The Gifted and Talented programs’ teachers and students at Woodbridge and Avenel Middle give an insight to what the program does.
Eight out of eight interviewees admitted that they had “no idea” there are four separate classes pertaining to G&T. Enrichment, Art, Music and Creative Writing/ Theatre Arts.
Enrichment: One of the four classes taught by Carrie Sweeney is an “opportunity for gifted learners, to challenge themselves with like-minded peers with a project-based curriculum.” Janese Lewis, G&T 8th grader, agrees saying it’s a challenging class, seeming like “all of your classes are crammed into one.”
Sweeney goes on to explain the rigor of the course in more detail, “We do some type of brain stimulating ‘do now’, such as math challenges, and logic puzzles, challenging the students intellectually and competitively.” One of her students said that it helps to shape herself into a better group worker, “The math challenges works out your brain muscles.”

Art: “G&T Art is an opportunity for artistically-minded students to experience a variety of mediums and explore different periods of Art History at an accelerated pace.” Gennine Mazzeo, the G&T Art teacher, explains. A student, Madison Rackett agrees adding that it is an “advanced” class.
“At the moment, 7th and 8th graders are working on an Art History project, doing research, and presenting the research as a work of art in itself,” Mazzeo continues. The project helps the gifted and talented students by “opening their minds to different styles of art, different time periods of history.” Understanding the lives of the artists is found to be “enriching”.
Rackett explained that it is easy to manage the class along with other classes because “you don’t receive much homework in G&T Art” and that her regular teachers give an extra day to complete the missing work.

She gives insight that “it’s important to get to know different students from other schools, create relationships and collaborate with them.”
Creative Writing/ Theatre Arts: Jacob Lopez; a student attending the Creative Writing class describes the class, “it’s where you write poems and different types of writing to express your style of literature.” Lopez adds, “We learn to write more descriptively by copying the styles of poems.”
“G&T is not hard to handle.” He says. “It’s a lot of fun to learn about a variety of things.”

If you are interested in seeing what the G&T program has come up with, stay tuned for its showcase coming in the near future.