A (female) mathematician friend of mine has often complained about the responses she often gets to her gender in her field; often she feels that others expect her to be incompetent until (and sometimes despite) being proven otherwise. The interesting thing is, she’s seen other women internalize this, resulting in “impostor syndrome”: effectively, no matter how well they do, they feel they don’t really understand the material, that they only got as far as they did by fluke, and that it’ll all come crashing down around them at any time. The interesting part is these women seem to do particularly well (barring nervous breakdowns) because they believe their abilities are not innate, and so they work much harder than they actually have to.
I think the same is true of men, albeit (based on this article) to a lesser extent. I coasted through most of my childhood on simply being smart, and it was only when I started forcing myself into difficult situations that I learned to actually develop abilities I didn’t have automatically. This is why I’m skeptical about “gifted” programmes: they segregate children based on innate talents, rather than emphasizing hard work and dedication, and that seems to leave a lot of otherwise intelligent people unable to cope with day-to-day existence outside the world of academia.
I might have expected that ‘gifted’ programmes would do the opposite, by putting children in an environment where their natural talents are nothing special you force them to actually put in some effort.
Although I’ve never been in one myself, so I guess it depends on the atmosphere;if its all about giving them easy challenges and making them feel good about themselves then you have a point, if the emphasis is more about winning and rewarding those who stick out from the crowd even in that situation, then maybe not.
I am currently a college student in a gifted program, and was in them all through elementary, middle, and high school. My experience has been that it wasn’t rewarding easy challenges, quite the contrary. The teachers I’ve had have been thrilled at having students that actually can handle a complex problem. They’ve mostly liked the challenge we provided. Although, for a few of my years, I’ve had teachers that genuinely were not as intelligent as the average student in the classroom. They had more factual knowledge, but not the actual thinking skills. Those years were rough.
My only major complaint about those classes was that the problems, in many cases, weren’t challenging enough. The teachers would pick complex topics for us to untangle, but the problem solving process typically took around 30 seconds. We very seldom did anything that required thinking for minutes. Nothing “impossible”. And we totally could have done those.
I would include that can be done in 30 seconds in the category of ‘easy challenges’, even if it would be quite hard for most people. Easiness is relative.
I agree. I tried to avoid phrasing it as “hard”, instead going with “complex”. What we were doing would have been extremely difficult for a lot of other students I know, but weren’t very difficult for us.
Hmm. Probably less. Not because the classes I actually took genuinely taught me how to work hard, but because if I hadn’t been in those classes I would have been able to get by with even less effort.
Not just the atmosphere—the skill with which the gifted program is designed.
And some gifted programs are worse than what you imagined—they just pile busywork on the students.
Developing good gifted programs is a hard (or if you prefer, complex) problem. I’d start by surveyed students and graduates from gifted programs about the their take on the value of various parts of the programs.
This is why I’m skeptical about “gifted” programmes: they segregate children based on innate talents, rather than emphasizing hard work and dedication, and that seems to leave a lot of otherwise intelligent people unable to cope with day-to-day existence outside the world of academia.
This is precisely why I endorse gifted programs.
No matter how much one values or promotes hard work as the road to achievement I think actually having to work harder to achieve “good results” imparts the lesson much better.
The greater problem is that talented children might get distorted ideas about what the average person is capable of. I have to constantly remind myself that the average person isn’t slightly above high school level because I’ve spent so much time in academia that even that seem almost too low to believe. Many people here probably spend days or weeks without ever talking to someone who is below 100, and don’t associate or work with people bellow 130. Its useful to remind myself that the average is determined by the adults my classmates in primary school turned into (on a meta-level I of course realize the school was attended by many more children from poor backgrounds than the norm)
Yes, this should definitely be taken into account. In fact, given the present state of many fields, I’m sure that for many people in academia the “impostor syndrome” is just a true realization that their work is worthless.
A (female) mathematician friend of mine has often complained about the responses she often gets to her gender in her field; often she feels that others expect her to be incompetent until (and sometimes despite) being proven otherwise. The interesting thing is, she’s seen other women internalize this, resulting in “impostor syndrome”: effectively, no matter how well they do, they feel they don’t really understand the material, that they only got as far as they did by fluke, and that it’ll all come crashing down around them at any time. The interesting part is these women seem to do particularly well (barring nervous breakdowns) because they believe their abilities are not innate, and so they work much harder than they actually have to.
I think the same is true of men, albeit (based on this article) to a lesser extent. I coasted through most of my childhood on simply being smart, and it was only when I started forcing myself into difficult situations that I learned to actually develop abilities I didn’t have automatically. This is why I’m skeptical about “gifted” programmes: they segregate children based on innate talents, rather than emphasizing hard work and dedication, and that seems to leave a lot of otherwise intelligent people unable to cope with day-to-day existence outside the world of academia.
I might have expected that ‘gifted’ programmes would do the opposite, by putting children in an environment where their natural talents are nothing special you force them to actually put in some effort.
Although I’ve never been in one myself, so I guess it depends on the atmosphere;if its all about giving them easy challenges and making them feel good about themselves then you have a point, if the emphasis is more about winning and rewarding those who stick out from the crowd even in that situation, then maybe not.
I am currently a college student in a gifted program, and was in them all through elementary, middle, and high school. My experience has been that it wasn’t rewarding easy challenges, quite the contrary. The teachers I’ve had have been thrilled at having students that actually can handle a complex problem. They’ve mostly liked the challenge we provided. Although, for a few of my years, I’ve had teachers that genuinely were not as intelligent as the average student in the classroom. They had more factual knowledge, but not the actual thinking skills. Those years were rough.
My only major complaint about those classes was that the problems, in many cases, weren’t challenging enough. The teachers would pick complex topics for us to untangle, but the problem solving process typically took around 30 seconds. We very seldom did anything that required thinking for minutes. Nothing “impossible”. And we totally could have done those.
I would include that can be done in 30 seconds in the category of ‘easy challenges’, even if it would be quite hard for most people. Easiness is relative.
I agree. I tried to avoid phrasing it as “hard”, instead going with “complex”. What we were doing would have been extremely difficult for a lot of other students I know, but weren’t very difficult for us.
Out of interest, do you have any idea whether you think you would be more or less hard-working had you not been in those classes?
Hmm. Probably less. Not because the classes I actually took genuinely taught me how to work hard, but because if I hadn’t been in those classes I would have been able to get by with even less effort.
Not just the atmosphere—the skill with which the gifted program is designed.
And some gifted programs are worse than what you imagined—they just pile busywork on the students.
Developing good gifted programs is a hard (or if you prefer, complex) problem. I’d start by surveyed students and graduates from gifted programs about the their take on the value of various parts of the programs.
This is precisely why I endorse gifted programs.
No matter how much one values or promotes hard work as the road to achievement I think actually having to work harder to achieve “good results” imparts the lesson much better.
The greater problem is that talented children might get distorted ideas about what the average person is capable of. I have to constantly remind myself that the average person isn’t slightly above high school level because I’ve spent so much time in academia that even that seem almost too low to believe. Many people here probably spend days or weeks without ever talking to someone who is below 100, and don’t associate or work with people bellow 130. Its useful to remind myself that the average is determined by the adults my classmates in primary school turned into (on a meta-level I of course realize the school was attended by many more children from poor backgrounds than the norm)
Impostor syndrome is pretty common among men too, in my experience. It may still be more common in women, but I’m not sure.
Yes, this should definitely be taken into account. In fact, given the present state of many fields, I’m sure that for many people in academia the “impostor syndrome” is just a true realization that their work is worthless.
Impostor syndrome is fairly common indeed.