Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Gifted Students and the Elite Job Market

It's easy to generate impressive growth off a small base. But as you say, the right direction, and the ED numbers are reassuring.

True, and I agree. Unfortunately, it's usually fiscally motivated. International students are an entree to market access and higher tuition per capita. For publicly funded institutions with flatlining state allocations, it's a survival imperative. In competitive overseas markets, the choice of add-on institutes often is taken because the parent brand is judged not to be at risk of dilution because the customer segments are sufficiently distinct, both in geography and customer overlap.

I don't know the US market as well, but all the strat plans of the U15 in Canada prioritize sustainability and international enrolments.


Aeh, would you be willing to do a quick research dump (links only are fine) for studies looking into expressly teaching EF skills as a class in this group outside preschool and early elementary settings? Even a handful of names of researchers in the space would be terrific.

I was scanning the link below, but much of the lit is preschool focused.

https://developingchild.harvard.edu...he-Development-of-Executive-Function.pdf

Welcome, neuralnetworking.

I see you've not signed in since 4/5/2021 when you made your OP for this thread. I've read with great interest a sampling of your posts at your substack, including your featured article in the OP of this thread, "Ambition, the Elite Job Market, and the Information Gap" (https://neuralnetworking.substack.com/p/ambition-the-elite-job-market-and). Also "The Case for Compassionate Meritocracy" (https://neuralnetworking.substack.com/p/the-case-for-compassionate-meritocracy) in which you appear to suggest that technology-driven GDP growth might fund future universal income rather than allowing the wealth to be retained by the few roboticists and AI researchers. I also noted that and More on GPT-3 here: https://www.digitaltrends.com/features/openai-gpt-3-text-generation-ai/ Might this description also include positions in what you have termed in your OP, "the Elite Job Market of finance, consulting, and tech"? In which case, it seems we've rather quickly come full circle. Along the lines of jobs being displaced by tech, here's an old post based on an article in Fortune Magazine, Technology may replace 40% of jobs in 15 years (2019).

Circling back to the mention of GPT-3 helping to author portions of the updated substack piece on "Compassionate Meritocracy," from digitaltrends we read: We also read, Might the substack, and this thread, be examples of such applications? Are members of this forum unwitting subjects in a Turing Test?

At a minimum, some of us are humans.

You are not! (although I have been very impressed with the content I've gotten GPT-3 to produce). I apologize for the lack of response here; I have been caught up in midterm season.

Yes! I suspect a not-insignificant proportion of these jobs will be automated in the next century or so (especially analyst-type finance jobs). I'm nowhere close to an expert on automation, but my guess is that a lot of the high-level problem-solving jobs in tech and consulting will survive much longer than most of the work people are doing right now.

On EF

Review articles:

https://ies.ed.gov/ncer/pubs/20172000/pdf/20172000.pdf
US DOE roundup on EF, including a section on interventions

https://www.researchgate.net/public...on_Treatment_and_Intervention_in_Schools
Note: one of the authors is also the primary author of a cognitive measure intended to assess certain aspects of EF. He's also highly-regarded in the field, but one should always be aware of possible conflicts of interest.

https://www.researchgate.net/public...ion_Deficits_in_Children_and_Adolescents
roundup on older children

Standard text:

https://www.amazon.com/Executive-Function-Education-Second-Practice/dp/1462534538/
Lynn Meltzer is the editor, but the chapter authors also include many of the big names.

A few more names:

George McCloskey (author of neuropsych & EF tests)
Russell Barkley (author of tons of popular-level and professional books on ADHD)
Jack Naglieri (author of an EF processing test)
Peter Isquith (author of a go-to EF rating scale)
Richard Guare (Peg Dawson works closely with him, but with a more applied angle. Co-authored "Smart but Scattered")

Dawson & Guare now run an EF coaching business, working mainly through a "train the trainer" model, so although they aren't generating as much research, they do have a lot of practical suggestions and techniques.

A number of the above names worked together or in close proximity (many in the Boston area) at one time or another, so there's a fair amount of cross-pollination among them.

The reason so much of the research is on preschool is because that's the critical period for maximum benefit. It's not impossible to teach older children and adolescents, of course, or even adults, but brain plasticity gives one a bigger payoff in early childhood.

Much appreciated, aeh! Will thoroughly enjoy digging into these resources.

How do you develop EF unless you actually apply the skills? Teaching EF, is like playing tennis wii, but unless you get on a court, how will you play? Because dealing with real life obstacles, contacting 50 people, hoping one door will open, is hard in real life. There is a lot of rejection.

I know people think that executive function is more basic about self control and time management, but I look at it differently. If you have basic executive function, you should be able to manage and apply to administrative functions, like leadership, building an organization. Hence, my comments.

Wren, what informs your "should"? Are you thinking of bridging gaps for first-generation university students? Or are you talking about all EF deficits carte blanche?

If it's the former, absolutely. That's certainly the end goal.

With respect to EF programming, broadly speaking, the degree of skill generalization will hang on several factors:

a) The degree of deficit
b) The age of the individual at time of remediation
c) How closely the training approximates in-vivo skills
d) Training duration and intensity
e) Whether practice is maintained post-training
f) Environmental factors - supportive caregivers, educators, degree of toxic stress, history of trauma or abuse, history of brain injuries, etc.
g) Personal factors (academic ability, social skills, personal resilience, temperament, etc.)

And others.

These programs, speaking generally, seek to scaffold EF skills progressively, such that they do translate from training to in vivo contexts. Without digging into a specific program, age range, or indication, it's hard to agree or disagree with your analogy to wii vs tennis. The answer could vary anywhere from "yes, absolutely" to "not even remotely".