Bringing Business Sensibilities to Gifted and Talented Communities – 4 Steps to Sanity

What happens when you combine impassioned teachers, gifted and talented students, and concerned parents? Do you imagine gleeful, self-motivated learners thriving and living up to their fullest potential? Do you envision parents and GT teachers listening intently to one another and thanking each other regularly? If only it were that easy!

While lack of funding and resources can be a huge stressor on even the most impressive GT programs, personalities also play a big role.

 

While gifted and talented communities have placed a rightful focus on identification processes and typing students and supporting them with vigor, many GT professionals wind up frustrated and overwhelmed by the amount of negative feedback from parents and the lack of cohesiveness within their internal GT staff.

 

GT leaders would be wise to take some cues from the corporate world (think Gates as opposed to Madoff), where compatibilities and teamwork fuse with innovation to create inspiring outcomes.

 

Internal and external communication logjams abound in the GT world, just as they do in the corporate world. Business sensibilities must be brought into the educational realm. It’s time to give serious support to the men and women nurturing our highest potential students and future leaders!

 

Recent Ingeniosus research reveals widening disconnects between creative and dedicated GT pros and parents. Here are some of the recent comments we have received that highlight the need for advanced communications between these two well-intentioned camps:

 

• It depends on the professional, but I've found many of them (GT professionals) are dismissive of parents and their input. This is particularly true in the schools where the prevailing attitude is "I'm the professional. I know what your child needs better than you do." Considering that most parents of GT kids are GT themselves, they're not likely to respond to such a high-handed approach (not that anyone does).
• We struggled looking for resources because “oh, he'll be fine” was always the response because he was bright. We didn’t find that GT professionals in the public schools were open to our expertise and to partnering with parents. The resources we discovered (including a great book called Upside Down Brilliance about visual spatial learners by Dr. Linda Silverman) were found on our own; my husband and I had to become our son's greatest advocate.
• I am a parent of a gifted child (he's 9). I would say my son's school district is in the middle as far as their communications. Better than some I've dealt with, but probably not as good as it could be. My son's gifted teacher is very open to communications (if I call her, she will call me back as soon as she can to discuss any issues I have). However, without my initiative, there is not much contact with her. She called prior to my son being placed in the program to discuss what to expect, and we received one letter prior to one project starting. Other than that, I hear about classes and activities from my son. Since he is in third grade, he is currently only pulled out for math, so it is very narrow at this point. The program, so I'm told, expands more next year, so perhaps the communications will also increase. My son's principal is also good about answering questions I may have, but again, it must be initiated by me. A newsletter or email update now and again would be fantastic. Although my son does talk about the class, I'm never quite sure what is going on.
• The teacher is overworked. Therefore, communication is nominal. Unless requested, we have had essentially one conference a year. Do we normally know what he's working on? No, unless we ask him. Paperwork to us is minimal. Emails would be nice.
• We've had very little communication with the GT program -- mostly it was in the form of form letters from them and/or me ambushing the GT specialist in the hallway. If I made an appointment, I found the specialist had already rehearsed the party line by the time I arrived and was even less open to questions or suggestions.

 

How can GT leaders tap parents’ insights and keep them informed without working around the clock and losing their minds? Here are four ways GT professionals can bring business sensibilities to their GT communities and maintain their sanity:

 

1. Undertake GT staff profiling
2. Conduct a communications audit
3. Identify touchstones
4. Create and implement communication strategies

In the upcoming weeks, I will go into more detail about each of these four strategies. In this post, I’ll be focusing on the first step, which involves looking more intently at the personalities of the GT professionals themselves.

 

GT coordinators and teachers often get a hard rap; however, some of this stems from the inherent challenges bought on by personality clashes. Any time you bring together strong-minded, impassioned individuals, the opportunity for conflict exists. When you combine that with parents’ concerns over the asynchronous development challenges of their GT students and their high expectations, you might as well have a boiling cauldron.

 

Personality profiling, which is used regularly in the business community, is an easy, yet extremely effective way to lend support to GT leaders. There are no “right” or “wrong” personality types for GT pros; however, GT teachers who deal with parents need to learn more about their own communication styles, preferences and triggers. Such advanced communication techniques will equip these hard-working pros with pragmatic opportunities to improve their overall impact.

 

Districts and private schools will also benefit from understanding the personality make-up of their staffs, which will help reduce internal roadblocks and challenges. If you have GT teachers who rally against “seemingly impossible” parents, policies or requirements, you’ll be helping both them and yourself by undertaking this first step with outside professional help.

 

Profiling need not require loads of time or money, but outside counsel needs to have intimate knowledge of GT sensitivities and not simply apply a cookie-cutter (i.e. Myers-Briggs) approach. Just as critical as knowing the identifying characteristics of gifted and talented students, GT professionals will find inspiration and relief from the right type of customized support. After all, they deserve it and our society definitively needs it.

 

Thank you for joining me today. I hope you’ll stay tuned in the upcoming weeks for future posts on steps 2-4! Do you have a comment for me on this subject? Feel free to send me an email directly at innovate@deborahmersino.com. I welcome your input and look forward to communicating with parents and GT pros alike.

 

Are you a parent who identifies with these issues? I will be happy to contact your district anonymously (or not -- depending on your preference) regarding the opportunity to improve GT communications. Contact me via email.

 

Lastly, if you’re having trouble accessing the RSS feed for the Ingeniosus blog, feel free to send me an email at innovate@deborahmersino.com and include your name and email address. I’ll ensure that you are notified when new posts are available.

 

Thank you for joining this community. Together, we can make an impact!