Confratute: 25 years and Still Going Strong!!

Sally M. Reis and Joseph Renzulli

Neag Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development

This year we celebrate the 25th anniversary of our annual summer program, Confratute. When Confratute first began 25 years ago, it was conceived as a combination of the best aspects of a Conference, a fraternity and an institute. It has remained the leading professional development conference and summer institute on enrichment and learning and teaching in the world. For the last five summers, our numbers have reached over 1200 and we have had to turn people away!! Our participants come from throughout the United States and around the world to teach and learn about gifted education and talent development.

Confratute features presentations by the nation’s best-known leaders in gifted education, talent development and creativity, and it has grown in size and diversity as a unique experience to the educational community.

We focus each summer on differentiation of instruction and enrichment learning and teaching. It is our belief that all students can benefit from high-end learning opportunities and learning is maximized when we consider each student’s abilities, interests, and learning styles. We strive to accommodate these differences in a variety of settings.

Everyone who teaches at Confratute is hand picked from among the very best professionals who spend the majority of their time directly involved with schools, teachers, and kids. Our focus on practical skills and personalizing the learning process has resulted in nothing short of superlative evaluations over the last 24 years.

Our staff manages to create an informal learning environment where participants can interact casually with the staff, network with colleagues, share similar concerns, and discuss hopes and dreams about education. It is a community of learners who are totally immersed in an atmosphere designed to promote acceptance, trust, scholarship, hard work and fun. We believe that everyone has his/her share to contribute to educational improvement!

Featured at Confratute are week-long courses or strands on topics including The Schoolwide Enrichment Model, Curriculum Modification, Differentiated Instruction, Technology, Social/Emotional issues, Creativity, Thinking Skills, Enrichment Program Administration and Project Learning. Keynote speakers address new ideas and the sometimes controversial issues in gifted education. For our special anniversary this summer, we are featuring such distinguished speakers as Howard Gardner, Robert Sternberg and Rachel McAnallen. While most of you will know the names of Howard Gardner and Robert Sternberg, a brief bio on Rachel will help you to understand why she joins this auspicious group. Rachel McAnallen is an educator with almost 40 years of experience, Rachel's high energy and humorous presentation styles has captured the hearts of teachers, students, and parents throughout the United States. She has developed a Mathematician-in-Residence Program for elementary and secondary students, and is known as Math Mama by all who love her sessions at Confratute.

We have both been asked to reflect on our most important contributions as professionals, and in every case, we have indicated that Confratute has been our most important contribution to the ways in which we have helped to keep creativity and high levels of challenge on the front burner of education throughout the nation and the world. Confratute has earned a reputation of being the largest and most highly respected training institute of its kind in the country. As such, the program unquestionably brings national and international recognition to the University of Connecticut. The program has also been mainly responsible for recruiting numerous graduate students enrolled in our academic year and Three Summer Program, and it has also resulted in a number of doctoral applications. But most important, it has been the place where we have met and been inspired by some of the most wonderful, caring, committed and creative educators in America.

Perhaps the best way to conclude is to quote Dick Bothmer, one of our staff members who has attended every single Confratute for the last 25 years:

I think maybe there is no satisfaction like that that come from being associated with something of great quality over a long period of time. Sometimes I look at my strand, or the people at breakfast, or at a keynote, and I picture their students, in some unknown somewhere, having a better year next year because that child's teacher attended Confratute. I know, I know, I know, this has happened time without number in the last quarter century. We hope to be around to meet many more in the future.

So do we!! We thank everyone of you who has helped us to continue to bring this important tradition to so many of our alumni.