16 ms·

New research suggests new ways to nurture gifted children

248 points by nopinsight 9y ago

vinceguidry 9y ago
"Giftedness" doesn't just refer to high IQ, at least not as the US educational system treats it. It also refers to a cluster of personality traits that combine to make some kids utterly fail to thrive in normal classrooms, yet completely turn around in specialized environments. I can't take any article seriously that doesn't appreciate that giftedness is an educational concept, not a function of intelligence. My insight regarding giftedness is that if we could afford it, all kids would thrive if they could be placed in the kinds of small classroom creative learning environments that gifted kids can only thrive in. In other words, we're all "gifted", it's just that some of us are less adaptable than others. And while intelligence might be heritable, nurture is far more important when it comes to the development of children. The argument that it's largely heritable is the argument that the educational system is fine as it is and doesn't need any new ideas or money.
- colordrops 9y ago
  That sounds similarly euphemistic to the way the word "special" is used in the US.
  - fjsolwmv 9y ago
    "special" isn't a euphemism in education. It literally means "non-mainstream customized treatment". It's used for both disabilities and gifted. "Special" is also a slang term for people with disabilities.
- fjsolwmv 9y ago
  There is no Nationwide standard for gifted. Some districts do Gifted, others Gifted and Talented. Some use IQ testing, some don't. Some do more creative project work than regular school, some regular schools also do creative project work.
Rainymood 9y ago
Paywall.
- the-dude 9y ago
  Web link
  - Rainymood 9y ago
    I don't understand your comment. I can not read the article as it says "You've reached your article limit."
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- jtbayly 9y ago
  Very confused why this has been downvoted. There is a paywall.
  - detaro 9y ago
    Because HN's FAQ explicitly says "But please don't post complaints about paywalls. Those are off topic."
napier 9y ago
Paywall makes it impossible for most people to read this article.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
merricksb 9y ago
For those impeded by the paywall: http://archive.is/DIVlJ http://archive.is/DIVlJ
MsMowz 9y ago
Despite going through gifted education programs myself, I'm deeply skeptical of the concept of them in general, and I've only become more skeptical as new research emerged. Here's a good example for why I'm skeptical: >There is evidence that aspects of gifted education should influence education more broadly. Project Bright Idea, developed at Duke University, saw 10,000 typical nursery and primary-school pupils taught using methods often reserved for brainier kids—fostering high expectations, complex problem-solving and cultivating meta-cognition (or “thinking about thinking”). Nearly every one of them went on to do much better on tests than similar peers. Another way to phrase this is that this study demonstrated that people may become "high-achieving" because of gifted education programs, and not the other way around. Or perhaps typical pupils can become high-achieving by exposure to high-achieving pupils. The article's refutation of these ideas is the King's College study that determined that "50% of the variance in intelligence is heritable." Plomin's more recent (2015) research suggests this estimate was far too high, and should really be about 30% phenotypically, which makes me think there's no point in trying to find young Einsteins. If students are of average or slightly above average intelligence, Bright Idea style programs will be best for them, and if they are truly a "young Einstein," they'll demonstrate it on their own, just like old Einstein did.
- nopinsight 9y ago
  Einstein did receive good education and, perhaps more importantly, personal mentorship from his uncle and a family's tutor, who was a medical student, from an early age. All evidence suggests that his family cared very much about the quality of his education. His tutor went on to become a successful ophthalmologist who was well known for his success in treating cataracts. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Talmey https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Talmey) http://www.sparknotes.com/biography/einstein/section1/ http://www.sparknotes.com/biography/einstein/section1/ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein I agree with a sibling comment that the world probably misses out on many potential Einsteins because of inadequate mentorship and nurturing of high-potential children. I agree with you that many ideas from gifted programs should be implemented in curricula for 'regular' and above average kids as well.
  - 9y ago
scientician 9y ago
As someone who has been through many forms of 'gifted' and 'enriched' and 'special' education, these articles always sadden me. Does anyone truly believe that optimizing children for their economic output really leads to a good life for their country? Here's a radical idea: let them have childhoods! I strongly support letting kids be free to develop and think for themselves. If a 'gifted' child can succeed despite being imprisoned in a school for many years, imagine how much they could grow and contribute if they were free? For anyone with children, or who cares about the future of western democracy, please look into https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudbury_school https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudbury_school
- wyattpeak 9y ago
  I'll bite - yes, I think it leads to both a good life for them and benefit for country. I don't know what your gifted education programs were like, but I never recall feeling like I missed out on my childhood. Occasionally I would take different classes to some of my friends (but with others), and that was about it. Far from keeping people from being free to develop and think for themselves, most of the gifted classes I took actively encouraged that, with open-ended problem solving and free-form classes often led by student interest. But children need to be reined in, they don't have the reasoning skills or understanding of adults; the one time I was allowed to fully control my own syllabus it led almost directly to me losing the ability to speak Cantonese, which I'd been fluent in up to that point. As a kid who'd spoken it all his life, I simply didn't believe all of the people who told me I'd forget it without practice. Because I was a child. I don't know exactly how free-form Sudbury Schools are, but I'd have extreme reservations about sending my children to one.
  - crawfordcomeaux 9y ago
