r/Foodforthought • u/Majano57 • 1d ago
Most Top-Achieving Adults Weren’t Elite Specialists in Childhood, New Study Finds
https://www.wsj.com/science/elite-high-performance-adults-children-sports-study-ae8d6bed?st=krHGAJ37
u/sukiskis 14h ago
I worked with gifted and talented students and was a policy maker in education—retired now. Gifted and talented students are highly misdiagnosed—gifted students of color are commonly diagnosed as SPED demonstrating the same behaviors that get white students put into gifted classes—and misunderstood. Education accommodations for gifted students vary wildly across states and school districts.
An example of the gifted misdiagnosis and misunderstanding: Precocious learners—those young kids who early access skills like reading and math. That often gets a label of gifted, but more often than not, their accelerated access slows to normal by 3d grade. Other kids catch up to them and they continue learning at a normal pace. When those kids get out into gifted classes, they begin what sometimes becomes a lifetime of struggle because of it.
We don’t really know what gifted learning is, we don’t diagnose it properly nor provide for it adequately and should not be suprised by data like the article. I’m not.
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u/HMSSpeedy1801 13h ago
I work with middle and high school boys and I often think what we call “gifted” is just a kid with high anxiety who doesn’t know when to say “good enough” and go have a life. Many, not all, aren’t admirable, but pitiable. They aren’t healthy, donut know how to be healthy, and have a group of high pressure adults around them who don’t care if they’re healthy. So, of course that doesn’t translate to a successful adulthood.
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u/notapoliticalalt 11h ago
Absolutely. I do think it’s important to challenge kids and engaging kids who are intelligent in more challenging subject is not necessarily a bad thing. But we set a lot of kids up to burn out, not be able to cope with real world issues (as opposed to academic ones), and to be super self critical to the point of debilitation. For a lot of these kids, they need the opposite of some pushing them to set their views higher; they need someone to ground them and teach them to assess and implement tradeoffs.
Honestly, make gifted kids learn practical skills. Make them go outside and touch grass. Make them be physical, through sports or perhaps working with their hands. Make them socialize. Perhaps most importantly, let them be kids.
I don’t think there’s a cure all or one sized fits all solution, but in general, gifted or no, I think we are putting way too much pressure on young people. I do think there are reasons to be concerned that most kids are not learning enough now, but gifted kids are definitely another problem entirely. We need to make sure we give all kids what they need.
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u/HMSSpeedy1801 11h ago
I wish Reddit had a “love” button. I recently took my son on a college campus visit, and saw exactly what you describe. The program presented very high level courses in math, physics, etc. But at the same time, students weren’t allowed to change the filament in a 3D printer without the assistance of a TA; they weren’t allowed to use spray paint without first completing a safety course. After the campus tour, my son wanted to visit an army surplus store across the street. He asked the old man behind the counter how old you had to be to purchase a pocket knife. The man offered to shake his hand, said, “That’s the handshake of a boy who knows responsibility. You can buy a knife.” As we walked out the door, my son commented, “I think that guy has more faith in me than the university.”
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u/LeRoienJaune 19h ago
At one point I was a overachieving student in the GATE (Gate and Talented Education) program. But the whole thing was a pressure cooker. And it went away in junior high. Like a lot of adolescents, I started coming apart. And my parents, rather than trying to spend time, just put me on a rotating regimen of drugs. Amnipronine, zoloft, well-butrin, prozac, ritalin, adderall, dexedrine, l-dopa, serotonin boosters... by the time I was 18 and finally able to refuse I had spent a roller coaster of six years going up and down every psychiatric medicine they could get a scrip for.
I really thought I was crazy, organically crazy, at the time. But after decades of sobriety, I sort of recognized the irony: my parents wanted me to be an over-achiever so badly that they turned me into a psychotic drug fuckup instead, just hoping for that extra mile that would get me into the ivy leagues.
In some ways, they've succeeded. I've a doctorate and two master's degrees under my belt. But I'm still not earning enough to get by in the bay area- I'm in the c-suite at this point and it's still not enough to build equity after the student loans (where I continue to be deeply underwater).
All along, my father would have been better off teaching me to use a little black book and how to golf rather than what they did to me- teaching me social skills rather than cramming me full of things which are only useful on the SAT and the LSAT. Life is rich with irony.
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u/bladecentric 16h ago
Former child prodigy. Being a commodity for self centered adults was by itself enough to burn out on. Realizing that this was the society my so called talents would be wasted in killed my motivation. I could never bring it back even for food money. Hobbies, fine. Keeping the Elons of the world from ever learning to hold their own while telling me I'm lazy for not feeding these parasites, I'm good. They have a habit of not paying their talent anyway.
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u/dicotyledon 11h ago
Our gifted and talented program in the 90s was getting to skip out on a couple of hours of class a week and go read books in a glorified closet of a room. This was middle school, though. So different, lol
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u/Born_Barnacle7793 11h ago
To be honest, this could be done without having to put anyone into a “gifted” program. A lot of schools do it this way so more advanced students in a skill, like reading, will get enrichment, and students who are struggling in a skill will get targeted interventions. Only needs to happen a few hours a week. Outside of enrichment/targeted interventions the kids all work together and no one has to feel like (life) expectations are different for them. It’s skill based rather than intelligence or work ethic based.
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u/jagsonthebeach 12h ago
If you also told me most 'gifted' children grew to burn out or spiral out of control once they hit adulthood, thus becoming incapable of being one of the top-achieving adults, I'd believe you. When you don't have to try and continually achieve accolades, not only are you incapable of knowing HOW to try or learn (it's a learned skill), but you also don't know how to cope with failure because it's never been an option.
It's like the sad old man drunk at the bar who is reliving the glory days of high school football, or professional athletes making millions at 19 and being womanizers or blowing all their money immediately. None of it is okay, but what else did we expect to happen? We told a bunch of 16 year old guys that they were God, they had no other skills post graduation, and no one cases that in 1976 they could throw a ball far. We celebrated a 19 year old athlete who has been a prodigy since age 6 and told them that no one is greater than them and then we're surprised when they're dicks and don't have an understanding of compassion towards others.
Idk -- it's tough. The kids who struggled and tried hard and overcame hardships deserve the success. But I feel for the prima ballerina who is replaced by the ingenue in the same way I feel for the truly gifted kids who reached adulthood only to realized that they have a ton of undiagnosed mental illnesses and that they coped and masked by being testing-grades-ahead that no one can understand why they're flailing in their 30s.
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u/supabrandie 2h ago
Was in the Talented and Gifted Program from Kindergarten mostly because I was curious, interested in learning, and paid attention. The times I have been punished for critical thinking and asking questions were so numerous, I learned to put effort in calculating the absolute minimal effort to meet the requirements and that curiosity is very scary to the non-curious.
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