If you can give your son or daughter only one gift, let it be enthusiasm. (Bruce Barton)
Education is a complex, multifaceted, and painstaking process, and being gifted does not make this less so. I would caution against any single “silver bullet” to educating a gifted child, whether it be a special school, private tutoring, home schooling, grade acceleration, or anything else; these are all options with advantages and disadvantages, and need to be weighed against the various requirements and preferences (both academic and non-academic) of the child, the parents, and the school. Since this varies so much from child to child, I cannot give any specific advice on a given child’s situation. [In particular, due to many existing time commitments and high volume of requests, I am unable to personally respond to any queries regarding gifted education.]
I can give a few general pieces of advice, though. Firstly, one should not focus overly much on a specific artificial benchmark, such as obtaining degree X from prestigious institution Y in only Z years, or on scoring A on test B at age C. In the long term, these feats will not be the most important or decisive moments in the child’s career; also, any short-term advantage one might gain in working excessively towards such benchmarks may be outweighed by the time and energy that such a goal takes away from other aspects of a child’s social, emotional, academic, physical, or intellectual development. Of course, one should still work hard, and participate in competitions if one wishes; but competitions and academic achievements should not be viewed as ends in themselves, but rather a way to develop one’s talents, experience, knowledge, and enjoyment of the subject.
Secondly, I feel that it is important to enjoy one’s work; this is what sustains and drives a person throughout the duration of his or her career, and holds burnout at bay. It would be a tragedy if a well-meaning parent, by pushing too hard (or too little) for the development of their child’s gifts in a subject, ended up accidentally extinguishing the child’s love for that subject. The pace of the child’s education should be driven more by the eagerness of the child than the eagerness of the parent.
Thirdly, one should praise one’s children for their efforts and achievements (which they can control), and not for their innate talents (which they cannot). This article by Po Bronson describes this point excellently. See also the Scientific American article “The secret to raising smart kids” for a similar viewpoint.
Finally, one should be flexible in one’s goals. A child may be initially gifted in field X, but decides that field Y is more enjoyable or is a better fit. This may be a better choice, even if Y is “less prestigious” than X; sometimes it is better to work in a less well known field that one feels competent and comfortable in, than in a “hot” but competitive field that one feels unsuitable for. (See also Ricardo’s law of comparative advantage.)
My own education is discussed in the following articles. While I am very happy with the way things turned out for me, I would again caution that each child’s situation, strengths, and weaknesses are different, and that my experience might not necessarily be the ideal template to follow for others.
- “Terence Tao”, Ken Clements, Educational Studies in Mathematics, August 1984, Vol. 15, No. 3, 213-238
- “Parental involvement in Gifted Education”, Billy Tao, Educational Studies in Mathematics, August 1986, Vol. 17, No. 3, 313-321
- “Radical Acceleration in Australia: Terence Tao”, Miraca Gross, G/C/T, July/August 1986
- “Insights from SMPY’s greatest former child prodigies: Drs. Terence (“Terry”) Tao and Lenhard (“Lenny”) Ng reflect on their talent development”, Michelle Muratori, Julian Stanley, Lenhard Ng, Jack Ng, Miraca Gross, Terence Tao, Billy Tao, Gifted Child Quarterly, Fall 2006, Vol. 50, No. 4, 307-324
For professional advice on gifted education, I can recommend the Center for Talented Youth. See also my page on career advice.
44 comments
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10 June, 2007 at 9:11 am
A few good links « Home Schooled
[…] Tao put his career advice on his blog. I found the page on gifted education particularly interesting and I think the advice is pretty general — not just for […]
11 June, 2007 at 2:26 pm
Rolfe Schmidt
Thanks for making your advice available in this format Terry.
I have been thinking quite a bit about how to teach kids Math lately. I’ve collected some of my observations here, and will keep adding to it. I go into some detail about different activities I’ve found that work. But the real point of all of it is one you made here: a child needs to follow their interests and enjoy the work.