    So the lesson you learned wasn't that you had the power to choose what you learned and how to do so responsibly? Did you instead learn these things?: • exercising that power could lead to you losing a skill • doing so is bad • you don't have the power to choose your own course corrections when you notice a skill waning Based on your suggestion that children need to be controlled, I think your experience was limited and too short.
crawfordcomeaux 9y ago
In my experience, children don't thrive in one-size-fits-all programming. I apply intuitions from computer science when I think about this. As an example, let's look at teaching them to use the word "yet" when speaking negatively about themselves. This is a practice I took up at one point in my recovery from information addiction. It wasn't enough to really open me up. I had to make several other language hacks. I learned how to speak in active voice, largely dropped the words can't/should/shouldn't, and redefined a whole host of words for myself. I had to believe what I said, too, which we're awful at teaching how to do. I'm guessing it's because science is taught in a way that typically undermines the skill of choosing beliefs. I had to hack my language way more and I think a generalized approach to teach kids how to identify words they use to undermine themselves will work better than being told what words they need to change. The purpose of the hacks is to change their perception, after all. Language is an indicator, but without a process to identify what meaning they give you words and what they believe, we probably won't see much improvement if we focus on superficial language hacks. Hacking perception takes more than that.
- IndigeniousWind 9y ago
  I'm a little confused. Why did you start to change the way your spoke? I understand using the word "yet", but why the other ones like dropping "can't"? >I had to hack my language way more and I think a generalized approach to teach kids how to identify words they use to undermine themselves will work better than being told what words they need to change. Is this approach of yours about being more positive and less normative, and also being more optimistic that you can improve?
  - crawfordcomeaux 9y ago
    I started working on active vs passive voice at the request of a therapist who recognized I was taking a very passive approach to life and thought the language shift might help with a mental shift. I found it helped me realize the ways I could change my behavior. Simply the act of monitoring and correcting my language was a practice in taking a more active role in my life. I dropped most words with opposites as a practice in nonjudgment. I kept a few around, like "love" and "can" because they're useful. "Can't" implies a belief that something's impossible. Believing that can keep us from imagining ways things CAN happen. It's therefore not useful to adopt the belief of "can't" if we want to explore possibilities. Having an exploratory mindset is really helpful while trying to learn how to meet one's needs. This approach is about seeing a way through things by learning to let go of how I judge something in order to see a way through it. Everything is a learning opportunity, so I'm working to enable/configure myself to learn more frequently. I do experience deep optimism. As for positivity, I prefer to acknowledge both sides of the coin. Does that answer your questions?
drawkbox 9y ago
I was in the GATE program in Utah [1] growing up and it was very project based. I think all education should encourage projects. In one case, we had to come up with products for younger kids and present and research the ideas, brainstorm, build prototypes, do user testing, and deliver it. A key aspect of the program was brainstorming which no idea is a bad idea but the best ideas floated to the top, this is important to learning. Finland is tops in education and lots of their teaching is letting kids pursue projects together and individually especially, the latter is very important for self-confidence. Finland does this through project- or phenomenon-based learning (PBL)[2]. This empowers kids and more closely resembles real life, you constantly have projects of all sorts going on in your life over overlapping timeframes, sometimes in a team, sometimes all by yourself. The best teachers also encourage projects. My 6th grade teacher had Apple II's and let us experiment with building games in BASIC of which I built a Tron game. I still think of it to this day. He also always had access to educational games like Oregon Trail. My high school computer lab teacher Mr Iles had gaming, programming and media/internet hardware and software setup to experiment with, many of the kids in that class and group are great programmers and some worked for intel while there. We had TV running on computers and internet before most saw those things and built things on it. He also let us play Scorched Earth and let programming projects be self-driven. My art teachers did critiques so you learned to take criticism and explain why. At Chandler High School there was a video class where you had to come up with video content, edit, produce, direct, write etc and that was amazing in terms of fun projects where I learned a great deal. All of this led to great educational outcomes both in team projects and individual. As long as a program is project based, a kid from anywhere or any level can benefit. We need more project based education in the US. Most gifted programs that do well do have a project based element to it, but not dictated to the kids as much as curriculum but a set of requirements and the rest is a creative exercise. [1] https://www.schools.utah.gov/curr/giftedtalented https://www.schools.utah.gov/curr/giftedtalented [2] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39889523 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39889523
- DelightOne 9y ago
  > [...] but a set of requirements [...]. What kind do you think of? - The steps you take? - Requirements on the results? Please enlighten me.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y ago
