<story><title>New research suggests new ways to nurture gifted children</title><url>https://www.economist.com/news/international/21739144-new-research-suggests-new-ways-nurture-gifted-children-how-and-why-search-young</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>MsMowz</author><text>Despite going through gifted education programs myself, I&amp;#x27;m deeply skeptical of the concept of them in general, and I&amp;#x27;ve only become more skeptical as new research emerged. Here&amp;#x27;s a good example for why I&amp;#x27;m skeptical:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;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.&lt;p&gt;Another way to phrase this is that this study demonstrated that people may become &amp;quot;high-achieving&amp;quot; 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.&lt;p&gt;The article&amp;#x27;s refutation of these ideas is the King&amp;#x27;s College study that determined that &amp;quot;50% of the variance in intelligence is heritable.&amp;quot; Plomin&amp;#x27;s more recent (2015) research suggests this estimate was far too high, and should really be about 30% phenotypically, which makes me think there&amp;#x27;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 &amp;quot;young Einstein,&amp;quot; they&amp;#x27;ll demonstrate it on their own, just like old Einstein did.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>majos</author><text>&amp;gt; and if they are truly a &amp;quot;young Einstein,&amp;quot; they&amp;#x27;ll demonstrate it on their own, just like old Einstein did.&lt;p&gt;I disagree with this. The fact that some young prodigies proved it early and eventually became productive adult geniuses is not, to me, evidence that young prodigies will show themselves. Rather, I would expect that there are &lt;i&gt;more&lt;/i&gt; young Einsteins who do not receive adequate mentorship, resources, or opportunities to become old Einsteins.&lt;p&gt;Some make it anyway. Ramanujan is an interesting case. By Hardy&amp;#x27;s estimate, he was one of the best mathematical minds of the 20th century, and he demonstrated clear mathematical talent by high school age. And he &lt;i&gt;still&lt;/i&gt; barely made it, thanks to a fragile chain of people who recognized his talent and drive. It&amp;#x27;s very easy for me to imagine a world in which Ramanujan stays in India and remains a bureaucrat doing math on the side.&lt;p&gt;But as I understand it, pedagogy for young Einsteins is still not that well understood.</text></comment>
<story><title>New research suggests new ways to nurture gifted children</title><url>https://www.economist.com/news/international/21739144-new-research-suggests-new-ways-nurture-gifted-children-how-and-why-search-young</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>MsMowz</author><text>Despite going through gifted education programs myself, I&amp;#x27;m deeply skeptical of the concept of them in general, and I&amp;#x27;ve only become more skeptical as new research emerged. Here&amp;#x27;s a good example for why I&amp;#x27;m skeptical:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;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.&lt;p&gt;Another way to phrase this is that this study demonstrated that people may become &amp;quot;high-achieving&amp;quot; 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.&lt;p&gt;The article&amp;#x27;s refutation of these ideas is the King&amp;#x27;s College study that determined that &amp;quot;50% of the variance in intelligence is heritable.&amp;quot; Plomin&amp;#x27;s more recent (2015) research suggests this estimate was far too high, and should really be about 30% phenotypically, which makes me think there&amp;#x27;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 &amp;quot;young Einstein,&amp;quot; they&amp;#x27;ll demonstrate it on their own, just like old Einstein did.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>nopinsight</author><text>Einstein did receive good education and, perhaps more importantly, &lt;i&gt;personal mentorship&lt;/i&gt; from his uncle and a family&amp;#x27;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.&lt;p&gt;His tutor went on to become a successful ophthalmologist who was well known for his success in treating cataracts. (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Max_Talmey&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Max_Talmey&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.sparknotes.com&amp;#x2F;biography&amp;#x2F;einstein&amp;#x2F;section1&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.sparknotes.com&amp;#x2F;biography&amp;#x2F;einstein&amp;#x2F;section1&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Albert_Einstein&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Albert_Einstein&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;I agree with you that many ideas from gifted programs should be implemented in curricula for &amp;#x27;regular&amp;#x27; and above average kids as well.</text></comment>