This dichotomy of gifted/not gifted learners is heavily biased on what you see is all that is and ignores the cognitive medium, the water we all swim in and thr

This dichotomy of gifted/not gifted learners is heavily biased on what you see is all that is and ignores the cognitive medium, the water we all swim in and through we all interact. Yes, as s private tutor (mostly for maths) I witnessed young people (1 of 10) who are not only exceptionally fast at grasping abstract concepts but in the same breath can actually use them to infer/deduce correctly (at times in new ways). In that case I have to switch gears to keep them excited but at the same time rebuild their formal foundation which is weathered through the school system (strechted in time beyond recognition and disintegrated in small "digestible" pieces i.e. uncomplete or no proofs at all) without hampering their great intuitions, a very difficult task. That being said from a purely cognitive/neurological perspective the possibilities in "wiring the brain" are for all intents and purposes the same between healthy newborns. Our culture tends to overemphasize the little differences which has its upside in empowering the individual (very important!) but its downside in the indifference of the overwhelming similarities. Once I positively acknowledged the (nearly identical) neurophysiological start parameters in every human especially during the critical period from birth to adulthood, it changed my whole attitude. It is like realizing we all share the same very recent - in evolutionary terms - African origin, it puts relatedness into perspective. From that vantage point I feel much better equipped to appreciate the wonderful individual differences and discover the light and shadows of giftedness in every learner without the need for them in participating or winning math olympiads, international music competitions, chess tournaments, gymnastics championships ... Being familiar with the empirical example (admittedly small in sample size but nevertheless what are the odds?) of Judith Polgár [0] the impressivness all nearly lies in the determination of her father's experiment without having to resort to some dubious concept of "giftedness". This of course does not imply we should all teach everyone the same, but - quite the opposite- to the needs of the young (hearing them out), that's were I agree in conclusion but without the needless distinction between some upper limit of gifted and not gifted. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A1szl%C3%B3_Polg%C3%A1r https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A1szl%C3%B3_Polg%C3%A1r