«Talent is found everywhere»

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You both are known for very special long-term scientific intelligence studies. What did you do?

Camilla Benbow: We took kids who were 12 years old and gave them a test in mathematics. Out of them, we chose kids for our long-term studies who were very good at reasoning mathematically, who could figure out a way to solve a problem before they were even taught about it. Shortly after our study began, we also selected 12-year-olds based on their verbal reasoning abilities. After testing them when they were 12, we followed them and assessed their life outcomes at 18, 23, in their mid-30s and in their 50s. Now we’re waiting for them to turn 65. Our first age 65 follow up survey will be launched in January, 2027.

 

What did you find out?

Benbow: All our participants are in the top 1 percent of ability. Although in general all of these kids do well, the kids with the highest scores on the whole tended to do a whole lot better than the kids who scored at the lower end in terms of creativity and employment. The differences in eventual achievement between the top quarter of the top 1 percent and the bottom quarter of the top 1 percent are huge.

 

And you found out that educational intervention pays off for these kids.

Benbow: Yes, if we intervene educationally on their behalf, we can see the impact of that educational intervention decades later. So, if you provide a special program for them when they’re teenagers, they tend to do better. Their achievements are very wide-ranging, socially valued, and creative. When we think about the various issues facing society today (climate change, cybersecurity, pandemics, etc.), the people who are going to solve these problems are more likely to come from the pool of the very top 1 percent. Society will benefit from having them educated to their full potential, because they will more likely achieve more highly.

David Lubinski: Just to give you a purchase on this: The IQs of the top 1 percent start at about 137 and go beyond 200. The same is true for specific abilities in mathematical reasoning, verbal reasoning and spatial reasoning. We have mapped the outer envelope of reasoning with words, numbers, shapes and forms. We show that individual differences in these patterns play out in terms of the different careers they pursue.

 

How?

Lubinski: Many girls and women end up in medicine and in law. They’re not underachieving at all – for the past 15 years, in the US more master’s degrees and doctorates have been issued to women than men – but they go into different areas than men. For example, there’s a gender difference in preference for learning about and working with inorganic versus organic materials. Women who are mathematically talented prefer scientific pursuits in bioengineering, botany, medicine, developmental psychology, and veterinary medicine: 80 percent of developmental psychologists at the PhD level are women.

 

Camilla, when you were in Switzerland last summer, you emphasized standardized tests to find out who has which ability. Why?

Benbow: Using standardized tests reduces the subjective bias. They give students the chance to show what they can do, irrespective of their backgrounds and the opportunities they’ve been given. We want to identify the kids who have talents that may be hidden or haven’t been exposed, and give them an opportunity. That’s what the test does: it helps us find those diamonds in the rough.

 

Rapper Jay-Z said once that he owes his career to one female teacher he had: “A sixth-grade teacher said: You know, you are kinda smart. And I believed her. (…) She sparked that idea in my mind.”

Benbow: A teacher can have an incredible impact on a gifted child’s career, to help them believe in themselves and to develop their self-confidence. But we also have lots of examples of teachers not recognizing talents, arguing that a kid is not talented and does not belong in this advanced class.

Lubinski: The indicators we use only correlate 0.40 with socioeconomic status – people really underappreciate that. It means that you have to cast a wide net to identify these kids and talent. Talent is found everywhere.

 

What is your view of the school system?

Benbow: Right now, the education system operates in a mass-production methodology. When we established universal education and mandated that all children should go to school, we adopted an industrial model of moving them through grades. But that doesn’t just apply to the gifted.

«Right now, the education system operates in a mass-production methodology.»

 

In which direction should schools develop?

Benbow: The general principles are appropriate developmental placement and personalizing education. All kids deserve to learn something new every day. They all deserve to be challenged. But there are differences in abilities, differences in achievement, differences in what they have accomplished, and we should be responsive to those differences. What is challenging for one child may not be challenging to another and may be way too hard for another child. With the opportunities that AI and technology bring, we should be able to provide a more individualized, personal kind of education. If somebody is advanced and needs a math course that is designated for older students, let them do it: You just put them in a class that fits what they can do, and nobody worries about age. We need to allow more flexibility and more personalization. Let kids move ahead at their own speed or go more deeply, but really be much more flexible with the curriculum, so that every child is challenged.

 

What happens when flexibility is lacking?

Benbow: If gifted kids are not challenged and they just go through school getting very high marks, they don’t know how to study, they have never really had to apply themselves, they never learn how to learn. But that’s what we want for them: to leave school knowing how to learn for themselves. It’s also important for them to meet others, who are just as smart as they are. It helps them get to get a better understanding of their capacities. That’s even more important in today’s society.  Because we now have Google and Chat GPT to help us retrieve facts, what kids need to know is how to find and then evaluate them. We need to know how to learn.

 

Are there differences between regular, intelligent children and specially gifted children who are very good at one thing and really bad at another?

Lubinski: Imagine a 12-year-old mathematically talented girl in seventh grade, where the agenda of her school is to fit in. She doesn’t feel comfortable, but when she comes to a summer residential program where she’s given the opportunity to study a full high school math course in three weeks› time, she doesn’t feel like she needs to suppress her eagerness to learn or her vocabulary. She’s with peers who enjoy learning and understand her. These kids flourish! It’s very important for these gifted kids to see others like them and to know that there are others out there with their passion for learning and their abilities. They develop friendships for life. Furthermore, I suspect it attenuates the likelihood of narcissism developing just seeing others like you.

Benbow: Generally speaking, all kids have a profile. They may all be high achievers, but in different areas. Some gifted kids even seem to be good at everything, but that’s just because they’re not being challenged enough. If you give them really challenging materials to work with, you will see that they’re likely to be stronger in math or stronger in verbal abilities or stronger in spatial abilities. What you want to do is help them find out what they’re good at and what they enjoy doing.

 

Lenore Skenazy, who wrote «Free-Range Kids», thinks parents these days are totally overprotective. Should parents, and also schools, give kids more space to develop?

Benbow: I think great parenting is responding to the kids. Today, we are, as a society, too protective. It’s good for kids to experience failure. If kids aren’t allowed to experience some failure, they’re not building resilience. Sure, parents want the best for their kids. But part of development is also getting into those situations where you learn from your failures. Sometimes the most important things you learn in life come from your failures. We need to toughen them up for life. Because you know what? Life can be cruel.

Lubinski: Sometimes we get over-invested, like parents with a mathematically talented kid who say: “My kid is going to be an engineer.” If you have a mathematically talented kid, there’s nothing wrong with being an engineer. But that kid might also be verbally talented and have a passion for working with people about the environment. Why shouldn’t she be passionate about environmental law and save some precious land in Alaska from being exploited? Who’s to say that isn’t more of a contribution to society than publishing an article in “Nature“ on the physical universe? We need all kinds, and we have to be broad.

«Today, we are, as a society, too protective. It’s good for kids to experience failure.»

 

These days, parents are very pushy. There are even so-called tiger moms who want to get the best out of their children. Shouldn’t we all be a bit more relaxed about parenting and give children more space in school and in private?

Benbow: Maybe we program children way too much. I’d love for children to explore and let their talents blossom and bloom. But let’s not tell them that they have to go in this direction or that. Let go and transfer that responsibility of developing their talents to the children themselves. They need to be responsible for developing their talents and finding opportunities. You have to let go, and to have trust in your child. All you do is help them to make good decisions for themselves. That’s the lifelong benefit you can give them.