My personal opinion especially now is that gifted programs are a waste of time for the following reasons: 1) All students should be learning the fundamentals. 2) If you are gifted, being able to work with, communicate with, and help people less gifted than you is going to be a valuable life skill. 3) Finding new intellectually challenging things to do even in boring circumstances is a useful skill to learn. Even Einstein had to sit through boring faculty meetings. 4) In a gifted class, the child is probably substantially smarter than the teachers. Highly gifted people aren't going into elementary education in large enough numbers for their to be enough gifted teachers for the number of gifted students. 5) With the Internet and widespread knowledge, the truly gifted can learn so much on their own. Once a child knows how to read, curiosity, ability, and time are the only limits. With a truly gifted child, the less challenging the schoolwork is, the more time and energy they can dedicate to other things. 6) A stable, nurturing family that values and encourages intellectual achievement is probably far more important than what kind of school you go to as long as the school is competent. With regards to number 5, how many of you that learned programming as a kid, leaned it in school vs learned it on your own by reading books or via the Internet? As a society we should strive to make school something that teaches to basics well for all children and stimulates curiosity and gives children the necessary tools to learn on their own. * As an example of a gifted child, Von Neumann https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann is a much better example than Einstein.
FSharper 9y ago
Why does everyone here think his children are “gifted”? And shouldn’t you nurture the less gifted children?
truculation 9y ago
A simple way to help any kid: find out what he enjoys the most and help him to do more of it. Rinse. Repeat. No compulsion. No testing.
- dominotw 9y ago
  My kid just likes to run around all day and ride his bike.
  - truculation 9y ago
    I found some videos; here's one with tips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLZ8xhWzDqw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLZ8xhWzDqw
- kgwgk 9y ago
  Maybe if the kid enjoys torturing animals a different approach is better.
  - truculation 9y ago
    Maybe some kids get like that because they weren't helped in the first place. Regardless, we'd try moving on to something better that he prefers. My initial ideas are horror movies, FPS games, martial arts.
  - stevenwoo 9y ago
    I know you're joking but there is an approach that seems to salvage some of those kids. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/06/when-your-child-is-a-psychopath/524502/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/06/when-yo...
- mynameishere 9y ago
  https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Harry_S._Truman https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Harry_S._Truman I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.
ssivark 9y ago
It is important to acknowledge that school serves multiple purposes. It is definitely meant to educate students and hone their minds (and bodies). But given that students spend most of their day at school or doing school related activity, it is the only playground for kids to learn to socialize with their ilk. And cloistering someone away from that experience in a formative phase just to emphasize one axis of development (because they are “gifted”) is to do them a profound disservice. At the same time, the same can be said of forcing them to socialize while neglecting their mental development. So, the “right” solution would involve giving kids opportunities to challenge themselves in avenues where they are strong, and ensuring a rounded experience. Which is what schools are supposed to do, but they find it hard enough to cater to the “average” student :-/
DGAP 9y ago
I think there are a lot of good points being made here re: nature vs. nurture and not allowing children to have a childhood. As long as we agree that education should be a part of childhood, a good middle ground would be normalizing "skipping grades." It was definitely beneficial for me from a life and academic standpoint, the only negatives were social ostracism which decreased as I got older. I think this ostracism from peers would decrease if it was considered normal to skip.
pasbesoin 9y ago
Having been labeled "gifted" and various things, growing up (and "blowing" a few grade curves, either pleasing or pissing off the instructor, depending upon their personality). And after having suffered immensely, simultaneously, particularly because no one accepted what I actually said: "I need peace and quiet to work." "Stop fighting." "Just leave me alone." Number one way to nuture gifted children (per me): TEACH THEM TO STAND UP FOR THEMSELVES. AND TO RESPECT THEMSELVES, RATHER THAN CONSTANTLY DIMINISHING THEM WITH "CORRECTIONS" AND "COMPLIANCE". I was a pretty nice kid. And I've tried to be a pretty nice guy, as an adult. (I don't know, maybe I ended up partly being that "nice guy", as well... Clueless.) I didn't need a bunch of "socialization". I needed some acknowledgement and acceptance of what worked for me, and what didn't. And some HONESTY. Some of the things that most fucked me over, were people being dishonest. Whether maliciously or with "good intentions". So, if someone had taught me how to (physically, when necessary) keep the bullies off. And that I could indeed trust my intuition. Well, retrospect, but I kind of think I would have had the rest. In most of my classes, I pretty much ended up teaching myself, anyway. And I remember the subset of genuinely good instructors who did teach me things. They didn't merely recite. They paid attention, and added things they could see would be informative and useful to me. "Gifted". Right there, in the use of that term: You're often dealing with someone who doesn't "get it". /bitterness P.S. Lately, I've been on a medication that tends to get me a bit ramped up while also short-circuiting some of my natural "attention to detail" (aka "pause and check", etc.) This may be reflected in some of my posts. Sorry. Also, why didn't I do this for myself, as an adult. Well, the last couple of years of college and right after, prior history culminated in a couple of serious injuries that took away from my physical capabilities. I'll add that, in my personal experience, that's a real cut-off: Once you experience physiological losses you can't recoup, your world changes. The journey back from that is much more difficult, especially if/when they start to snowball. Another real reason to teach kids how to take care of themselves. And to respect themselves (NOT what you arbitrarily tell them). Get them self-sufficient in keeping themselves in good health. "Health is wealth". Boy, did I learn the aptness of that as I got older.
colordrops 9y ago
Instead of trying to strengthen "gifts", I think a more effective approach would be to remove barriers from growth. Even the most gifted children have countless barriers, whether financial, emotional, or motivational. If a child is painfully shy then therapy or some other form of work to open the child up would be far more effective than special teaching methods. Helping a child find a passion is more effective than deeper teaching on a subject they don't care about. These examples are high-level and grossly generalized, but everyone has countless micro and sometimes major traumas they've accumulated over time, and more attention needs to be put on mitigating these.
