 Defining Talent, a Cultural Perspective by Tracy Totham Espinosa, November 2015 What is talent? How can it be identified? Who's responsible for identifying it? What is the difference between a talent and a strength? Are all talents and strengths expressed as learned skills? Are they universally valued talents or are they all culturally bound? In this conference we'll consider three different levels of analysis to explore these questions over the next few days. We'll look at talent cultivation from the government level, the individual level and the molecular level. I begin from the premise that talents must be cultivated and learned. Even if one is naturally talented in an area, that talent cannot flourish without practice. The government level At the government level, policies can be implemented to shepherd people towards one mode of talent identification or another. For example, the choice of what to teach and to whom in schools is a type of educational policy that can aid in talent identification through the opportunities provided by course offerings. Depending on what the government values in terms of competencies, choices are made about what kind of content, information and knowledge children are exposed to outside of the home. Educational curriculum choices are based on values. These choices determine how many hours a day children are in schools, who receives what type of resources, what levels of math, science, history or language they receive, whether or not they learn a foreign language or have art, music or physical education, which in turn determines what types of talents can be recognized. For example, in Germany, the students who are identified as being college bound receive physics, biology and chemistry every year starting in the ninth grade. The sheer volume of exposure to scientific concepts enhances the possibility of developing talent in science. Similarly, many students in the international baccalaureate curriculum receive courses in robotics and basic programming. Their exposure to these skillsets will enhance the likelihood of identifying talent in these areas that would be impossible without such classes. Not only content choices but also the type of pedagogy applied influences outcomes. For example, children in Finland are motivated to work together in groups to resolve problems by applying project-based learning strategies. They're encouraged to work with people with different types of talents from their own to collaborate in finding creative solutions to authentic problems. This pedagogical approach develops soft skills in which content knowledge is used as a vehicle by which to reach solutions. This places less emphasis on the content itself and more on problem-solving processes. Curricular and pedagogical decisions are priorities based on the importance assigned to competencies the government believes are of most value. Students in Germany may come out knowing more scientific knowledge, while IB kids might have better developed logic processes through programming. And those in Finland may come out knowing how best to work in collaborative groups to resolve problems. Government-level decisions also reflect philosophies about the role of the individual in society and how people contribute to the well-being of the country they live in. Governments must decide whether or not identifying the few with talent and prioritizing investment in them best represents their values or whether opting to believe that all students should be offered similar opportunities to develop their talents independent of their level is of interest. While globally lower, the second model means the majority increases their general level of education. Equally logical but different is a saying I learned when I first traveled to Japan as an exchange student in high school. There are no right or wrong choices, they're just values that manifest themselves and decisions. Each government must determine which model best serves their country's values. The individual level. We know a lot more about learning today than ever before in the history of humankind but we're still in the infancy stage of understanding the human brain. There are at least five big ideas related to human learning however which can be shared with confidence. First we know that there's no learning or the development of one's talents without both attention and memory. Memory and attention are vital in order to learn anything in life or in school including the development of a talent strength or skill. All memory systems short-term working long-term semantic long-term procedural emotional etc and all attention systems alerting sustained orienting executive functions must be primed for a person to learn efficiently. Second memory and attention can be enhanced or impeded by emotional states and we know that there's no decision making without emotions that is emotions and cognition are inextricably linked. Third and very related to the first point human talents are developed when the individual finds sense and meaning in his own learning because he pays more attention and remembers more. Sense the why and how of learning and meaning the what and in what context of learning together results in authentic learning or learning that the individual wants or desires based on his intrinsic needs or motivations. Fourth we know from educational research that the single greatest factor influencing learning outcomes is the learner himself and his attitude or belief in his own ability to learn. If he thinks he can learn he most likely will learn but if he thinks he's incapable of learning he will most likely not even try. Having said that however the research also tells us the student develops this self efficacy based on what the teachers around him make him think about himself. Teachers not family members are more influential in cultivating self-belief about learning potential. Student-teacher relationship can be pivotal in developing talents or in suppressing them. Fifth an individual's motivation to invest in his own talents can come from many sources. There are two basic pairs of motivators in classic psychology positive negative and intrinsic extrinsic. While we know humans can and do learn in all combinations of these pairs each has a different route and a different level of long-term efficacy. A person can develop a talent intrinsically and negatively I don't want to let my family down extrinsically and positively if I do this well the government will give me a reward or extrinsically negatively if my boss doesn't like this I'm ruined forever. But we know that when a person learns something intrinsically and positively both the speed of learning and the ability to transfer the learning to new contexts are enhanced. Learning is best achieved in a positive intrinsic manner. The neuronal level the third level of analysis is at the level of individual cells. The molecular level of learning is dependent on new synapses electrical synapses usually do one of two things. They either release or inhibit chemicals or hormones neurotransmitters in the brain. The right combination and balance of chemicals is present then a new connection can be made new learning can occur and talents can be developed. Neurotransmitters that facilitate learning are also enhanced by the release of dopamine which is associated with pleasure. Additionally when an individual feels motivated and when learning is authentic learners spend more time developing talents. The more time on the task the faster the learning and the quicker one reaches expertise. However learning does not always occur as designed. If an individual is highly stressed for example the delicate balance of the right hormones in the brain is not achieved and learning does not occur. What's more not only must the connections be made but also to retrieve stored information in the brain neural pathways must be reinforced through practice. This is why a certain level of rehearsal or practice is needed before real learning can be established. The more repetition the faster the retrieval the more accessible the memory and therefore the speedier the new learning. People who love what they do can spend endless hours on a single task. Time flies when you're having fun. This is why motivated people can move from novice to expertise quickly. However the opposite is also true. If you hate the task but