The 19th Biennial conference of the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children is taking place this week in Prague, Czech Republic, and today, August 10, 2011, has been designated International Day of the Gifted to help raise awareness around the world about gifted children and their learning and social/emotional needs.
I attended (and presented at) the WCGTC conference back in 2005 when it was hosted in New Orleans (just a few weeks before Hurricane Katrina hit). I enjoyed meeting people from around the world and realized that the obstacles and challenges we face here in Montana and America aren’t that different from those faced around the world.
You can follow a Twitter feed of this year’s world conference here. You can also learn about the keynote presentations, read descriptions of the pre-conference sessions, and view the entire conference program, which shows each presentation as belonging to one of eight topic areas: Assessment & Identification, Characteristics, Underachievement; Working with Administrations at Different Levels; Lived Experiences of the Gifted; Classroom Practices and Effective Pedagogies; Interventions, Social and Emotional Aspects of Giftedness; Teacher and Teacher-Training Development; Parent and Community Interest; and Creativity and the Talent Dimension.
What could you do to help celebrate this first International Day of the Gifted? Well, here are a few ideas:
* Join the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children
* Visit the website of another nation’s gifted association and learn about what’s happening around the world in gifted education
* Plan to attend the next WCGTC conference in 2013 (location TBA)
* Subscribe to the WCGTC’s Newsletter and/or Journal (use links on right side)
* Add some international gifted connections to your LinkedIn account
* Consider attending another international gifted conference (here’s one possibility)
* Read and follow some international gifted blogs. A few options are Innreach (Ireland), Gifted Phoenix (United Kingdom), Creating Curriculum (New Zealand), and Begabungs (Germany).
What are your ideas?