The Ahliyyah School for Girls (ASG), in cooperation with the International Centre for

Innovation in Education (ICIE-Paris), will organize a workshop entitled:

Creativity:

Creative Giftedness & Education

Prof. Dr. Todd Lubart

University Paris Descartes

Amman-Jordan (January 29-31, 2008)

British Psychological Society

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD

JOAN FREEMAN

Prof Joan Freeman has been honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award for 2007 by the British Psychological Society.

Joan Freeman is a distinguished psychologist working in the development of human abilities to their highest levels. She has conducted and supervised substantial research, notably her continuing study of gifted children since 1974, and has published widely in this area, including 16 books.  For the UK government she has written two major reports and provides advice.

She is Visiting Professor at Middlesex University, London, Founding President of the European Council for High Ability (ECHA), Fellow of the British Psychological Society, Honorary Fellow of the College of Teachers and Patron of the National Association for Able Children in Education (NACE). Joan has given hundreds of invited addresses in most parts of the world and appears regularly on television and in the popular media.

ICIE-Paris has contacted Joan Freeman. She said:

“I am not only concerned with children like the International Centre for Innovation in Education (ICIE-Paris).  I prefer to take a life-span approach.  Gifts may come and go throughout life and one never knows what hidden abilities may emerge.  I call myself a developmental psychologist, meaning that I am concerned with life-long development: the end of the school years is not the end of my interest in individuals. I am thrilled to bits to receive the Award for Lifetime Achievement.  As this is from my professional body, the British Psychological Society, it means they have recognised that I have achieved something notable in my field steadily across many years (not just a one-off thing), that I have moved the understanding of psychology on, not only through my own research but also by communicating what many workers in this field have discovered about how gifts and talents can be helped to emerge and flower.  I constantly promote the immense value of psychology around the world through regular invitations to present at conferences and other venues.  I also have a good relationship with the media, appearing on all sorts of programmes and films.  I believe that my insistence on using research-based evidence, along with the fruits of experience, has persuaded educational administrators at all levels (at very least in the UK) to adjust provision in line with what is scientifically acceptable.”

A Sad Announcement:

Dr. Michael C. Pyryt has passed away

It is with deep sadness and regret that I must inform you that my friend and esteemed colleague Dr. Michael Pyryt passed away at 3:00 am mountain-time, January 15th, 2008 in Canada.

Dr. Michael Pyryt was a joy and inspiration to all who knew him. We offer our condolences to his family.

Words cannot express what Michael Pyryt meant to us. But words are all we have. He was such a good man. Today we mourn the passing of a good friend. He will be missed.

Michael Pyryt said:

“My goal in life is to be a person as good as my dog already thinks I am.”
http://www.michaelpyryt.com/index.html

Taisir Subhi Yamin