The World Council for Gifted and Talented Children and the International Week of the Gifted 2012/ International Year of Giftedness and Creativity 2013-

The World Council for Gifted and Talented Children and the International Week of the Gifted 2012/ International Year of Giftedness and Creativity 2013-

It has been a while since this blog touched on these happy events. Rest assured it is not because they have been far out of mind. On the contrary, there have been a lot of back channel thoughts and creative ideas bubbling away in various directions as the dates have been approaching.

The World Council for Gifted and Talented Children and the New Zealand World Conference 2013 sub-committees have been hard at work organising for these events. In the spirit of community,  and to allow as many distinct contributions as possible, we are inviting both members and non  members of the organisation to take part.

It is a joyous thing to realise that we as a global gifted community will soon be celebrating our Year of Giftedness and Creativity during 2013. A year in which to explore ways of expressing what makes us who we are. This is an opportunity for our children, and the people who care and work with them, to share and celebrate through their creativity and innovation, experiences, activities and products related to, and born out of the essence of giftedness and talent.  An opportunity to share how life might look, if  giftedness was  to make life whole and happy for them.  The  20th World Conference 2013 in Auckland is also taking place   (Don’t forget to visit the Conference Blogsite), during the International Year of Giftedness and Creativity. We are hoping  to see many of you there,  perhaps sharing your stories, or experiencing that of many others.

Last year, the first International Day of the Gifted was successfully celebrated in August 2011. On the run up to the day, many people participated and contributed, from all parts of the globe, in a number of initiatives that were being worked on.

Themes that were highlighted on that day, during the World Conference 2011, in Prague, consisted of:

1) Honouring all gifted & talented awareness-raising efforts being made worldwide within our communities.

2) The celebration of gifted children.

The energy and good will that was generated from this event, and the material produced to celebrate it, spread out and remained tangible a long time after the event. This was apparent in the blogs and posts that were being written and shared along many of the digital and social networks, worldwide. It gave off a spark, lighted a flame, a flame that once fanned, blew a great gust of wind. This wind picked up a kite, an idea, which would be called The International Year of Giftedness and Creativity 2013, and culminate in the World Conference 2013.

Enter the International Week of the Gifted 2012- (Second week August)

Building on the wonderful sense of camaraderie and community that was felt during the IDG2011, and, in view of the many time differences and suggestions from folk around the world, it has been determined  that  the IDG should evolve into an IWG or International Week of the Gifted. Allowing for greater participation, or time for folk to think of ways to participate, mark or celebrate the week.

It also feels like a good week for reflecting on how gifted awareness movements have grown since last year.  In celebration of this growth, this years’ 2012 collection of awareness events is somewhat larger than last years, and can be accessed below, or at the link above.  Please note that only those events that I was made aware of have been included. If there are others that should be added, I invite all to please let me know through a comment on this blog.  This year a number of conferences were also included, also as gifted awareness events.  There are so many more than last year.  Will your country’s story include starting a national awareness event? If so.. let us know!!

Secondly,   the International Week of Giftedness 2012 is an ideal  awareness week to be thinking and planning ahead for the International Year of Giftedness and Creativity 2013,   based around a theme (admitting to have been partially inspired by Stephanie Tolan, one of my favourite ‘Elders’ in our circles) of  ‘Stories and story sharing’.

This #IWG12 will be celebrated with  a blog tour, inviting members of the gifted community across the globe to think about, and contribute their ‘stories’ of what they coul/might do, or what they might make happen next year…#IYGC,  after all, creativity does begin with ideas..  and with a little luck, giftedness can help make it happen.

• ¨Remember:  Stories can take many shapes and forms.  Hold an event or an activity and tell the story  of how it unfolded, share stories of good practice, Art- a painting that tells it’s own story, or through music,  the story of how an invention got built, a cultural story of giftedness,  the stories of our children, our parents, ourselves;  developing stories/literature for gifted students, stories about creativity, creations and their creators, stories about gifted experiences…  your story of what an ideal environment for gifted education would look like… Stories of  gifted awareness events and how they came to be..

