A weekend on gifted children
During the weekend from 24th to 26th February 2017, Mensa CR organized, in Hotel Astra in Prague, a weekend full of lectures, workshops, and discussions on the topic of gifted children.
My impressions from the first meeting with Mensa
On the last February weekend, I was – almost by chance – lured into participating in one of Mensa’s events by a lecture by MUDr. František Koukolík. The event was a weekend dedicated to gifted children; I only had a rough idea about what Mensa is, but this topic is only rarely mentioned in the usual workshops and trainings, so it sounded quite interesting for me, especially as I’m a grammar school teacher.
The meeting of people around Mensa, however, exceeded my expectations. Right at the beginning, on Friday afternoon, there was a multitude of information to digest from the lectures related to talent, its identification, types, options, and methods of developing it, both at school and outside of school, helping the parents as well as the teachers.
The audience was very diverse; at least one third consisted of gifted children’s parents, while teachers of various types of schools, principals, and co-ordinators of educational institutions formed another significant part, and among them, one could meet some gifted young people who were themselves actually the topic of the meeting. In short, everyone who realizes how important it is to identify talent and to help develop it. There were those who had a lot of experience, as well as those who just wanted to know how to do it.
Every presentation was followed by a lively discussion, sharing experience, explaining different attitudes and approaches, looking for reasons for various problems and for optimum solutions, examples of good practice and goodwill, to reach mutual understanding among parents, teachers, and the management of the schools.
The highlight of the programme was, of course, the charming lecture by MUDr. František Koukolík, DrSc., who presented, from the position of a neurologist, a broad philosophical perspective encompassing multiple specializations. It was the first time I had the opportunity to see him in person, and even to briefly speak with him. However, other lectures were also interesting, witty, and well prepared, such as the contributions by the Ass. Prof. PaedDr. Škrabánková, Ph.D. and, actually, all of the others. I especially appreciated the fact that people who had not even known one another prior to the weekend, discussed topics that were obviously of great interest to them, and those discussions went on until late into the night.
To me, the entire weekend was extremely inspiring, it showed me the path to take, where to look for help, how important it is to maintain interest in these issues, to find and study various sources, and perhaps to inspire my colleagues a little. I would like to thank all of the amazing organizers, especially Tomáš Blumenstein and Martin Sedláček, for their outstanding organization, and to express my hope that there will be more workshops and training sessions about the forms and methods of work with gifted children.
Related topics
27.2.2017
A weekend on gifted children (24–26 February 2017) 26.2.2017 |
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