rabboRubble 9y ago
I have a young relative who was tracked into special education from early years. Finally, his educators gave him a standardized intelligence test. To their shock (and perhaps) horror, he came in in the top 1% for his age bracket. He is really, really intelligent. After this test, his guidance counselor sat him down and asked him how smart he thought he was. Answer, a morose and defeated "I'm stupid." Mind you, this answer came out of an 8-9 year old. After being told repeatedly that he was not good at school and that classes were too hard for him, he fully believed he was stupid. Once the adults around him stopped seeing a redneck country kid, once the adults recognized his poor school track record as a reflection of their biases and their poor performance he excelled. He is now captain of his high school robotics team. The team just won a position to compete in an international robotics competition in the next couple of weeks. Assuming they can raise the $30k to travel to Kentucky, ship their robots, find lodging, etc. It's a large fund raising amount for a non-Texas, non-football red state.
- skj 9y ago
  It's amazing how much expectations affect performance in children. It's why I scoff at those who present statistics saying insert-your-supposedly-inferior-group-here underperform compared to their favored "normal" group.
  - noobhacker 9y ago
    What behavior do you think constitutes "treating children with high expectation"? I have high expectations for my teenage son, but it doesn't seem to matter as he often does not meet those expectations. I actually do not fault him for "failing" my expectations because I understand that he isn't yet properly motivated. If I were him, without the understanding I now have regarding the importance of habit, the need for deep learning, or the compounding interest of knowledge, etc., I wouldn't be motivated to meet those expectations either. It seems to me that the key to nurturing success is building motivation, rather than having high expectation. The former is much harder than the latter. Or perhaps I'm "having high expectation" in a wrong way, and would love to learn how to do it right.
rdl 9y ago
I benefitted a lot from my public school district’s pull-out gifted program (about 10% of days spent there, but 100% of the value I got out of school), as well as JHU’s SMPY/SET/CTY.
fny 9y ago
It's upsetting that we've known about this for decades from an insane random experiment that would never pass review today. Consider the 1966 study by Rosenthal and Jacobson "Teachers’ Expectancies: Determinants Of Pupils’ IQ Gains"[0] > Within each of 18 classrooms, an average of 20% of the children were reported to classroom teachers as showing unusual potential for intellectual gains. Eight months later these “unusual” children (who had actually been selected at random) showed significantly greater gains in IQ than did the remaining children in the control group. These effects of teachers’ expectancies operated primarily among the younger children. [0]: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.495.5453&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.495... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_effect
- danieltillett 9y ago
  You can push g around quite a bit at an early age, but by adulthood everyone regresses back to their original potential. This is just another way of saying there is a shared environmental component to g at an early age, but none in adulthood [0]. 0. There is a shared environmental component for deprived shared environments, but it has to be very extreme to not washout by adulthood.
  - fjsolwmv 9y ago
    Ok, but g is an abstract psychological theory, not practical achievement and success in life.
    - danieltillett 9y ago
      Yes g is abstract, but it is more a summary of all the different factors that go into intelligence. It explains the otherwise very puzzling fact that if you measure one aspect of intelligence (say speed at which someone can do simple arithmetic) you can predict well how well they will do on something totally different (say identifying grammatical errors in a text).
contingencies 9y ago
Did "gifted and talented" for two years in the government program in Sydney, Australia, and it was awesome. Ages 10-11. This co-incided with my introduction to programming and electronics (I now run a robotics startup in China, after a successful software career). Almost no homework. Focus on collaboration and discussion, creativity and inter-domain reasoning. On the whole perhaps a big part of the benefit was being in the same school as others who weren't in the program and realising it's OK to be different/introspective.
WheelsAtLarge 9y ago
Gifted education has a big problem, pupils are fed the education adults feel they need to excel. Problem is that if students are always given the answers to life then they never learn how to maneuver thru the unknown path that life is. In academics the path to a Ph.D. is known, you can figure it out even for newborns. The problem is that in life there is no determined path. Gifted Education lacks the ability to teach children how to get from A to B without a determined path. So many of these programs are teaching kids how to be great students but not how to excel in life, 2 different goals. What society needs from their brightest are trailblazers that solve problems and make advances in any given field. What these programs produce are great professionals that aren't likely to be leaders in any field. I truly believe that once these kids know the basics these programs should help them figure out how to excel at life when the path is unknown by letting them make their own decisions and nudging them in the right direction rather than showing them how to get there. Also, every time I read about these kinds of programs, they try to identify the best by some kind of IQ. But as we all know smarts, not necessarily high IQ, and hard work is what makes the successful individual. Given 2 smart kids at the same level, hard work will determine who comes in on top. There needs to be a way to ID these kids so that it's not just IQ but a combination of hard work and intelligence. Also Gifted is a horrible name. It should be high achievers. My view is that geniuses are made not born.
z3t4 9y ago
Unless they score very high on an adult test it's impossible to tell how well they will do on the same test when they get older. So it's impossible to tell if a child is gifted or not. It has more to do with motivation and family support. One problem when everything is easy at young age is that they do not learn to work hard, and when their peers develop to the same level it will be very though for these children because in their mind they are the best.

