelerated and enriched when compared to general education curriculum, materials and content, but are at the appropriate and challenging level of difficulty for this group of gifted identified students. Typically, the pace of instruction is quick, yet deep. Discussions probe for breadth and depth as well as precision and clarity. Students are required to express themselves as completely as possible and to provide proof for their thinking. Students are encouraged to persevere until they achieve satisfaction of accomplishment.
All this is possible because SAGE offers an environment of like minds for the duration of a full class period at a time, in which students find their confidence because time is afforded them to do so. Students become free to collaborate and to willingly exchange ideas. They are expected to be open-minded, yet strong-minded and able to defend a position with thoughtfulness and respect for others’ thoughts and proofs.
The SAGE learning environment provides identified gifted children with numerous and clearly established opportunities to discover just how much they are capable of. SAGE students are encouraged to see and make connections from their prior learning, across all curricular areas, to their present learning with the ultimate goal of being able to recognize the meaning and value of gained knowledge and how to use and apply it strategically and logically to their world outside of school.