As the annual convention of the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) takes place in Florida this weekend (Nov 9-12, 2023), some may wonder: Is it worthwhile to attend?

NAGC 2023 conference: https://nagc.org/page/nagc23

Here's a Byrdseed opinion piece, which I think is spot-on.
"Is NAGC’s 2023 Conference Worth It For Teachers?"
link - https://www.byrdseed.com/should-i-go-to-nagc/
Originally Posted by brief excerpt from [i
[font:Comic Sans MS]Byrdseed[/font][/i] article]... because NAGC is an organization of academics, they’ve created a session proposal system biased towards academics. Now, I don’t think they do this on purpose. It’s just the consequence of such limited voices in their leadership.

Here are a few ways that NAGC’s proposal process leads to an over-representation of academics.

Session proposals are entirely written. Yes, friend, you write about how good your talk is going to be. Obviously, this benefits people who frequently write about their topic (that’s not teachers). A purely written proposal also hides whether someone is, you know, a good speaker or not. This leads to sessions that look good in the session guide, but are awful talks. I walked out of more sessions at NAGC than any other conference I’ve been to.

You aren’t allowed to put your name in your session proposal! To pick good speakers, don’t you kinda need to know who will be giving the presentation? You need to be able to say, “Oh, this person is an amazing speaker” or “Oh heck no. This person was awful last year!” Hiding people’s identities protects bad presenters. And that’s unfair to the attendees.

Proposals are due in January for a conference in November. That’s ten months in advance. It’s only two months after the previous event ended. Who has well-written submissions ready so far in advance? Yep! Folks who are already spending lots of time writing about their topic. (Again, not teachers.)

Random people choose the sessions. It’s not some elite team of experts doing the picking. It’s whoever will agree to do it! Heck, I judged submissions back in my third year of teaching! What did I know about picking sessions? I’m sure I added to the very problem I’m writing about! I’m sure I picked academics because their paragraphs sounded so fancy.

Now, this all seems fair to the people in charge because it mirrors how their papers get submitted to academic journals. But, an event for teachers should not be treated like an academic journal!
BTW, the creator of [i][font:Comic Sans MS] Byrdseed[/font][/i] is Ian Byrd, who admits to being gifted...