248 points by nopinsight 9y ago

"Giftedness" doesn't just refer to high IQ, at least not as the US educational system treats it. It also refers to a cluster of personality traits that combine to make some kids utterly fail to thrive in normal classrooms, yet completely turn around in specialized environments. I can't take any article seriously that doesn't appreciate that giftedness is an educational concept, not a function of intelligence. My insight regarding giftedness is that if we could afford it, all kids would thrive if they could be placed in the kinds of small classroom creative learning environments that gifted kids can only thrive in. In other words, we're all "gifted", it's just that some of us are less adaptable than others. And while intelligence might be heritable, nurture is far more important when it comes to the development of children. The argument that it's largely heritable is the argument that the educational system is fine as it is and doesn't need any new ideas or money.

colordrops 9y ago
That sounds similarly euphemistic to the way the word "special" is used in the US.
- fjsolwmv 9y ago
  "special" isn't a euphemism in education. It literally means "non-mainstream customized treatment". It's used for both disabilities and gifted. "Special" is also a slang term for people with disabilities.
fjsolwmv 9y ago
There is no Nationwide standard for gifted. Some districts do Gifted, others Gifted and Talented. Some use IQ testing, some don't. Some do more creative project work than regular school, some regular schools also do creative project work.

Rainymood 9y ago

Paywall.

the-dude 9y ago
Web link
- Rainymood 9y ago
  I don't understand your comment. I can not read the article as it says "You've reached your article limit."
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
jtbayly 9y ago
Very confused why this has been downvoted. There is a paywall.
- detaro 9y ago
  Because HN's FAQ explicitly says "But please don't post complaints about paywalls. Those are off topic."

napier 9y ago

Paywall makes it impossible for most people to read this article.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

merricksb 9y ago

For those impeded by the paywall: http://archive.is/DIVlJ http://archive.is/DIVlJ

MsMowz 9y ago

Despite going through gifted education programs myself, I'm deeply skeptical of the concept of them in general, and I've only become more skeptical as new research emerged. Here's a good example for why I'm skeptical: >There is evidence that aspects of gifted education should influence education more broadly. Project Bright Idea, developed at Duke University, saw 10,000 typical nursery and primary-school pupils taught using methods often reserved for brainier kids—fostering high expectations, complex problem-solving and cultivating meta-cognition (or “thinking about thinking”). Nearly every one of them went on to do much better on tests than similar peers. Another way to phrase this is that this study demonstrated that people may become "high-achieving" because of gifted education programs, and not the other way around. Or perhaps typical pupils can become high-achieving by exposure to high-achieving pupils. The article's refutation of these ideas is the King's College study that determined that "50% of the variance in intelligence is heritable." Plomin's more recent (2015) research suggests this estimate was far too high, and should really be about 30% phenotypically, which makes me think there's no point in trying to find young Einsteins. If students are of average or slightly above average intelligence, Bright Idea style programs will be best for them, and if they are truly a "young Einstein," they'll demonstrate it on their own, just like old Einstein did.

nopinsight 9y ago
Einstein did receive good education and, perhaps more importantly, personal mentorship from his uncle and a family's tutor, who was a medical student, from an early age. All evidence suggests that his family cared very much about the quality of his education. His tutor went on to become a successful ophthalmologist who was well known for his success in treating cataracts. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Talmey https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Talmey) http://www.sparknotes.com/biography/einstein/section1/ http://www.sparknotes.com/biography/einstein/section1/ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein I agree with a sibling comment that the world probably misses out on many potential Einsteins because of inadequate mentorship and nurturing of high-potential children. I agree with you that many ideas from gifted programs should be implemented in curricula for 'regular' and above average kids as well.
- 9y ago

scientician 9y ago

As someone who has been through many forms of 'gifted' and 'enriched' and 'special' education, these articles always sadden me. Does anyone truly believe that optimizing children for their economic output really leads to a good life for their country? Here's a radical idea: let them have childhoods! I strongly support letting kids be free to develop and think for themselves. If a 'gifted' child can succeed despite being imprisoned in a school for many years, imagine how much they could grow and contribute if they were free? For anyone with children, or who cares about the future of western democracy, please look into https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudbury_school https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudbury_school

wyattpeak 9y ago
I'll bite - yes, I think it leads to both a good life for them and benefit for country. I don't know what your gifted education programs were like, but I never recall feeling like I missed out on my childhood. Occasionally I would take different classes to some of my friends (but with others), and that was about it. Far from keeping people from being free to develop and think for themselves, most of the gifted classes I took actively encouraged that, with open-ended problem solving and free-form classes often led by student interest. But children need to be reined in, they don't have the reasoning skills or understanding of adults; the one time I was allowed to fully control my own syllabus it led almost directly to me losing the ability to speak Cantonese, which I'd been fluent in up to that point. As a kid who'd spoken it all his life, I simply didn't believe all of the people who told me I'd forget it without practice. Because I was a child. I don't know exactly how free-form Sudbury Schools are, but I'd have extreme reservations about sending my children to one.
- crawfordcomeaux 9y ago
  So the lesson you learned wasn't that you had the power to choose what you learned and how to do so responsibly? Did you instead learn these things?: • exercising that power could lead to you losing a skill • doing so is bad • you don't have the power to choose your own course corrections when you notice a skill waning Based on your suggestion that children need to be controlled, I think your experience was limited and too short.

