I love math. I cannot draw. And I have spent the last 17 years wrestling with how math shuts people out -- and how we can welcome them back in.

Join the Montana Science Teacher's Association in welcoming Garon Smith, better known as G Wiz as this year's keynote speaker. G Wiz has been a beloved chemistry wizard for decades, wowing children, college students, and adults alike with his captivating demonstrations. This session promises to include levity, creative ideas, and at least a couple of explosions.

This session equips educators to promote critical thinking, collaboration, and self-regulation. These durable skills strengthen academic outcomes, student well-being, and college, career, and life readiness. Participants will consider how they can promote these skills in their work with students.

There is a version of leadership we are sold, steady, confident, clear. Then there is the version most of us are actually living, making decisions mid-sentence, responding before we feel ready, and trying to move something forward while it still feels uncertain. That gap is where a lot of art educators are right now. This experience sits inside that reality instead of trying to clean it up. It names what it feels like to lead in classrooms, schools, and professional spaces where the expectations keep shifting, the resources do not stretch far enough, and the timeline never quite slows down. It pushes back on the idea that leadership should feel settled before action happens, and instead reframes urgency, doubt, and even panic as part of the work itself. How do you make decisions when you do not have all the information? How do you keep things moving without burning yourself out or burning out the people around you? How do you recognize when what feels reactive is actually responsive, and when what feels like chaos is actually momentum starting to take shape? This is not about eliminating the panic. It is about learning how to work within it well enough that progress still happens, on purpose.