Beyond IQ - Boston Call for Proposals

[joshwriting]

In particular, I am hoping that siderea, dmnsqrl, superfinemind, baronet, panterazero, and queen_of_wands will notice this. (I am very aware that queen_of_wands is up to her ears in packing and transitioning... but I still hope!)

The whole form can be found at http://www.giftedconferenceplanners.org/Boston/proposal.html

Call For Proposals

Beyond IQ: Theory and Practice with the Highly and Profoundly Gifted

Emotions and Creativity
April 13-15, Radisson Hotel, Chelmsford, MA

Proposal Deadline: Proposals are due January 31, 2007!

All proposals should relate directly to the general topic of the conference, which focuses on understanding the characteristics, needs, and paths unique to the highly and profoundly gifted. The themes of Emotions and Creativity are important to the conference, but are not the only subject we are discussing. In your abstract, please specify the relationship of your proposed presentation to the topic and, if appropriate, the theme.

Proposals for the Pre-conference workshops should be directed at Teachers, Administrators, or Counselors. Each Pre-conference workshop period is 3 hours.

Proposals for the Conference can be for adult sessions (introductory, intermediate, or advanced), young adult sessions, or children's workshops for ages 6 - 12. Unlike the pre-conference sessions, all conference sessions are 65 minutes in length. Adult sessions must include a minimum of 20 minutes for discussion and questions. The young adult sessions should be highly interactive and concentrated, and allow for at least 60 minutes of discussion. The children's workshops are to be discovery-based learning.

Accepted presenters will be responsible for expenses related to conference attendance, including costs for travel, accommodations, and printing. The lead presenter will receive a complementary conference registration; additional presenters will receive a 50% reduction of their conference registration fee.

Overhead projectors and screens will be provided on request. Other audio-visual equipment may be available and should be requested with the proposal.

Comments

[queen-of-wands.livejournal.com]

Ack! Everything I know about the gifted comes from having been placed in a gifted program in third grade and from reading your journal.

[joshwriting.livejournal.com]

Permit me to disagree. Everything you know about gifted education in a formal context, perhaps...

But you hang out with a lot of very sharp people. And having seen your list of things you "can do," I suspect that you would fit just fine. You can ask ricevermicelli her thoughts on the matter, if you want.

[queen-of-wands.livejournal.com]

OK, I guess what I mean is that I am assuming there is a discourse about the gifted and about which I am ignorant. I could easily come say the thing everybody thought was disproven and dropped ten years ago, because I haven't read the literature or been to the conferences. I don't even really know what is meant by "gifted." Don't we all have gifts? When I got called it, the term seemed to mean "better at school than most kids." That seems to me to say about as much about the schools as about the kids. But I'm guessing people who spend all their time thinking about giftedness have thought this stuff through and I don't need to reinvent the wheel. Also, I don't recognize the format. I'm guessing this isn't like giving a paper at an academic conference, because of the time structure and the presence of multiple ages and professions. (I'm not convinced ricevermicelli would bother to answer me.) Maybe I can just come hear your presentation?

[joshwriting.livejournal.com]

By all means, you can 'just' attend.

"Don't we all have gifts?" We all have individual strengths, but they far less often rise to gifts when compared to the population at large. My best thing may still be average or below.

It is both like and unlike delivering an academic paper. Most gifted ed conferences are almost exactly like that. Ours tends to be a more interactive audience even for the poor beleaguered keynotes! The multiple ages are not a factor in every session, but those damned young adults show up EVERYWHERE!

I think I am less interested in your talking about giftedness than either talking about your own academic field or doing something with the younger folks - 9-12 or YA or something.

It is you and what you bring - your own gifts, if you will - that I think will offer something to the mix, as well as your getting back. I also think you will like the people, though I could be wrong.

[queen-of-wands.livejournal.com]

First of all, thank you for being so encouraging and welcoming. I want to be clear that I appreciate that, before I continue with my stubbornness :) Are you involved in organizing this conference?

I am used to reading a paper for about twenty minutes on a panel with two or three other people who do the same, hopefully on related topics, and then there is question/answer. This is very different from spending an hour in the classroom with my students. It sounds like this conference may be somewhere between those two formats in terms of the norms of presentation?

I think I am less interested in your talking about giftedness than either talking about your own academic field

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Which one? Religious Studies? Women's Studies? American religious history? New Religious Movements? Gender and religion? Childhood studies? How is describing a field a meaningful presentation, especially given the theme of the conference?