8 July, 2007 at 6:59 am
The Rot Within :: Education :: July :: 2007
[…] education in general, and gifted education in particular, runs contrary to the principles laid down by Fields medallist and former child prodigy Terence Tao. Competitions in order to improve oneself? […]
29 January, 2008 at 4:52 am
Thomas Riepe
Acc. to Prof. Siebeneicher, the teaching of mathematics for children was much better long ago when it was done by real mathematicians instead of didacticians. His website with texts e.g. from which Euler and Gauss learned:
http://www.mathematik.uni-bielefeld.de/~sieben/Rechnen.html
http://www.mathematik.uni-bielefeld.de/~sieben/
BTW, Einstein stressed the importance for him of child-like curiosity and gave one of his toys he had as young child to a colleague to underline that. Dan Grayson found it recently in a private museum on creativity and childhood:

22 May, 2008 at 7:28 pm
Education
Getting an education can take time and money. But for many careers, it is necessary in order to earn promotions or even find an entry level position.
6 September, 2008 at 9:05 pm
Mike
Thank you for your advice!
20 November, 2008 at 11:00 pm
David Montan
Nice blog. Education is important and has become even more important in this recession. People need college now more than ever … not to get a new job but to keep the job they currently have. Competition for the few open jobs that are available is fierce and people that are undereducated are finding it impossible to get a decent job. Go into your local fast food joint and see how many middle aged people are moonlighting to make ends meet.
15 December, 2008 at 10:13 am
tonytrainor
If a child is gifted in a particular area of study or craft, their true interests may lie in another field. That is why it is important to be attentive to the joys and wishes of every individual and not simply encourage what is seen to produce results. Would Mozart have found satisfaction in this day and age with his knees permanently supporting a piano keyboard? It’s likely he would have been a competent blogger with a knack for finding a key turn of phrase.
6 April, 2009 at 9:45 pm
Dan Rosenfield
As a veteran educator, I very much agree with your advice about praising children for achievements as opposed to talent. I always did something related to that with my own children and my students; I continually reminded them how many bright, talented people there are in the world and that virtually nobody could achieve challenging educational or career goals without dedication.
19 April, 2009 at 6:54 pm
Barbara Stolzenburg
Terence,
Thank you for your blog and website-abounding with rich resources. I just mailed the link to your blog on advice on gifted education to my staff. Jackson High School in Mill Creek WA is a school of 2000+ students just 30 minutes N. of Seattle. We have a staff of approx 90-100 amazing educators, working hard to provide a quality education for our pupils. Your blog speaks directly to our goal of bringing each and every one to graduation prepared for the challenges of their post high school education and career.
Sincerely,
Barbara Stolzenburg
JHS Teacher Librarian
Mill Creek, WA 98012
bstolzenburg@everettsd.org
20 April, 2009 at 2:01 pm
Jonathan Vos Post
Another of Terry Tao’s threads is on whether one has to be a genius to do Math. Related to that is the question of metacognition by math students: do they think that their intelligence is a fixed resource, or one that can be increased by some strategy (which includes practice)? Further, how does this belief correlate with performance?
I’ve been interested in the decades of research by C.S. Dweck. The first key paper being Dweck, C. S.: The role of expectations and attributions in the alleviation of learned helplessness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, (1975), 31, 674-685.
If I may quote from
http://www.ncirl.ie/dynamic/File/Research/1st%20technical%20report_TH06.pdf
“Dweck (1975) found that, following failure, many students improved when teachers stated that the students did not seem to be trying hard enough. This was especially true if the students believed that their failure was a result of lack of effort. Dweck states that effort explanations are readily
changeable; decisions about how much effort to expend are under personal control. By comparison, if a student believes that s/he simply does not have the ability and therefore that failure is beyond personal control, then the student will feel there is nothing much s/he can do
about it. Unfortunately, attributions for failure, practiced again and again, become self-fulfilling prophecies. After several years of practice, unwittingly reinforced by teachers’ hints about ability, student attributions for failure become resistant to change.”
After some of my Math lessons in urban high schools, I give the students a survey which asks, among other things, if they believe that doing interesting work can make them “smarter.” Those that think so seem to be the more motivated ones.
I also like the work of Carole Beal (Professor of Cognitive Science, College of Social & Behavioral Sciences, University of Arizona). For example:
Beal, C. R., Chiu, Y., Shaw, E., & Vilhjamsson, H. (2005). Metacognitive reflection in ITS math problem solving.
Abstract: High school students used a self-reflection feature integrated into a mathematics ITS to indicate what they found difficult about a math problem, and what insights were required to solve it. Results indicated that students could often identify what specific information would help them solve a problem, and could evaluate what was helpful and not helpful about the multimedia explanations. Future work will focus on the impact of self-reflection on students’ problem solving and transfer.
