<Sharing> How to Raise a Genius: Lessons from a 45-Year Study of Supersmart Children

​We'd like to share you this article, How to Raise a Genius: Lessons from a 45-Year Study of Supersmart Children, as well as our thoughts on the article as well as the talented/ special education environment now in Taiwan, which also shows TrinityScholar's mission for our students.

We wanted to share this article because this essentially explains the origin and the history of the Center for Talented Youth (CTY) program at Johns Hopkins University, the pioneer of gifted education for children.

If you have time, it is an article that is worth reading for all parents. For busy parents, we have summarized a few key points.

• The data from the research contradicts the current prevailing focus in the United States and other countries on improving the performance of struggling students.
• Study “suggests that early cognitive ability has more effect on achievement than either deliberate practice or environmental factors such as socio-economic status.” 
• spatial ability plays a major part in creativity and technical innovation. “I think it may be the largest known untapped source of human potential,” says Lubinski, who adds that students who are only marginally impressive in mathematics or verbal ability but high in spatial ability often make exceptional engineers, architects and surgeons. “And yet, no admissions directors I know of are looking at this, and it's generally overlooked in school-based assessments.” 
• The SMPY data supported the idea of accelerating fast learners by allowing them to skip school grades. In a comparison of children who bypassed a grade with a control group of similarly smart children who didn't, the grade-skippers were 60% more likely to earn doctorates or patents and more than twice as likely to get a PhD in a STEM field.
• Many educators and parents continue to believe that acceleration is bad for children—that it will hurt them socially, push them out of childhood or create knowledge gaps. But education researchers generally agree that acceleration benefits the vast majority of gifted children socially and emotionally, as well as academically and professionally.

Our observations & take away:

• For us, this article was quite refreshing and encouraging because the findings provided scientific support for some of the observations that we have made over the past 20 years in Taiwan.
• The point about spatial aptitude explains why we see many Taiwanese who seemingly fall through the cracks under Taiwan’s education system thrive when they go overseas and into an education system where this are multiple paths towards advancement.
• It also explains why there are no (or very few) “geniuses” in Taiwan despite the fact that Taiwanese are very “smart” as acceleration is not possible under Taiwan’s system and there are few opportunities even for gifted children to pursue their interests at an accelerated pace. We do believe in part this is due to cultural issues that place an overemphasis on seniority and “paying your dues.”
• Above all, I think this makes a very strong argument that the aim of good or effective education needs to be nurturing, personalized and inspirational as opposed to the rote memorization that is so prevalent in Asia. We particularly dislike the fact that a lot of content for children in Taiwan is “dumbed down” or patronizes kids.

Lastly, we hope this article will be useful for you as you think about how the activities that you guide your children toward may potentially impact them.