[joshwriting.livejournal.com]

"Are you involved in organizing this conference?"

This is a tricky question. I am in charge. Organizing, though, is another question.

Yes, your surmise on format is right. We are between the two. Generally, we assume our participants can read, so we try to avoid reading to them as much as possible.

I typoed on the 'academic field' part. There was an 's' at the end the first time I typed it.

The theme, while important, is only a part of what drives what we do. We have the general topic, as well, of HG/PG folks. But there are three other areas to be considered besides the presentations to the "adult" conference on giftedness.

The workshops for 6-9 year old and 9-12 children range from game playing to book discussing, to theory and exploration to...

We also have a strand for "Off Topic" presentations. Last year, those included a knitting workshop and fiscal management, among others.

And finally, we have the young adults, who appetites are voracious and varied. So, any of the above topics might well interest some of them. And I did not mean to have you describe a field when I said "talk about." I had in mind more an exploration in one of them that you think would be interesting.

Hmm... I don't know if you have looked at last year's program.

http://www.giftedconferenceplanners.org/Boston/program2006.html

gtg - more later!

[queen-of-wands.livejournal.com]

Oh, last year's program helps tremendously. I saw "conference" and thought "can not produce any new research now that is not a dissertation chapter!" Better to think of it as giving a workshop to a well-educated audience than as giving an academic paper, eh? In that case, I'd be very interested in putting together something on Spirituality and (Gifted) Children. I am imagining something that would involve presenting an analytic framework that comes out of the scholarship and using that as a springboard to facilitate conversation, possibly with the inclusion of some sort of a short meditation, but I worry about alienating anyone whose religion isn't exactly mine. I might also want to tap a friend or two to collaborate with. What I'm imagining would probably be interesting to both adults and young adults. Is that the sort of proposal you're after?

I am still struggling with the category of the gifted. Can you point me toward writing (as if I had time for more reading) that theorizes the category and/or describes the history of the category?

[joshwriting.livejournal.com]

Yes, that is the sort of proposal I am thinking of (or one of many different types).

Yes, there is the risk of offending people whose beliefs are different than yours. I assure you that it happens as often on the educational philosophy end as anywhere else. There is a heavy spiritual element within our population, though, many of whom are looking for more than a purely "scientific" world view, if you will. Metaphysics is not alien to our conferences, though it ebbs and flows over time.

Looking at the 2006 program, I think pointing you to 2005 might serve, as well: http://www.giftedconferenceplanners.org/Boston/program2005.html

A reasonable and reasonably short set of definitions of gifted can be found here: http://www.riage.org/gifteddef.html

This presents what we knew in 1919:
http://www.geocities.com/josh_shaine/What_we_knew_about_teaching_gifted_children_in_1919.htm

And a timeline based history of gifted education:
http://www.nagc.org/index.aspx?id=607

3 pages, total. More can be had in discussion or reading, but I suspect you'll be fine with those as starters.

[siderea]

What she said, in this comment and the previous. And, of course, what I have said in previous years.

Josh, honestly, BIQ is completely freaking inscrutable outsiders. You keep pointing at a schedule which is only half populated and says approximately nothing about the format and content. It's not helping. Frankly, I find that opacity seriously discouraging of attending.

[joshwriting.livejournal.com]

I had not realized that the version of the 2006 schedule that was up was so blank. My mistake. So I linked the 2005 one, which has a nearly complete schedule, though the descriptions are not there, while the 2006 descriptions *are* there.

Format ranges from stand and deliver model (less often) to a present/discuss/present/discuss model to full dialog and hands on models.

Content can be a whirlwind set of MRI shots with explanations of their meaning, as part of a framework of how giftedness looks/acts in the brain to a discussion of non-linear thinking styles, to a hands-on exploration of giftedness using some contact improv techniques.

Some of the workshops are research driven. Some derive from (or go forward with) poetry. In the kids' presentations, we had Geocaching and Robots in Space and Darwin Awards. The teens got things like Motivational Paralysis (http://www.geocities.com/josh_shaine/image/mot_par-4.jpg) and type theory and everything else that can get squeezed into a weekend by/with Anna (whom you may remember).

Perhaps I am too close or perhaps I would do a better Q&A job with you by voice or IM or something. I don't know. dmnsqrl has attended one of mine. Maybe she can describe it more effectively than I can.

[siderea]

Much thanks! I do remember Anna, though, man, it's been a long, long time.

How many people do you get? How many typically attend an session? What are the proportions of the various audiences you list?

What level of adeptness in Type is discussion/presentation at?