crawfordcomeaux 9y ago

In my experience, children don't thrive in one-size-fits-all programming. I apply intuitions from computer science when I think about this. As an example, let's look at teaching them to use the word "yet" when speaking negatively about themselves. This is a practice I took up at one point in my recovery from information addiction. It wasn't enough to really open me up. I had to make several other language hacks. I learned how to speak in active voice, largely dropped the words can't/should/shouldn't, and redefined a whole host of words for myself. I had to believe what I said, too, which we're awful at teaching how to do. I'm guessing it's because science is taught in a way that typically undermines the skill of choosing beliefs. I had to hack my language way more and I think a generalized approach to teach kids how to identify words they use to undermine themselves will work better than being told what words they need to change. The purpose of the hacks is to change their perception, after all. Language is an indicator, but without a process to identify what meaning they give you words and what they believe, we probably won't see much improvement if we focus on superficial language hacks. Hacking perception takes more than that.

IndigeniousWind 9y ago
I'm a little confused. Why did you start to change the way your spoke? I understand using the word "yet", but why the other ones like dropping "can't"? >I had to hack my language way more and I think a generalized approach to teach kids how to identify words they use to undermine themselves will work better than being told what words they need to change. Is this approach of yours about being more positive and less normative, and also being more optimistic that you can improve?
- crawfordcomeaux 9y ago
  I started working on active vs passive voice at the request of a therapist who recognized I was taking a very passive approach to life and thought the language shift might help with a mental shift. I found it helped me realize the ways I could change my behavior. Simply the act of monitoring and correcting my language was a practice in taking a more active role in my life. I dropped most words with opposites as a practice in nonjudgment. I kept a few around, like "love" and "can" because they're useful. "Can't" implies a belief that something's impossible. Believing that can keep us from imagining ways things CAN happen. It's therefore not useful to adopt the belief of "can't" if we want to explore possibilities. Having an exploratory mindset is really helpful while trying to learn how to meet one's needs. This approach is about seeing a way through things by learning to let go of how I judge something in order to see a way through it. Everything is a learning opportunity, so I'm working to enable/configure myself to learn more frequently. I do experience deep optimism. As for positivity, I prefer to acknowledge both sides of the coin. Does that answer your questions?

drawkbox 9y ago

I was in the GATE program in Utah [1] growing up and it was very project based. I think all education should encourage projects. In one case, we had to come up with products for younger kids and present and research the ideas, brainstorm, build prototypes, do user testing, and deliver it. A key aspect of the program was brainstorming which no idea is a bad idea but the best ideas floated to the top, this is important to learning. Finland is tops in education and lots of their teaching is letting kids pursue projects together and individually especially, the latter is very important for self-confidence. Finland does this through project- or phenomenon-based learning (PBL)[2]. This empowers kids and more closely resembles real life, you constantly have projects of all sorts going on in your life over overlapping timeframes, sometimes in a team, sometimes all by yourself. The best teachers also encourage projects. My 6th grade teacher had Apple II's and let us experiment with building games in BASIC of which I built a Tron game. I still think of it to this day. He also always had access to educational games like Oregon Trail. My high school computer lab teacher Mr Iles had gaming, programming and media/internet hardware and software setup to experiment with, many of the kids in that class and group are great programmers and some worked for intel while there. We had TV running on computers and internet before most saw those things and built things on it. He also let us play Scorched Earth and let programming projects be self-driven. My art teachers did critiques so you learned to take criticism and explain why. At Chandler High School there was a video class where you had to come up with video content, edit, produce, direct, write etc and that was amazing in terms of fun projects where I learned a great deal. All of this led to great educational outcomes both in team projects and individual. As long as a program is project based, a kid from anywhere or any level can benefit. We need more project based education in the US. Most gifted programs that do well do have a project based element to it, but not dictated to the kids as much as curriculum but a set of requirements and the rest is a creative exercise. [1] https://www.schools.utah.gov/curr/giftedtalented https://www.schools.utah.gov/curr/giftedtalented [2] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39889523 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39889523

DelightOne 9y ago
> [...] but a set of requirements [...]. What kind do you think of? - The steps you take? - Requirements on the results? Please enlighten me.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y ago

My personal opinion especially now is that gifted programs are a waste of time for the following reasons: 1) All students should be learning the fundamentals. 2) If you are gifted, being able to work with, communicate with, and help people less gifted than you is going to be a valuable life skill. 3) Finding new intellectually challenging things to do even in boring circumstances is a useful skill to learn. Even Einstein had to sit through boring faculty meetings. 4) In a gifted class, the child is probably substantially smarter than the teachers. Highly gifted people aren't going into elementary education in large enough numbers for their to be enough gifted teachers for the number of gifted students. 5) With the Internet and widespread knowledge, the truly gifted can learn so much on their own. Once a child knows how to read, curiosity, ability, and time are the only limits. With a truly gifted child, the less challenging the schoolwork is, the more time and energy they can dedicate to other things. 6) A stable, nurturing family that values and encourages intellectual achievement is probably far more important than what kind of school you go to as long as the school is competent. With regards to number 5, how many of you that learned programming as a kid, leaned it in school vs learned it on your own by reading books or via the Internet? As a society we should strive to make school something that teaches to basics well for all children and stimulates curiosity and gives children the necessary tools to learn on their own. * As an example of a gifted child, Von Neumann https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann is a much better example than Einstein.

