I think a big one you didn’t touch on is being told you do well in school because you are smart, not because you put in the effort.
It’s a lie many start believing, that they don’t put in effort.
I think a big one you didn’t touch on is being told you do well in school because you are smart, not because you put in the effort.
It’s a lie many start believing, that they don’t put in effort.
Not sure that's true. I am by no means gifted in the sense of Terence Tao, or even people much more gifted than me but far less gifted than him, but I did well in school up to a certain point in college. I never really learned how to study until I got fairly far in my education process. I put very little effort into school up until that point. That's when I actually had to put effort in and it was quite a wake up call.
Exactly. Up to some point, you actually do well because you are smart. Then, in the middle of the game, the rules change (from your perspective), and it may catch you by surprise.
It would be much better for the gifted children to attend schools where their effort is visible since the beginning. That is, schools with other gifted children.
For example, in math, my kids didn't learn anything new during their first three years of the elementary school, because they already knew numbers and addition at kindergarten age. Yet they were forced to sit there for three years. It would have been better to give them a book to read, or a collection of interesting problems to solve.
> Exactly. Up to some point, you actually do well because you are smart.
No, you do well because you put in the effort. Even trivial effort is still effort. Sometimes it's all that's genuinely needed (quite often in fact!) and it's important to realize this - but not always, and that's important to realize as well.