[joshwriting.livejournal.com]

I am expecting between 100 and 120, with a max of 150. That's kids, teens, parents, professionals, presenters, vendors combined.

Sessions range between a couple and every adult and teen there. I have been known to have two sessions running - with the Keynote delivering one of them - and have the Keynote get nobody and go to listen to the other presenter.

Children's sessions and YA sessions tend to be under 20 and often under 10.

Last year, about 1/3 of paid attendees were in each program.

The bulk are introduced to the concept, but not adept. Most years we have a few who are moderately cogent, but not studied and one who is studied. I have had a presenter who was certified to administer on a couple occasions. I am hoping to lure one of those up for this time around, as well.

I am hoping that presenters give me homework for attendees and that they do it. It should/could raise the level considerably. First time conference goers get a primer before much of the conference starts on lots of common vocabulary and MBTI is typically part of that.

[dmnsqrl.livejournal.com]

Honestly, while I attended a BIQ I feel like I kinda grazed it and would feel a severe lack of confidence in ability to give any kind of authentic and meaningful description

Ok... some "make this less inscrutable" advice

[dmnsqrl.livejournal.com]

take this link http://www.giftedconferenceplanners.org/about.html

Josh? You have a HECK of a lot of terms and 'buzzwords' up there that mean absolutely bubkiss to someone who hasn't already attended a BIQ or Hollingsworth or the like.

Suggestion. Pick out someone who you feel is close enough to the heart of the recent BIQs that you feel confidence in their "I know what this is all about"-ness (and here's a hint... someone who's kinda been to one and not involved at all in any planning? Probably not 'close enough'.) who is able to provide a kind of glossary of these terms for people who have never attended a Hollingworth conference or ever _heard_ of the term 'giftedness' ..... and take advantage of some of html's strengths to provide a few links with definitions.

Otherwise statements like "While we are running conferences on highly and profoundly gifted people at the moment, we also have explicit interests in supporting the Twice-Exceptional, Underachieving, Minority, and other underserved populations among the gifted." can only speak to the choir because everyone else is standing there with a puzzled expression on their face. Or not even bothering with the puzzled expression and walking away.

(Now.... if the 'point' of BIQ is just to be a gathering of people who already have certain knowledge context.... if it's meant to be just a gathering of the same few people every year... that kind of stuff is unnecessary.... but I had the (perhaps erroneous) impression that one goal was to bring new people with new insights in. But if the new people need to be indoctrinated elsewhere, first... then maybe there needs to be some sort of reference to where they can go get their indoctrination. Even if not stated exactly that way)

Re: Ok... some "make this less inscrutable" advice

[dmnsqrl.livejournal.com]

Or.... if you can't think of anyone who could do that....

A different way to go would be go to to some population that you interact with a lot who you feel 'knows' BIQ. Maybe the Sheroes crew (I don't know.... just throwing that one out there as an example) and say to the bright boys and girls there "hey kids, let's try something fun. write up something about what BIQ means to you"

and play mix and match with the resonating portion of the results.

(*BUT* if you get lots of 'buzzwords', still please please please try to locate someone who can provide definitions for them? Or try to do that yourself?)

Re: Ok... some "make this less inscrutable" advice

[dmnsqrl.livejournal.com]

another idea.

Look at the stuff at the Hoagie's web site

http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/gifted_101.htm

Do you agree with them? Link to them and say "hey, this is where you can learn some more about what we're talking about"

do you disagree with them? Ok, sit down and write down what you disagree with them about. Write down what you agree with them about. Hey, you may be well on your way to DefinitionVille ;)

Re: Ok... some "make this less inscrutable" advice

[dmnsqrl.livejournal.com]

I'll note that some of the other 'buzzwords' from the BIQ 'about' page seem to be mentioned http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/gifted_102.htm as well

[joshwriting.livejournal.com]

Oh for ease, here is the 2005 grid:
http://www.giftedconferenceplanners.org/Boston/program2005.html

[siderea]

Thanks!

[siderea]

Noted. Am kinda hosed right now, but have a couple of thoughts:

1) "Integrity/Conformity and the Toll of Spiritual Self-Defense" (general audience, re adolescence and young adulthood.)
2) "Scaffolding and the Double Binds of Gifted Education" (general audience w/ educator/parent bent, re all GTs, w/ school-age bent)
3) "Emotional Precocity: The Other Asynchrony" (general audience, re all age groups)

We'll see.

[joshwriting.livejournal.com]

I did know you were a tad hosed at the moment. I figured to get this on your radar, though.