15 June, 2009 at 3:34 pm
Amand
Hi Terrence – I would be interested in reading your fathers article about parents involvment in gifted education. have you got one in another format to put on this lovely website :-) Tanks Amnda
15 June, 2009 at 9:18 pm
Jonathan Vos Post
On 5 June 2009 I received my Charter College of Education, California State
University, Los Angeles, “Directed Teaching/Demonstration of Competencies Evaluation” after 4 hours of lessons observed by a Supervisor. “Exceeds Standards” in Planning; Content Knowledge in Planning and Instruction; Written Plans; Student Reflection on Learning and Learning Processes; Uses of Instructional Technology; Record Keeping; Working With Culturally Diverse Populations.
University Supervisor Ron Sakoda adds: “Professor Post’s lesson plans include: California academic content standars, learning goals, lesson rational[e], and differentiated instruction for English language learners and gifted students.
That’s the challenge in secondary schools: to keep those who’ve fallen behind able to catch up, while accelerating and engaging the ones who were ahead and would otherwise get bored.
Teaching is both a science and an art. They don’t know how to teach teachers the art. But the science is a fairly well known set of methodologies that vary in efficacy depending on the learning style and sensory modality of the student. So, yes, I also would like to know Terry’s Dad’s approaches here. We know what John von Neumann’s Dad did for him, and then he for his daughter Marina…
18 June, 2009 at 9:31 am
Hanna
Hi I would also be very interested in reading Billy Tao’s article. In my opinion behind the ‘gifted child’ there will be lots of parent child interaction and encouragement to the natural curiosity that is inherent in any small child. So if someone has a copy of this article and would email it to me I would be very grateful.
22 July, 2009 at 6:02 pm
Michelle
I agree with this wholeheartedly. As a parent of a mathematics prodigy who began college at 11 and continues to thrive at 13 – many things you’ve pointed out rings true in our experience as well.
Which is exactly why I’ve encouraged other parents not to “hang their hats” on only one approach. It is more a delicate blending of resources, teaching methods, etc. when engaging gifted youth – particularly profoundly gifted youth.
Hence, so many adults who were gifted as youth almost always express disappointment with the “gifted schools” they attended or with some of the gifted programs in which their children now participate.
Thank you for affirming my parental stance on the matter and I will be sharing this article with my clients, peers and those who call themselves experts in the field.
10 November, 2009 at 11:32 am
Parenting advice « Gavorge
[…] mathematician) pointed me to one of the most important elements of parenting via his blog archive: one should praise one’s children for their efforts and achievements (which they can control), […]
19 November, 2009 at 4:38 am
Evan Roey
What a precious advice! We should interact with our children for his/her better future!
Education Analyst
7 January, 2010 at 2:37 pm
fizzix » Parenting Advice
[…] mathematician) pointed me to one of the most important elements of parenting via his blog archive: one should praise one’s children for their efforts and achievements (which they can control), […]
17 April, 2010 at 9:27 pm
Joanna
The link to the third article (“Radical Acceleration in Australia: Terence Tao”, Miraca Gross, G/C/T, July/August 1986) is now broken — the hosting on the domain seems to have expired.
[Thanks for the notification; I’ve put in an alternate link. – T.]
18 April, 2010 at 9:16 am
Silvia Rinaldy
Great article you have regarding this issue. It’s been challenging for me as parent of a mathematics prodigy to know how to balance the attitude of ‘push’ between parent’s ego and child’s interest.
How much effort is enough? I am still learning to find the balance so that I’ll continue to inspire my son in his best interest.
This article opened my eyes even wider about the current situation. BIG Thank you, Terence! GBU.
12 July, 2010 at 8:39 am
jack ma
Thank you, Terence Tao. After reading some of the papers regarding this issue, I feel relieved. Even though we do not have all the answers, we have some progress in this area. You are right: everyone is unique and we should not have one model fits all. It requires parents and educators constantly evaluate and nurture our gifted kids in an open minded way. My questions to you are: Do you have a mentor when you grow up? How do you find him?
30 October, 2010 at 2:15 pm
David
Very interesting post! Many don’t feel 100% the same way and that is a shame. Keep up the posting :)
21 February, 2011 at 8:02 pm
Gaurav
Thank you Prof. I got this article very useful for me. I don’t think that I’m gifted, but many people around me– think so. And this is (may be) a reason, why I haven’t good friends. Sometimes gifted kids are treated as ‘Strange one’, not as a common kid.
