If you’re a teacher working with gifted students, you might wonder, “Is the NAGC conference worth the cost?” (And I’m talking about the National Association for Gifted Children, not any of those other NAGCs!).
Now, I haven’t attended NAGC’s conference since 2018. Perhaps NAGC 2024 will be dramatically better. Take all of this with a grain of salt. Ask around. See what people’s actual experiences have been like.
The Typical Conference Problems
NAGC’s conference has the same problems as most education conferences (and I’ve been to quite a few!):
- No one checks if the presenters have actually done the things they’re talking about. So you get people on stage talking about stuff they’ve never even tried. This is so common that I wrote a whole post about it.
- No one coaches the presenters or helps them prepare. This leads to nervous speakers who have never practiced their talk out loud before.
- No one in charge has seen any of the talks beforehand. Everything was judged by a paragraph written months before the event. The organizers are watching the speakers for the first time along with you.
Basically, there’s zero quality control in terms of who’s on stage. And that’s the reason most people go, right? To see great talks that will help them become better teachers?
NAGC’s Specific Problem
NAGC has the additional problem of being an organization run by academics. This means the conference naturally skews towards academia – even though most attendees work for a public school district. And it’s perfectly fine to have an academic conference! But I wish they did a better job of communicating that this isn’t so much a “teacher event” as a “university professor event”.
So, in my opinion, unless you’re into academia, NAGC’s conference isn’t worth the cost. I’m sure it’s a great networking, resume-building event for university people. But it’s not catered to teachers or other folks who are in the trenches, working with actual students.
Just Get Into Classrooms Instead
And, honestly, I think the best way to get better at teaching is to skip the conferences and just watch great teachers at work. This is a big reason why I stopped speaking at events altogether. Listening to conference talks is just not an effective way to become a better teacher.
But, if you really want to go to a conference, look for smaller, local events that are run by folks who deal with the same problems you deal with. My favorite education event has always been the local conference that I went to as a teacher. It’s highly connected to the local community, only takes up a morning, includes lunch in the price (yes!), and is entirely run by people who work at nearby school districts. This kind of event meets the needs of its attendees.