On April 14, the San Juan Chapter of NMAG presented its 4th Annual Conference entitled “Giftedness and the Real World” at the Sycamore Park Community Center in Farmington.  Over thirty-five teachers and parents attended, representing all four school districts in the county.

Keynote Speaker Dr. Amy McConnell Franklin, in her presentation entitled “Pedagogical practices to develop emotion-related skills in gifted students,” guided her audience to consider the three dimensions of emotional intelligence: awareness, intention and choice. She led group activities to engage everyone in the practice of identifying these aspects for themselves and then facilitated discussions about how to help teachers and parents guide their students and children to discover these components for themselves.

Dr. Franklin’s keynote was funded by an award from the Land of Enchantment Teacher Quality Partnership Grant.

For the rest of the day, conference registrants attended break-out sessions with titles such as “Overexcitabilities – the Good, the Bad, and the Just Plain Weird,” “High School Enrichment Seminars,” “Optimism:  A Foundational Skill for Compassionate, Accountable Decision Making,” “Cooperative Group Problem Solving,” and “Empowering Entrepreneurial Spirits for the 21st Century: An Interest Development Center.”

The final session featured a student panel of alumni of the San Juan Mentors program who participated with the audience in a lively question and answer period about their experiences with local mentors in fields such as cardiology, pediatric medicine, flight nursing, Air Care flight, graphic design and advertising.

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