22 February, 2011 at 6:02 am
Roger Witte
When I was at school I had a friend who was very talented at biology. His parents pushed and pushed for him to become a doctor. As a result, he rebelled, declined to go to university, and became a motocycle courier. About three years later he got bored, and (without telling his parents) he began studying part-time to be an osteopath. He passed all his osteopathy exams, and reconciled with his parents, shortly before we lost contact, quarter of a century ago. I think this is a perfect example of why “The pace of the child’s education should be driven more by the eagerness of the child than the eagerness of the parent”. (I should add that the attitude of the parents in this case were probably the result of grief; they only started pushing too hard after his elder sister died, very young, shortly after her medical qualification).
15 September, 2011 at 1:49 pm
Lê Văn Út
I found that many developed countries are actually against the gifted education. A common argument is that the young should grow as much naturally as possible.
3 July, 2012 at 3:12 am
Lakhwinder
Nice article , Many Persons are ignored from Gifted education due to restriction by many countries
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27 September, 2012 at 8:50 pm
Rhetorical analysis | yoeripegelenglish1001
[…] https://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/advice-on-gifted-education/ […]
8 October, 2012 at 1:49 am
baotangquoc
Dear Prof. Terrence Tao. You have many nice advices on studying and doing Mathematics. It helps and encourages me very much in studying Maths.
Could I translate some of your posts and share it to students in my country (Vietnam)? Of course, the translations are always reference to your blog.
8 October, 2012 at 11:40 am
Terence Tao
Yes; see the last section of https://terrytao.wordpress.com/about/
18 October, 2012 at 10:54 am
Quora
Are child prodigies a result of nature or nurture?…
Nature gives you the head start and nurturing determines how far you go. Terrence Tao, a child prodigy and known as Mozart of Mathematics, has an amazing article on how this talent can be channelized through proper education. (http://terrytao.wordpress…
16 December, 2012 at 3:00 pm
Matt Anthony
Be consistent. Children function better when they know what is going to happen during the day, especially young children. A huge change in schedule or no schedule will give you very crabby children. They will feel like they are out of control, and they will show you that in their behavior.
7 April, 2013 at 6:01 pm
acerealkiller
Hi Dr. Tao,
This is a point that is seriously understressed when it comes to gifted students. I am a high schooler and many of my friends compete in math competitions (such as HMMT, AMC etc…) as resume padding rather than an opportunity to advance their skills. I am curious as how you are approaching your children’s education as you are a dad of two. Are you exposing them to numerous subjects of interests (such as dance, music, so on) or letting them explore for themselves?
Thanks
26 September, 2013 at 3:21 am
Mani
I think it is important to speed up education for gifted girls. From my own experience, a working woman who has to juggle family and career is better off to have her degree and established career at an early age and not let it collide with child bearing ages that give you only 6 months maternity leave per child. And then, if you want to have more than one child, you cannot afford childcare anyways – you should top up your salary to send your kids away to nursery while you are working for less money than you can afford paying for their nursery. You are either expected to dump your career progression and stabilization, or dump your child in a nursery or with a nanny, this is the price you pay for being smart and wanting to have a career as a woman. But, if you have already have an established career at an early age, you won’t need to suffer through such things.
30 January, 2014 at 8:03 pm
Henrique Heine
I would say that you are a complete human being. To have such a humble view of someone’s growth, you have to be very logical and mature about it. What drives a great mind is not the path, but the goal. Since the goal should be conquered, the child should be prepared and educated for the journey. But it’s the child that must have all the freedom to continue or not the every day labour, to fly over the details and be the one who is going to master the subject. There is no real evidence that education comes over the inner necessity, the pleasure of discovery.
Let the freedom be the guide, but give the material and psychological support is fundamental in the development of a child.
Great minds always have great mentors. This is a proof of concept. The 10-90 concept is also a proof of concept.
