As leaders, we have to explain why gifted education exists. If we don’t have a clear story, someone else will write our story for us. And it won’t be pretty!
The most important place to tell your clear story is on your gifted program’s webpage.
This is the first place that parents, colleagues, bosses, reporters, and students will go to learn what you’re all about.
But… when’s the last time you’ve looked at your webpage?
An Example of the Problem
Here’s the national gifted association’s “who are we” statement (as of this writing):
NAGC’s mission is to support those who enhance the growth and development of gifted and talented children through education, advocacy, community building, and research. We aim to help parents and families, K-12 education professionals including support service personnel, and members of the research and higher education community who work to help gifted and talented children as they strive to achieve their personal best and contribute to their communities.
That blob of text is 68 words long yet says nothing. Any English teacher would rip it to shreds! When I plop it into Grammarly, it warns me:
⚠️ This text may be difficult for college graduates to read.
An educator clearly communicates to people who don’t understand.
But writing like this creates confusion.
It excludes. It intimidates.
Check Your Website
Parents are looking at your website to see what you’re all about. You don’t want their eyes to go crossed. You need them on your team.
Here are three examples of gifted programs explaining their purpose:
- Our Gifted and Talented Department has the primary responsibility of overseeing, supporting, and monitoring the programs for K-12 identified gifted and talented students district-wide.
- Our goal is to identify gifted and talented students, including those from diverse racial, socioeconomic, linguistic, and cultural backgrounds, and provide high-quality differentiated opportunities for learning that meet students’ unique abilities and talents.
- Our purpose is to engage, empower, and enrich gifted learners through unique, rigorous, self-directed educational experiences in a collaborative learning environment that supports the whole child within and beyond the classroom.
Houston, we have a problem!
These are not clear stories. They are jargon soup!
A Simple Statement
Your website should have a one sentence explanation of your program’s story. A 6th grader should be able to understand it.
How about: We specialize in teaching students who are far ahead of their grade level.
That makes sense, right? It’s much clearer than those long, rambling statements.
And we can memorize this. And repeat it. Whenever someone asks what we do, we can say “Oh, we specialize in teaching students who are far ahead of their grade level.”
Plus:
- We avoided jargon like “differentiate” and “rigorous.” No one knows what these words mean, so pick something simpler.
- We used NO acronyms. No one knows what our acronyms mean, so always write the whole thing out.
So, now, come up with a simple, one-sentence explanation of why your gifted program exists!