• Stories:  Can be expressed/delivered though  a range of many mediums such a  video,  audio,  writing, photography or Art the choice is yours.

Moving forward, what will the ‘story of you’ or  the story of your celebration of giftedness and or creativity look like over this next year?

• Do you have ideas you could suggest for others to do?
• Perhaps your story will be culturally distinct and unique and would interest others how you might celebrate in your own country/land/tribe?
• Do you have ideas that may be good for a class/school to do which would be effective and stand out?
• Maybe an inventors’ fair, and the story of a young inventor who went far?
• Are you a young scientist, math whizz, environmentalist or social entrepreneur with a story waiting to happen?
• An Artist, a young writer, would like to celebrate by painting a picture, writing a story, writing a book.
• Are you, or your students involved in poetry, drama or musically inclined, could you include this as you develop your gifted story for next year?
• Perhaps your story includes writing a book, a chapter on giftedness yourself?
• Are you about to embark on an important piece of research over the next year, and able to tell us how you hope your story will go?
• What activities and approaches might we use to help foster motivation/self esteem/fruition of potential/self worth in our young folk (and adults) over the next year?
• Are you presenting at the conference in NZ and willing tell us something about your topic?
•  Might your story include starting a parenting group, or perhaps a kids’ club of a unique type?
• Do you have a story sharing good practice?
• Or will you share a story or stories of an individual or individuals emerging excellence/greatness in their area of passion, documenting this through a painting, photos or video?
• A story of incredible wonderfulness in regards to 2Eness.
• Will you tell a story of starting a new school/educational environment unique and welcoming for unique and interesting minds?
• Will your story be one of unwavering advocacy in the face of a difficult situation, and survive?
• Are you/will you be homeschooling this next year, might you keep a journal of how this story develops, helping others who may come after you?
• Will your story simply be starting an annual gifted awareness event, or a conference?
• What will you and/or those around you create, so that we may all share  in celebrating the soul and heart of giftedness?

#IWG12 – Second week, August 2012– We will celebrate with a  blog tour over the week, in honour of the upcoming International Year of Giftedness and Creativity 2013. This tour invites any who wish to blow a breath of air at our communal kite of giftedness, attach a bow of an idea onto it’s tail,— help it start to get it off the ground, simply by taking part, to contribute a blog post with your stories/ideas, and help others to see what can be…

We are hoping that the #IWG12 will give our gifted global community’s beautiful kite a good head start with your ideas. We are looking forward to letting the celebration start in earnest from January 2013^th with your stories and their progression, throughout  the #IYGC year and during the World Conference 2013 in New Zealand, where we hope to see that many of your stories have become reality, and even better, hoping that many of you may come and celebrate, tell/show us how your stories developed in person.

This event has been initiated by the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children through the sub- committee on the International Year of Giftedness and Creativity. It is being run in joint collaboration between the World Council for Gifted and Talented Childrens subcommittee and the New Zealand World Conference 2013’s International Year of  Giftedness and Creativity, and Social Media subcommittees.

We would like to invite the gifted community to take part in this initiative.  If you feel you would like to contribute to this blog tour, please contact Mary St. George at  <mail4mary@xtra.co.nz>, and send in your contribution, and/ or  a link to your blogpost for   review and scheduling.

You can pick up an image or a bannner to use on your site from the International Year of Giftedness Blogsite , to promote  this event. Be mindful, once you use the image or banner on your site,  to link it back to the IYGC Blogsite to show your support.

Those who wish to contribute, but do not have a blog are welcome  to do so too.  Just send in your contribution to Mary, at the email above, and it will be scheduled to be guest hosted either on the IYGC blogsite, or if traffic is heavy, on either this one or Mary’s or rescheduled for a following day.   We very much appreciate your contributions.

Please note;  This initiative is meant to be joyful and celebrative in nature, meaning positive and inclusive. We will welcome all contributions of this nature, and all contributions will be monitored for this.  Any contributions which are felt to be at risk of intentionally upsetting or damaging individuals personally or the organisations they are supporting, will be vetted, and may,  regretfully,  not be posted.