My name is George
Betts and I am a Professor of Special Education in the Area of Gifted
and Talented Studies at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley,
Colorado. I joined the university after six years of teaching and
counseling at Arvada West High School in Jefferson County, Colorado. It
was exciting to teach at this high school and to give students the
opportunities to be in charge of their own education. I am very
successful as an adult but I was not always successful in school. I
struggled in high school, would not conform and did not realize that
school could be important. I then attended Phillips University in Enid,
Oklahoma. My high school had 2500 students and Phillips had 800 for the
entire university. I flourished. A professor saw my potential and gave
me opportunities I had never had before. I responded and started to
develop my abilities. They were there but I was not aware of them. I
had learned my weaknesses.I see my life as a journey, with many starts and stops, and many detours but the goals have always been the same. I want to facilitate others in their growth and me, in mine. I want to belong. I want to love and be loved. I want to discover and develop my strengths. I seek to make this world a better place to live in. In other words, I want to live every moment to the fullest and to learn new and exciting information.
Part of my journey is to learn knowledge while another part is to experience fully the moments of today and to gain wisdom. Knowledge without wisdom is incomplete. To me, this is an extremely strong statement and one that could be pondered. Ponder! I know that to ponder is to think, reflect and decide what is best. I will refer to pondering a great deal in this website.
Basic Standards of the Autonomous Learner Model