17 March, 2014 at 1:56 am
Chandan Kumar Patra
The factors that influence in choosing education and career include skills, competency & interest which are greatly influenced by society, Culture, Gender, Social and Economic Conditions, Fantasies of children & parents, peer students characteristics and money. Very often we forget to include very important factors such as personality, intelligence, attitude, and beliefs…. Read more
http://astrotulsi.blogspot.in/2014/03/which-education-best-suits-your-child.html
26 July, 2014 at 4:41 am
Anonymous
If a gifted student lives in a country where there is no culture for accelerated education, let alone gifted programs (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante), do you think said student may be able to fulfill their potential, even if they don’t realize that they do have above-average academic capabilities until their late teens? In particular, do you think it could be directly damaging to a gifted child’s career to not customize his or her’s education according to his or her’s needs, but simply follow the standard model?
19 December, 2016 at 10:57 am
Marcus Anderson
Is there any chance, Terry, you will ever refute public claims to your purported “IQ of 230” ?
You must know that clams by others to your IQ of 230 is a complete misrepresentation. Your apparent failure to address this public statistical misrepresentation while accepting prestigious awards in mathematics is a gross hypocrisy and disservice to society.
Your silence insults the genuine work done to address the special needs of the gifted by perpetuating stereotypes involving giftedness that had already been debunked well before you were born. Y
et you deign to offer advice on gifted education in spite of your being clearly outside your area of competence.to do so. That fact is evident by your unwillingness to recognise the psychological damage you inflict on other gifted individuals by allowing bogus claims of your IQ to perpetuate and fester unchallenged in the public mind.
What actually is your purpose in your allowing this very public statistical lie surrounding you to go unchallenged? Are you that naïve, or just plain evil ?
I suggest a paper from you – investigating the statistical inaccuracy of IQ testing, the misuse of raw scores, and their inability to measure IQ at the upper extremes – should be your highest priority.
Indeed the subject has already been well and truly investigated, but maybe you might like to comment yourself on the veracity of research and findings that convincingly prove how “IQ of 230” is nothing short of an absolutely laughable and insulting statistical lie.
19 December, 2016 at 11:13 am
Terence Tao
Well, it is actually true that I took an IQ test (among many other such tests, administered by various professionals in gifted education) at the age of 9, and happened to obtain a score of 221. This was reported (in passing, and with appropriate regard for measurement error) as “between 220 and 230” in the article M. Gross, “Radical Acceleration in Australia: Terence Tao”, Gifted Child Today, July/August 1986 linked to in the above post. As best as I can tell, this eventually mutated into “as high as 230” on various internet sites, and finally to the erroneous figure of 230 cited on several further sites. (The original figure of 221 can for instance be found in this local media story from 1985.)
I do agree though that IQ is a largely irrelevant statistic for determining or predicting performance in mathematical research; see for instance my 2007 commentary on this at https://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/does-one-have-to-be-a-genius-to-do-maths/#comment-22648 . See also the article B. Tao, “Parental involvement in Gifted Education”, Educational Studies in Mathematics, August 1986 by my father, also linked to in the above post, which also discusses the role (or lack thereof) of IQ in gifted education.
As I said in that previous commentary, it is strange that IQ has such a hold over the popular imagination; it was for instance among the least important aspects of the article of Gross above, but it was the only one which somehow “went viral” (and also “mutated”, as mentioned above). I however do not see a practical way to correct this numerical inaccuracy on the internet without drawing even more undeserved attention to this particular statistic.
25 May, 2017 at 4:18 am
Bé Dưa Hấu
Greeting, professor. I am one of your big fans. I would appreciate if you could let me translate your posts about career advice to my language and re-post it on my blog.
Thank you in advance.
4 June, 2017 at 8:01 am
Omi
Why did you say education is a complex, multifaceted and painstaking process? It’s making me to perceive education as a harder process than it was to me. I lost the fun in it.
4 June, 2017 at 8:49 am
Omi
If you yourself have said that education is a complex, multifaceted and painstaking process, then how can it be enjoyable to someone?
8 June, 2017 at 8:41 am
Omi
Sorry! I actually know what you wanted to say. But I wanted to know what your reply to my above comment would be. Because I wanted your direct reply, so I would know your point of view from a direct angle. :p
8 June, 2017 at 9:05 am
Omi
Please! If you can ever manage the time, please do tell me how can one enjoy a complex, multifaceted and painstaking process? Or does one should?
P.S: I’m a great fan of yours and I think you are the best mathematician ever.
15 September, 2018 at 4:02 pm
Is there a good way that schools could better serve their most advanced students? – Teaching With Problems
[…] in a Ph.D. by the age of 21 and a remarkable and balanced life since. He has since given his own advice on gifted […]