Gifted education as a paradigm for school reform

Advocacy for gifted education will support schools become better places for talent development for all students. Leaders advocate of gifted education will be supporting a school reform initiative customized on context, resources, population and leadership dynamics to provide every student with opportunities, resources and encouragement to aspire to the highest level of talent development that is humanly possible.

Nidal Jouni, M.A., is an instructor of educational leadership and management at the American University of Beirut(AUB). Nidal jouni has completed a B.S. in biology, a teaching diploma in special education with two tracks, learning disabilities and gifted, and M.A. in guidance and counseling from AUB. She co-founded a K-12 school in 2001 and served as the school’s principal until September 2017. During these years, she established the first inclusion program in South Lebanon for learners with disabilities within her school and a program for gifted students, among the first in the country. She is Lebanon’s delegate at the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children(WCGTC), an accredited trainer of several programs for gifted children, and has presented more than a hundred workshops on different subjects related to general education, special education, and educational leadership. Nidal is also a coach within TAMAM Project at AUB to assist schools aiming to become inclusive. In July 2017, Ms. Jouni became a fellow at the Middle East Initiative for Professional Learning (MEPLI) at the graduate school of education at Harvard University (HGSE). In 2020, she won the Fouad Haddad Award for the best thesis at AUB.