All of those sound potentially neat. I am also hoping to have some rousing Type talk going on during the conference.

I am also hoping that if you have a faculty member or two whom you might wish to introduce to the notion that counseling the gifted is a slightly different thing...

[siderea]

I am also hoping to have some rousing Type talk going on during the conference.

I'm hoping for a pony.

I am also hoping that if you have a faculty member or two whom you might wish to introduce to the notion that counseling the gifted is a slightly different thing...

No. Sorry.

[dmnsqrl.livejournal.com]

An idea came to me of something that would be nifty.

Wouldn't have a clue how to practically turn it into a session.


But maybe someone else will be able to take it and run with it.


"Where everybody knows your name": How to find/manufacture belonging for people on one of the narrow ends of a bell curve. (Possibly also discussing the importance of having a context in which one feels one 'belongs' and how to recognize those contexts?)

*shrug*

[quueer.livejournal.com]

Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name,
And they're always glad you came;
You want to be where you can see,
Our troubles are all the same;
You want to be where everybody knows your name.

[dmnsqrl.livejournal.com]

Yeah, right after making this comment I went and posted the whole song to my journal

[dmnsqrl.livejournal.com]

I suppose _one_ way to go, if this one done in the "it's a 65 minute session and at least 60 minutes should be discussion" track you could just play the song and then encourage discussion about the idea for the rest of the session

[joshwriting.livejournal.com]

Certainly, the topic is important. So many bright people spend so much of their lives lonely. Building community is vital.

[siderea]

Someday, I'll be up to giving a community building workshop. Not this year. :) It's a truly vast topic, even to give a pragmatic quicky survey.

And it's a topic profoundly complexified by all sorts of low-grade crazinesses to which GTs are commonly heir. I'm sure you, too, have run into lots of young adult GTs who have sworn up and down that they're not joiners ("*sniff*!") GTs seem to often wind up all tied up in knots inside about issues having to do with being in groups; it seems many don't know how to be in groups healthily. Of those who become hostile to groups, their relationship to the concept of "group" is often so pathological, they don't see it as something which needs fixing, because group-membership skills are completely scorned as irrelevant. The whole, "Why would I want to know how to find a group to belong to? Groups suck." thing.

This is actually (from a different angle) partially what I was thinking about with "Integrity/Conformity and the Toll of Spiritual Self-Defense".

Finding one's people (as opposed to growing a community from scratch) can be similarly complexified, as a mutual flist friend of ours has recently illustrated. I think that GTs, like many (all?) oppressed peoples, grow up exposed to negative messages about themselves, which if they internalize them make them (to the degree they do) self-hating and avoidant of their own kind. If you grow up with the culturally promulgated depiction of smart people as arrogant, snooty, unaccepting, mean, humiliating, etc., you're probably going to be disinclined to seek out the company of such people -- thus do the mainstream's stereotypes acculturate GTs to avoid the company of the communities where they'd be best accepted, supported and helped.

[quantumkitty.livejournal.com]

*swings by*

Did you say "complexified"? :)

[joshwriting.livejournal.com]

And you wonder why I want you to present and be present at these things!

So many of the YAs I deal with these days have been playing on IM and the like for long enough that some of the anti-joiner sharp edges are already a bit rounded. It is an interesting phenomenon. They are still fairly well convinced that nobody will like them IRL, but they accept that their on-line personae are deemed (mystifyingly) acceptable and even desirable.

Otherwise, I totally agree with what you are saying, and would add one bit of (hmmm....) complexification. The needs of the GT in their friends are different, or at least commensurate with their GT aspects and therefore usually deeper.

Miraca Gross wrote what is to me the best paper on the subject:
"Play Partner" or "Sure Shelter"?
Why gifted children prefer older friends..

http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/play_partner.htm

[siderea]

And you wonder why I want you to present and be present at these things!

No, not at all, and if you thought I did, that might go a ways to explaining your communications difficulties in dealing with me. I have always been quite clear on why you wanted me -- it's the same reason everybody who wants me for pretty much anything wants me -- it's been most of the other interrogatives which remained stubbornly unanswered, such as what is this thing that you want me for and how I might fit into it. The only why question I have is "Why is getting information about Josh's conference from Josh like pulling teeth; why does Josh make it so hard to help him?"

[joshwriting.livejournal.com]

Have I now managed to communicate the answers about what and how to your satisfaction?

As for your final question, people have been asking that one for a long time...

