World Conference for Gifted and Talented Children

I’m still coming down from the high of the experience of the 2013 World Conference of Gifted and Talented Children that I attended two weeks ago.

I also attended the SENG Model Parent Group Facilitator Training.  I hope to start a parent group here.  And, during the training, we were blessed with a visit from Dr. James T. Webb himself.

The five days I was there was filled with fabulous talks from all my heroes.  Dr. Webb,  Linda Silverman, Stephanie Tolan, and a few new (to me) voices.

I met people from all over the world, including China, Germany, New Zealand, France,  Sweden,  Hungary and of course, the US.  It was so interesting to hear the different perspectives on giftedness and creativity from different cultures.

In the picture below, I spent a some of my time with the woman on the left, who is a specialist in gifted education from Germany, who shares my enjoyment of Hermann Hesse and Rainer Maria Rilke.  And the woman on the right is a Mensa Youth specialist and she gave great talks on perfectionism, stereotype threat and imposter syndrome.

I was planning on attending the conference in Kentucky just by myself, but at the last moment, I decided to bring the whole family along.

I wanted to share some photographs and eventually, I hope to talk about the wonderful new things I have learned about gifted children that will hopefully help me, help my family and help others raise their smart and sensitive kids.

So while I was in the conference, Mr. RSG took the smart girls for sightseeing.

Outside the Louisville Slugger Museum and Factory.

At the Churchill Downs horse race track where they host the Kentucky Derby.

We found this little temporary residence for Thomas Edison.  Interestingly enough, the sign tells us he spilled acid at work while he was experimenting at the telegraph office he worked for and got fired.  =)

It was just a little place, but worth of a good look.

Near our hotel was the Belle of Louisville steamboat.

And this was Al J. Schneider, the builder of our hotel and the conference center, the Galt House.

And in the garden in the back of the hotel.

Which had a statue of George Clark who was the highest ranking American military officer on the northwestern frontier during the American Revolutionary War.

It was a great trip and I hope to get myself organized soon enough to post some of the meat and potatoes of what I learned.