FSharper 9y ago

Why does everyone here think his children are “gifted”? And shouldn’t you nurture the less gifted children?

truculation 9y ago

A simple way to help any kid: find out what he enjoys the most and help him to do more of it. Rinse. Repeat. No compulsion. No testing.

dominotw 9y ago
My kid just likes to run around all day and ride his bike.
- truculation 9y ago
  I found some videos; here's one with tips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLZ8xhWzDqw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLZ8xhWzDqw
kgwgk 9y ago
Maybe if the kid enjoys torturing animals a different approach is better.
- truculation 9y ago
  Maybe some kids get like that because they weren't helped in the first place. Regardless, we'd try moving on to something better that he prefers. My initial ideas are horror movies, FPS games, martial arts.
- stevenwoo 9y ago
  I know you're joking but there is an approach that seems to salvage some of those kids. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/06/when-your-child-is-a-psychopath/524502/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/06/when-yo...
mynameishere 9y ago
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Harry_S._Truman https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Harry_S._Truman I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.

ssivark 9y ago

It is important to acknowledge that school serves multiple purposes. It is definitely meant to educate students and hone their minds (and bodies). But given that students spend most of their day at school or doing school related activity, it is the only playground for kids to learn to socialize with their ilk. And cloistering someone away from that experience in a formative phase just to emphasize one axis of development (because they are “gifted”) is to do them a profound disservice. At the same time, the same can be said of forcing them to socialize while neglecting their mental development. So, the “right” solution would involve giving kids opportunities to challenge themselves in avenues where they are strong, and ensuring a rounded experience. Which is what schools are supposed to do, but they find it hard enough to cater to the “average” student :-/

DGAP 9y ago

I think there are a lot of good points being made here re: nature vs. nurture and not allowing children to have a childhood. As long as we agree that education should be a part of childhood, a good middle ground would be normalizing "skipping grades." It was definitely beneficial for me from a life and academic standpoint, the only negatives were social ostracism which decreased as I got older. I think this ostracism from peers would decrease if it was considered normal to skip.

pasbesoin 9y ago

Having been labeled "gifted" and various things, growing up (and "blowing" a few grade curves, either pleasing or pissing off the instructor, depending upon their personality). And after having suffered immensely, simultaneously, particularly because no one accepted what I actually said: "I need peace and quiet to work." "Stop fighting." "Just leave me alone." Number one way to nuture gifted children (per me): TEACH THEM TO STAND UP FOR THEMSELVES. AND TO RESPECT THEMSELVES, RATHER THAN CONSTANTLY DIMINISHING THEM WITH "CORRECTIONS" AND "COMPLIANCE". I was a pretty nice kid. And I've tried to be a pretty nice guy, as an adult. (I don't know, maybe I ended up partly being that "nice guy", as well... Clueless.) I didn't need a bunch of "socialization". I needed some acknowledgement and acceptance of what worked for me, and what didn't. And some HONESTY. Some of the things that most fucked me over, were people being dishonest. Whether maliciously or with "good intentions". So, if someone had taught me how to (physically, when necessary) keep the bullies off. And that I could indeed trust my intuition. Well, retrospect, but I kind of think I would have had the rest. In most of my classes, I pretty much ended up teaching myself, anyway. And I remember the subset of genuinely good instructors who did teach me things. They didn't merely recite. They paid attention, and added things they could see would be informative and useful to me. "Gifted". Right there, in the use of that term: You're often dealing with someone who doesn't "get it". /bitterness P.S. Lately, I've been on a medication that tends to get me a bit ramped up while also short-circuiting some of my natural "attention to detail" (aka "pause and check", etc.) This may be reflected in some of my posts. Sorry. Also, why didn't I do this for myself, as an adult. Well, the last couple of years of college and right after, prior history culminated in a couple of serious injuries that took away from my physical capabilities. I'll add that, in my personal experience, that's a real cut-off: Once you experience physiological losses you can't recoup, your world changes. The journey back from that is much more difficult, especially if/when they start to snowball. Another real reason to teach kids how to take care of themselves. And to respect themselves (NOT what you arbitrarily tell them). Get them self-sufficient in keeping themselves in good health. "Health is wealth". Boy, did I learn the aptness of that as I got older.

colordrops 9y ago

Instead of trying to strengthen "gifts", I think a more effective approach would be to remove barriers from growth. Even the most gifted children have countless barriers, whether financial, emotional, or motivational. If a child is painfully shy then therapy or some other form of work to open the child up would be far more effective than special teaching methods. Helping a child find a passion is more effective than deeper teaching on a subject they don't care about. These examples are high-level and grossly generalized, but everyone has countless micro and sometimes major traumas they've accumulated over time, and more attention needs to be put on mitigating these.

