Leaving Lost Einsteins Behind?

07/29/2021

Leaving Lost Einsteins Behind?

As water given sugar sweetens, given salt grows salty, we become our choices. Each yes, each no continues.
Jane Hirschfield, from her poem, Rebus

A guest opinion essay in the New York Times, by Thomas B. Edsall, is called “We Are Leaving ‘Lost Einsteins’ Behind.” He makes the case that the way our education system identifies talented students is lacking. He explains:

“Many spatially talented adolescents may never approach their full potential due to a lack of opportunities to develop their skills. A great loss occurs at talent searches that identify intellectually precocious young adolescents...Current talent search procedures focus on the assessment of mathematical and verbal abilities” and fail to assess for spatial talent.

Rusty Keeler’s award-winning book, Adventures in Risky Play, advocates for creating the kinds of hands-on, compelling environments that encourage young children to develop their visual-spatial abilities, and that allow educators to notice and celebrate those skills.

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