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NAGC’s 54th Annual Opening General Session: Thursday, November 8th
Cross the threshold of genius, creativity, leadership and aesthetics as we welcome to the stage a world-renowned scholar, author and lecturer. Since 1963 when Simonton gave his first speech “Light the Path to Knowledge” at Richard Byrd Junior High School graduation in Glendale, CA he’s been practicing what he preaches. With honors and fellowships too numerous to mention here, you won’t want to miss our marquee opening keynote, Dean Keith Simonton.
“One of the most eminent researchers of eminence has written a very readable, intellectually exciting book about creativity seen from a Darwinian perspective. Anyone interested in what makes some persons stand out and shine will find it fascinating. “
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
(on Origins of Genius: Darwinian Perspectives on Genius)
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Dean Keith Simonton
Thursday, November 8, 2007, 4:30 pm
“No scholar writing about genius and creativity has the breadth of knowledge of Dean Keith Simonton. His Darwinian perspective is provocative, intriguing, generative and important.”
Howard Gardner
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General Session-
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Waking up from the Night of the Living Dead:
A New Approach to Gifted Identification
Identification can spell the difference between failure and success for gifted students. Conventional standardized tests, like the zombies in the Night of the Living Dead, seem to come at us again and again, no matter how many times we shoot them down or declare them dead. One reason is that we have not had anything clearly better to replace them. Dean Sternberg discusses a new approach to identification of the gifted that is statistically validated, substantially increases prediction of academic and other forms of success, and increases diversity in identification with respect to gender, ethnic, and economic groups.
Sternberg will describe three projects and their results-Aurora, Rainbow, and Kaleidoscope-that successfully have been used in gifted identification to assess not only conventional intellectual giftedness, but also giftedness in the realms of creative, practical, and wisdom-based skills.
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Dr. Robert J. Sternberg
Dean, the School of Arts and Sciences
Tufts University
E. Paul Torrance Distinguished Lecture on Creativity
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Garrison on Gifted
Sunday, November, 11, 2007, 10:00 am
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" ....where all the children are above average"
Closing Day=Lake Wobegon Day!
Garrison Keillor is one singular sensation engaged for one spectacular keynote for NAGC. Learn of the Lake Wobegon Days from this incredible Grammy Award Winner. Keillor typically draws an audience of more than 3 million listeners on 450+ PBS radio stations across the nation. He has peformed his unique and popular act at Carnegie Hall and Wolf Trap - and now NAGC!
With special thanks to the Minnesota Local Arrangements Committee
A message from Garrison:
Dear Gifted Teachers of Beautiful Children,
Here in Lake Wobegon, we are pretty thrilled about folks coming from 49 states and 14 countries to visit next month, though of course we would never let on that we are, being the low-key stoics of the frozen tundra. We do welcome you, though, and I look forward to speaking to you on Sunday morning, November 11 in Minneapolis. And I hope I can convey the great gratitude of parents for the wonderful and dedicated work that you do every day in classrooms hither and yon. I suppose I will reminisce a little bit about my years as a kid at Benson School, a four-room schoolhouse north of Minneapolis, and how it was growing up in the country. I don't presume to think I can tell you how to do your job but I hope to be adequate at least and perhaps even sparkle a little from time to time.
Be well.
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