Thoughts for administrators, directors, coaches, and other leaders of gifted and talented programs.
If I were advising folks who are new to a leadership position in education, I'd give one piece of advice.
Are you ignoring the most cost-effective feedback about your program's effectiveness? Talk to some past students!
I didn't learn by listening to speakers or reading books or going to conferences or by scrolling through lists of resources.
Any whole-group talk should either lead into a classroom demonstration or debrief a classroom demonstration.
Does your PD solve a problem? Or does it just give more information?
I was a very popular speaker, but then someone pointed out my big flaw.
The message from teachers is pretty darn clear! They don’t need yet another differentiation framework.
I once sat through a keynote presentation that told me, “Everyone should code.” I will never go to another conference again!
Imagine a restaurant with one goal: “Pass The Health Inspection!”
Imagine a school with one goal: “Meet Grade Level Standards!”
If you haven’t taken the time to clearly define your problem, you will chase your tail adding more and more onto teachers’ plates.
When you shut down your gifted program, parents will just move their very bright children to the neighboring district that kept their gifted program.
Professional musicians still practice scales. The best NBA player still practices dribbling. What is the core skill a teacher should hone every day of their career?
Things that have already stood the test of time are likely to continue standing the test of time. Old ideas in education are almost always better than new ideas, because they’ve been tested and filtered already for you.