Dr. Edward D’Angelo
State University of New York (SUNY) College of Education at Buffalo
Buffalo, New York
By: Linda Kreger Silverman
The teacher who had the most impact on me was Ed D’Angelo, my philosophy professor in my first semester of undergraduate school at State University of New York (SUNY) College of Education at Buffalo. In those days, it was called Buffalo State Teachers’ College. The philosophy course was entitled, “Ways of Knowing.” The year was 1958. Ed was only 26 years old. I was 17. I don’t remember much about the course, although I still have the textbook, Readings in Philosophy. What I do remember is what happened after the course.
Ed invited 10 of the brightest students in his philosophy courses to meet at his apartment for the purpose of discussing ideas. We were a Philosophy Club. It was the first time in my life that I was invited to interact with a group of gifted minds outside the classroom. Ed had no agenda. He completely trusted the group process and allowed us to take the discussions in any direction we wished. Though he knew nothing about giftedness, nor had he any experience as a counselor, he appreciated the life of the mind, and he created an opportunity for our minds to flourish and grow. We met throughout my college years, and, eventually, we created a Philosophical Society for the college. The Philosophy Club left an indelible impression on me. There was so much personal growth, as well as refinement of my thinking.
A year after I graduated, my husband and I moved to California, where I taught sixth grade. In my first year, I created an after school “math club” for my brightest students. A couple years later, I organized a series of after school Scholarship Preparation courses for junior high school gifted students. The brightest participants continued to meet after the courses were over, creating a monthly group, the “ Association for Creative Thinking (ACT).” It was a philosophy club for highly gifted teens! I had recreated the experience that Ed had created for me and the others in our group.
ACT morphed into a Sensitivity Group, a weekly support/counseling group, which lasted for five years, throughout their high school years, and, for some, their first year or two of college. I learned more about giftedness from that group of highly gifted teens than from any other experience. During the war in Vietnam, when I was in graduate school at USC, these kids convinced me to create “Americans for Peace,” an anti-war group.
All the groups I have created and co-created in my career drew their inspiration from the Philosophy Club Ed D’Angelo organized: The Boulder Association for the Gifted/Talented (including a parent forum), the Foundation for Advancement of Talent in Education (FATE), The Dabrowski Study Group, the Institute for the Study of Advanced Development (ISAD), the Visual-Spatial Learner Study Group, ACCESS to Excellence, Parents of Gifted Offspring (POGO), PG Retreat, a support group for gifted women, The Gylanic Center, The Global Awareness Network of NAGC, The Columbus Group, The Colorado Consortium of Schools for the Gifted, The National Consortium of Schools for the Gifted, the Association for Precollegiate Talent (APT), the International Network of Child-Centered Advocates, the Child-Centered Collective, the Wisdom Keepers/Child-Centered Collaborative, and Child-Centered Gifted Education Leaders. I learned from Ed that all you have to do is bring a group of bright minds together, create the space, and leave the rest up to them.