The author invites readers to enter a ‘house of belonging,’ reflecting on community, personal liberty, and the inner voice of wisdom. Drawing on David Whyte’s poem and SENG conference experiences, she encourages reclaiming authentic voice, belonging to oneself first, and joining community together.
The new Executive Director of SENG emphasizes the importance of community and belonging for gifted individuals, describes her personal connection to giftedness, and outlines SENG’s mission. She invites readers to the annual conference at Villanova for learning, networking, and community-building, with in-person and asynchronous options.
The post argues rising loneliness and disconnection—exacerbated by COVID—require strengthening social infrastructure, rethinking technology use, and rebuilding personal connections. The author suggests radical acceptance, envisioning meaningful futures, and taking practical steps to connect, create, and find community as paths toward healing and resilience.
The author reflects on holding multiple, often conflicting truths across personal, educational, and parenting experiences. She shares childhood struggles with giftedness and recovery from an eating disorder, her teaching career, and raising three twice-exceptional children, offering compassion, community-based support, and practical approaches for families.
Board member Rianne van de Ven describes the Week of Giftedness in the Netherlands and Flanders, which hosted over 270 events to raise awareness and reduce misconceptions. She highlights a Dutch emphasis on giftedness as potential needing support and suggests the United States could consider a similar national week.
The author describes personal and familial experiences of Black students being underrepresented in gifted programs, attributes this to teacher bias and screening gaps, and recommends teacher training, culturally responsive assessments, diverse staff, and parent outreach. District steps like universal screening and adjusted scoring show progress.
The author reflects on a family photograph to illustrate how curiosity and emotions shape perception. She argues that intentional thinking, emotional reframing, and collaborative relationships enable authentic, sustainable transformations toward belonging, urging the community to practice curiosity and align mind, body, and brain in interactions.
A teacher reflects on gifted children’s rapid thinking and sensitivity, arguing they are often told to ‘slow down’ while their intensity, curiosity, and compassion deserve understanding. He traces development from childhood into adolescence and urges adults and educators to nurture, not suppress, gifted learners’ passion and emotional needs.
A professor reflects on a year of feeling disconnected despite career successes, finding renewed purpose through the gifted education community. After an epiphany she prioritizes meaningful work over obligations, embraces authenticity, and values community support as essential for gifted learners and professionals alike.
This post encourages parents to use summer as a time for authentic learning, reflection, and rest. It suggests outings, activities, reading, and hands-on projects to enrich gifted children, emphasizes discussing experiences and asking thoughtful questions, and warns against overscheduling so children have downtime to reflect and develop.
