Success Stories in Opening Conversations

[Amy Phillips]

“Courage is contagious.  To scale daring leadership and build courage in teams and organizations, we have to cultivate a culture in which brave work, tough conversations, and whole hearts are the expectation, and armor is not necessary or rewarded.  If we want people to fully show up, to bring their whole selves including their unarmored whole hearts – so that we can innovate, solve problems, and serve people – we have to be vigilant about creating a culture in which people feel safe, seen, heard, and respected.”   – Brene Brown, Dare to Lead

What successes have you had in opening conversations about and for gifted students?

[Jen Flo]

I love this quote from Brene Brown.  It reminds me of Simon Sinek and his “How Great Leaders Inspire Action” Ted Talk. When we start with sharing our why, it makes our work that much more relatable.

When talking with teachers, administrators, and other audiences about the needs of gifted students, I will often connect the classroom experiences I had to develop a collective sense of responsibility that we share for all of our students.  Simon Sinek says in his talk “The goal is not to do business with everybody who needs what you have.  The goal is to business with people who believe what you believe.”  When we create a sense of collective responsibility, we create a shared why, or mission, to accomplish.  We go together toward that goal of supporting all of our students, including the highly-capable students, because all students deserve to learn new things in school, every day.