rabboRubble 9y ago

I have a young relative who was tracked into special education from early years. Finally, his educators gave him a standardized intelligence test. To their shock (and perhaps) horror, he came in in the top 1% for his age bracket. He is really, really intelligent. After this test, his guidance counselor sat him down and asked him how smart he thought he was. Answer, a morose and defeated "I'm stupid." Mind you, this answer came out of an 8-9 year old. After being told repeatedly that he was not good at school and that classes were too hard for him, he fully believed he was stupid. Once the adults around him stopped seeing a redneck country kid, once the adults recognized his poor school track record as a reflection of their biases and their poor performance he excelled. He is now captain of his high school robotics team. The team just won a position to compete in an international robotics competition in the next couple of weeks. Assuming they can raise the $30k to travel to Kentucky, ship their robots, find lodging, etc. It's a large fund raising amount for a non-Texas, non-football red state.

skj 9y ago
It's amazing how much expectations affect performance in children. It's why I scoff at those who present statistics saying insert-your-supposedly-inferior-group-here underperform compared to their favored "normal" group.
- noobhacker 9y ago
  What behavior do you think constitutes "treating children with high expectation"? I have high expectations for my teenage son, but it doesn't seem to matter as he often does not meet those expectations. I actually do not fault him for "failing" my expectations because I understand that he isn't yet properly motivated. If I were him, without the understanding I now have regarding the importance of habit, the need for deep learning, or the compounding interest of knowledge, etc., I wouldn't be motivated to meet those expectations either. It seems to me that the key to nurturing success is building motivation, rather than having high expectation. The former is much harder than the latter. Or perhaps I'm "having high expectation" in a wrong way, and would love to learn how to do it right.

rdl 9y ago

I benefitted a lot from my public school district’s pull-out gifted program (about 10% of days spent there, but 100% of the value I got out of school), as well as JHU’s SMPY/SET/CTY.

fny 9y ago

It's upsetting that we've known about this for decades from an insane random experiment that would never pass review today. Consider the 1966 study by Rosenthal and Jacobson "Teachers’ Expectancies: Determinants Of Pupils’ IQ Gains"[0] > Within each of 18 classrooms, an average of 20% of the children were reported to classroom teachers as showing unusual potential for intellectual gains. Eight months later these “unusual” children (who had actually been selected at random) showed significantly greater gains in IQ than did the remaining children in the control group. These effects of teachers’ expectancies operated primarily among the younger children. [0]: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.495.5453&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.495... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_effect

danieltillett 9y ago
You can push g around quite a bit at an early age, but by adulthood everyone regresses back to their original potential. This is just another way of saying there is a shared environmental component to g at an early age, but none in adulthood [0]. 0. There is a shared environmental component for deprived shared environments, but it has to be very extreme to not washout by adulthood.
- fjsolwmv 9y ago
  Ok, but g is an abstract psychological theory, not practical achievement and success in life.
  - danieltillett 9y ago
    Yes g is abstract, but it is more a summary of all the different factors that go into intelligence. It explains the otherwise very puzzling fact that if you measure one aspect of intelligence (say speed at which someone can do simple arithmetic) you can predict well how well they will do on something totally different (say identifying grammatical errors in a text).

contingencies 9y ago

Did "gifted and talented" for two years in the government program in Sydney, Australia, and it was awesome. Ages 10-11. This co-incided with my introduction to programming and electronics (I now run a robotics startup in China, after a successful software career). Almost no homework. Focus on collaboration and discussion, creativity and inter-domain reasoning. On the whole perhaps a big part of the benefit was being in the same school as others who weren't in the program and realising it's OK to be different/introspective.

WheelsAtLarge 9y ago

Gifted education has a big problem, pupils are fed the education adults feel they need to excel. Problem is that if students are always given the answers to life then they never learn how to maneuver thru the unknown path that life is. In academics the path to a Ph.D. is known, you can figure it out even for newborns. The problem is that in life there is no determined path. Gifted Education lacks the ability to teach children how to get from A to B without a determined path. So many of these programs are teaching kids how to be great students but not how to excel in life, 2 different goals. What society needs from their brightest are trailblazers that solve problems and make advances in any given field. What these programs produce are great professionals that aren't likely to be leaders in any field. I truly believe that once these kids know the basics these programs should help them figure out how to excel at life when the path is unknown by letting them make their own decisions and nudging them in the right direction rather than showing them how to get there. Also, every time I read about these kinds of programs, they try to identify the best by some kind of IQ. But as we all know smarts, not necessarily high IQ, and hard work is what makes the successful individual. Given 2 smart kids at the same level, hard work will determine who comes in on top. There needs to be a way to ID these kids so that it's not just IQ but a combination of hard work and intelligence. Also Gifted is a horrible name. It should be high achievers. My view is that geniuses are made not born.

z3t4 9y ago

Unless they score very high on an adult test it's impossible to tell how well they will do on the same test when they get older. So it's impossible to tell if a child is gifted or not. It has more to do with motivation and family support. One problem when everything is easy at young age is that they do not learn to work hard, and when their peers develop to the same level it will be very though for these children because in their mind they are the best.