[whatbox.livejournal.com]

The theme is "Emotions and Creativity", huh?

Good thing I don't know anything about that. Otherwise you might ask me to submit a proposal or something.

[joshwriting.livejournal.com]

Oh, I am expecting (hoping for) a proposal from you. I merely had other ways to make sure it came to your attention, whereas for the folks mentioned, this is the primary point of contact much of the time.

[whatbox.livejournal.com]

I know. Just tweaking you.

It'll be a while before I get the proposal(s) together, though ....

[superfinemind.livejournal.com]

I don't have a lot of material on it as yet, but I'd had thoughts about the importance of gifted-kids communities and the experience of "I'm not the only one!", especially as it shows up in fiction, but I need more "fiction" to go from.

The root of this one is that my entire family has now read Ender's Game, and my mother's thoughts sparked some in me, one of them being the letters from teachers in the introduction of the Definitive Edition where teachers don't believe real kids talk like this, and the kids write letters saying, "OMG you've got it perfect how did you know?"

Though it doesn't have the component of "Oh hey, there's other smart people?", I'd considered also including the anime/manga Naruto, which begins in a ninja training academy, though that sort of gets into a different can of worms-- I was also entertaining, for mostly just my own purposes, plotting out which of those characters had what LD/other problem.

So, yes: if you can recommend more books, ideally mainstream ("First Star I See" is a lovely book, but not really suited to my purposes), or, on the less fiction side, studies/papers/journals that describe/look at the experience kids have at their first CTY or Splash or BIQ or whatever, I'd love to hear it.

On a more kid level... the only word that comes to mind is "book recommendation thread," but like the book recommendation session Tammy did at the Voyagers BIQ, except with books that feature GT/LD kids.

Lately with talk of occupational lore in folk&myth class, I'd also toyed with ideas about solidarity dynamic or whatever in the stories GT/LD kids tell each other (dumb teacher stories, bizarre graduation requirements, taking college classes as a teenager, et cetera), but that, I think, wants more data collection before I go speaking on it.

[joshwriting.livejournal.com]

I taught a course looking at giftedness in Science Fiction a few years ago. The rough syllabus happens to be on-line, at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Crete/1019/Interests/SF_Course_Material/speclitclass-gt.html

This is hardly a comprehensive list: Slan (van Vogt), Odd John (Stapledon), The 4th R (George Smith), Shockwave Rider and The Whole Man (Telepathist in England) (Brunner), Podkayne of Mars (Heinlein), Henry 3 (Krumgold), Children of the Atom (Shiras), Children of the Thunder (more Brunner), Welcome to the Ark (Tolan), most L'Engle, most Duane, the Dragonsong/singer and Damia/Rowen books by McCaffrey, Cyteen (Cherryh) and on and on.

Yes, I have opinions about which of those are the best. And don't forget the X-Men.

[superfinemind.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I don't know as Podkayne is what I'm looking for, and I don't really think of McCaffrey as that either-- but then, I started with Menolly, who had ... not the sort of experience I'm looking at, though it's not necessarily unrelated: finding out that what she did naturally was unusual, remarkable, et cetera. Duane, either, mostly just because the Wizard books I've read always seemed isolated...

The rest of these, though, I know nothing about, and will be checking the shelves for at home when I get the chance.

...My fandom conscience isn't sure how it feels about the fact that so far my two strongest cases come from Ender's Game... and Harry Potter.
Urgh...

Would BIQ be considered a 'teaching event'?

[dmnsqrl.livejournal.com]

http://wetdryvac.net/smf/

Re: Would BIQ be considered a 'teaching event'?

[joshwriting.livejournal.com]

I suppose it would, at that. Go ahead and list it! Thanks!

Re: Would BIQ be considered a 'teaching event'?

[dmnsqrl.livejournal.com]

Well I've mentioned the cfp for now and specifically list the event when "date, time, location, and details" are more "firmed up" (as requested by those at the forum)

[dmnsqrl.livejournal.com]

Is this a list that at some point it would be helpful for BIQ to be on? (not that I know how one does that, just the list came to my attention from another source and it seemed like maybe someplace BIQ would fit?)

http://www.gt-cybersource.org/EventsCalendar.aspx?NavID=3_0

(hmmm there's apparently a MN council for the Gifted and Talented... I'll hae to look into that)

[joshwriting.livejournal.com]

I submitted the conference to their calendar. I am already listed in Education Week's and on Hoagies' calendar.

I hadn't realized that the Davidson's had added a calendar to GT-Cybersource. Thanks!