are forced to do it time will seem to go by slowly or even freeze and learning takes on a laboriously sluggish pace. Educational and psychological constructivism have been used as platforms upon which to develop the idea of neuroconstructivism or the way the building blocks of the brain stack lower levels of knowledge before being able to develop higher levels of thinking. Some say talent is innate and carried in one's genetic makeup. A person born with a talent will need less practice or time on task before the skills related to the talents are observable. Others say that with enough practice or hours of rehearsal anyone can appear to have a talent. That is while no one denies that innate talent exists human potential means that many people can reach the same levels of expertise independent of their innate level of talent if they invest enough hours of practice to do so. Measuring innate talent is difficult. We know more about atypical brains than normal brains and we can only guess about what talented brains look like. While neuroscience is excellent for noting when the right connections are not made it's more difficult to identify when an individual has a specific talent. This means that relying on brain scans or a blood sample to identify talents is still some ways off. In summary there are many different levels of analysis from which we can examine human talents strengths and skills through the learning process. On the government level we must philosophically decide on how our country chooses to express its values through what is taught to whom for what periods of time and with what kind of a teacher. On the second level of analysis we must consider if the individual has the proper conditions in which to learn. Our both attention and memory enhanced through correct pedagogy is motivation in its best form and used to drive learning processes in a healthy way. Do we have teachers who instill in students a sense of self-worth and belief? And at the neuronal level have we created the best conditions under which people can maximize their potential? Country examples. To conclude I'd like to offer a few country examples of policy decisions and their repercussions related to talent identification and cultivation. Ecuador created a national university system run by the Human Talent Office which sought to identify the best high school students and send them to special institutions for programs in the arts, science and technology, education or environmental science. They did not contemplate two important considerations which impeded the program's success. First, students were not given the choice about where to go. They were given an aptitude test and told which area they should study. Many students were demotivated by the lack of choice and dropped out of the program. Second, the government did not seem to understand that in order to get high quality university entrance they needed to have high quality high school students and that this in turn depended on the quality of the primary school students which depended on the preschools which depended on the families nurturing their children from pregnancy onwards. The government soon found that it just didn't have enough candidates to fill its beautiful universities because they'd not invested enough in other levels of education. The lack of individual choice in the decision-making about the talent development and the lack of systemic thinking made Ecuador's investment in education less than efficient. In the United States in the 1950s and 60s the government thought it was a waste of money to make everyone take foreign language courses and decided to filter out those who had a talent for languages from everyone else and give the elite group resources time teachers and drop foreign language requirements for the rest. The government implemented a test to identify this talent the modern foreign language aptitude test and reduced the number of people learning another language. In the early 2000s however many realized what a mistake this had been in light of the new research which shows the many multiple benefits of bilingualism and multilingualism including improved general cognitive skills executive functions and better thinking overall. The US is now scrambling to construct better foreign language programs but has a deficit of hundreds of thousands of qualified teachers. Their short-term savings seems likely to create a heavy cost in the long run. In Finland there was a concerted effort by the government starting in the 1970s to revamp education from the top down. There was a firm belief that you can't get apples from a pear tree so they opted to invest in teacher education programs. Today all of Finland's teachers have master's degrees and is one of the world's leaders in educational innovation. However this was not the only change made almost every child in Finland receives special needs help at some point in his or her academic career that is the government presumes everyone will need a little bit of extra help at some point in their education and they provide it. Special needs are not just learning difficulties they include giftedness the government presumes that all people will have strengths as well as weaknesses in their learning profile and it therefore provides services to help remediate as well as cultivate talents. He's taken Finland 40 years to reach his initial educational goal and the overall education level of population is testament to his development philosophy. Germany has a strict numerous classes program in which children are identified as early as fifth grade 10 years old and tracked into one of three types of education programs university bound technical professionals and simple laborers. The system has produced some of the brightest minds in innovation but has prevented unknown numbers from reaching the potential due to the early tracking. Similar systems exist in parts of France Switzerland and Holland. Early tracking provides enhanced opportunities for those who are identified with talent but reduces opportunities for the majority and or late bloomers who might not be strong in the primary years but who could potentially display talents in secondary school. Given current research and the understanding of expectations on learning students rise to the level expectations placed on them one can't help but wonder what would happen if you were to believe that all students had the potential to learn at the highest levels. Other countries such as Singapore Japan and Korea have opted for longer hours for all students and as a result of extended study time more practice and repetition they have managed to elevate themselves on the world stage with exceptional test results in the areas of extra practice. Many of these country leaders however lament that their investment has been on teaching to the test as opposed to developing soft skills such as how to think outside of the box or to work with head of genius groups. This means that their policy was successful in improving test scores but upon reflection higher test scores were not what they really valued. Universally appreciated talents these examples beg questions about what types of talents if any are valued by all countries. Is talent countrywide development or individually focused skills identification? Is it content area specific math science technology etc or soft skills driven problem solving skills collaborative communicative critical and creative thinkers etc is it innate or is it cultivated? Final reflections all of these examples bring us back to the first point. Countries adopt policies that reflect their value systems so what are the values we believe to find us? Do we believe everyone has the potential to learn or do we believe that there are strict limits on human potential? Are we willing to invest in long-term benefits or are we in need of short-term results? Do we think there should be equal opportunity for all or do we think that investing in a few individuals is the natural order of societies? And finally who should identify a person's talent? The government or the person himself? No one can or should dictate to another how to make these hard choices about the best ways to identify and cultivate talent. One can ask respectfully however the decision makers keep these different levels of analysis in mind as they contemplate their options. Thank you.