September 2022 - Volume 1 |
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WATG Mission: To educate about and advocate for the needs of gifted in Wisconsin. |
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As you may have noticed, WATG’s activities and reach have been growing! To keep you more informed on a more timely basis, our Board of Directors voted to send out news TWICE each month. The first installment will always arrive at the beginning of the month, and the second installment will arrive in the middle of the month. With this change, we hope to keep you more curious, informed, motivated, and engaged. |
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Our Keynote Presenters invite you to #WATG22! |
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Imagine This!
Imagine that you are sitting in a room filled with over a hundred gifted and talented experts, parents, administrators, counselors, coordinators, and educators like yourself. You start to network and learn alongside everyone else, while sharing your ideas on what works for you with your gifted and talented students. You also learn new ideas from all your colleagues around you!
This could be you at WATG’s annual conference October 3rd and 4th! At the conference, you will get to learn from two incredible keynote speakers, Colin Seale and Dr. Matthew Zakreski. They will bring their gifted and talented expertise and provide more insight on how to help your students.
You will also get to hear from a variety of speakers that are educators. Some of the great topics include:
- Achieving Equity in Gifted Education Through Identification, Interpretation, and Instruction
- Achieving Equity Through Student Self-Advocacy
- Break Out of Boredom: Using Virtual Escape Rooms to Engage Gifted & Advanced Learners
- Building Collaborative Classrooms: Activating and Developing Students’ Strengths Through Discussion
- Embracing Neurodiversity
- Gifted Alignment in Project Based Learning
- Meeting the Social Emotional Needs of Low Income Students
- The Power of Poetry
- Preparing Educators to Review and Improve Gifted Services: A Critical Best Practice
- Teacher 101: Systems and Strategies to Support Gifted Learners
You can view more about our conference here. When you’re ready to register, head on over to Eventbrite. If you have any questions, feel free to email watg@watg.org. We look forward to meeting with you and collaborating with you!
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Check out the following on the WATG News Page: 2022-23 Ballot for WATG Board of Directors, WATG Parent Conference, Teen Conference, #WATG22 Conference Schedule, videos from our Keynote Speakers, WATG's 50th Anniversary and much more!
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News From the Board
Celebrating 50 Years!
Roxane Hagedorn, WATG Executive Director
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Wow, can you believe it? WATG is going to be celebrating our 50th anniversary at next year’s conference.
We’ve begun planning for our big milestone. This past month we had our first 50th Anniversary Committee meeting.The group is working on making a splash at next year’s conference.They may even have a few surprises at this year’s fall conference October 2-4. We are pumped up and hope you will be too!
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(WATG would like to extend its deep appreciation to Dr. German Diaz from Milwaukee Public Schools for translating this article into Spanish for our Spanish-speaking families and educators. The translation can be found on our website blog.) |
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Wondering What to Expect at the Parent Conference? |
It almost always begins like this - a group of parents, caregivers, and grandparents are sitting in a circle, focusing on the joys and challenges of living with their gifted children day in and day out.
In these circles, many parents have questions about the unique characteristics of gifted children - their curiosity, their focus (or lack of focus), their incredible intensities and super sensitivities, their motivation (or lack of it), their possible susceptibility to perfectionism, stress, anxiety, and depression, or their inability to make many agemate friends.
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Gifted in Perspective:
Lessons in Leadership
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Wisconsin’s state statutes, ss118.35 and ss121.02(t) mandate that gifted students be identified in the areas of intellectual, specific academic, creativity, the visual and performing arts, and leadership. Though many districts do a good job of identifying students in the intellectual and academic areas, and often provide “stretch” opportunities (e.g., contests, art shows, various ensembles, solo and ensemble competitions, theater productions) in the visual and performing arts, students are often vastly underidentified and served in the areas of creativity and leadership. |
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Jackie Drummer
WATG Advisory Member and Former WATG President
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A Parent's Story: Diagnosis of a Twice Exceptional Child |
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I recently had the opportunity to interview a parent of a child identified as 2e, twice exceptional. Twice exceptional is a term used to describe children who are gifted and talented and also possess another learning difference such as dyslexia, ADHD, or autism spectrum disorder. The content of this article has been approved by the parent for the WATG Newsletter. For the anonymity of the family upon their request, we will give the parent the pseudonym -- Toni. Below is my interview.
Initially when I contacted Toni, I wasn’t sure what direction I wanted the interview to go. I simply started a casual conversation, hoping to touch on the journey of the parent raising a child who is both gifted and autistic. In this excerpt, I end up taking a turn and highlighting a different area I was made aware of and would not have discovered if it weren’t for my conversation with Toni.
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WATG Conference
October 3-4, 2022
Parent and Teen Conferences - October 2, 2022
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Any organization mentioned in this newsletter does not constitute an endorsement by or partnership with WATG. No recommendation regarding the services of these organizations is being made by WATG. Families and educators are urged to perform due diligence in researching all organizations. |
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