American genius education is no match for Chinese genius classes?

Recently,Huawei Genius Ning BoyuIn the social platform official announced his resignation, everyone was shocked that geniusSurprisinglyGive up a million annual salary and go back to the village to sell corn!

Source: Nine News

China and the United States increasingly fierce AI competition, talent is also one after another,There are also big differences in the growth of top talent in the two countries.

If we look closely at the experiences of these talents, we may find a strange phenomenon,Few American AI talents come fromGifted Class, while China's AI talent and genius training programDo not take off the switch system.

What kind of people has China's genius education cultivated?

American Genius Education Becomes a Rich Man's Game

In fact, the United States began to study "gifted children" very early ".

From the early IQ tests to the gifted education that evolved in the 20th century, the United States has had a well-established tradition of gifted education.

For a long time, American education circles regard gifted education as an integral part of individualized education and educational equity.

Because in a society with uneven educational resources, we can bridge the educational gap by discovering those gifted children and giving them more appropriate education.

But the reality is not so good.

In 2025, a study released by the U.S. Census Bureau analyzed education data and tax data and showed that the U.K-12About 6.1 percent of the students received gifted education.

However, there is a large gap between different family income groups. Among them, less than 4% of children in the lowest income distribution are identified as gifted by school, while the proportion of children in high-income groups is close to 20%.

Source: Census

Some studies also mentioned that the proportion of white students in these students is higher, and there are only a few black students. The talent screening in the United States has been affected by family class, race and educational resources.

Because the entry threshold for genius classes is exams, wealthy families can prepare their children in advance, while some children with potential but limited conditions may not even have the chance to be discovered.

However, even if it can be effectively identified, what education can be given to these talented young people is another big problem.

A 2025 University of Connecticut survey of gifted education in three U.S. states found:

Although the school will identify students according to mathematics, language and other abilities, the actual courses provided do not match the advantages of the students.

Geniuses are selected to get a proper education, but in fact they have nothing to do with the expectation of learning higher-level academic knowledge in advance.

Many projects emphasize teamwork, brainstorming, creative activities, and critical thinking. These training contents are no problem, but for a child with a superior IQ, can learning these really replace advanced mathematics?

Source: edutopia

In fact, from the birth of intelligence tests in the early 20th century to the present, people's understanding of genius is constantly changing.

At first, everyone simply and crudely thought that a high IQ was a genius. Later, in order to break the cultural prejudice, the American education circle introduced the concepts of multiple intelligences and social emotions.

Up to now, the definition of genius has gone completely wrong. Many western genius education regards genius as a vulnerable group that needs special psychological care.

These scholars suggest introducing a lot of social-emotional learning to help these bright kids get rid of perfectionism and anxiety.

There is some truth in this suggestion, but the focus of training the good seedlings originally screened out has changed from advanced learning to psychological comfort.

This is not only a waste of food for fear of choking, but also a waste of the talent of gifted children.

Europe and the United States began to study the Chinese genius class

as sino-us AI are playing fiercely,There are more and more discussions overseas about China's AI talent training model.

Everyone marveled at the byte beat, spell a lot,Cambrian PeriodandThe new generation of AI dark horse DeepSeek and other scientific and technological forces can always see the figure of junior class graduates.

The Financial Times has paid special attention to China's genius class system, believing that it is continuously delivering high-level mathematics, physics and computer talents to China's science and technology industry.

Source: Google

To correct a misunderstanding here, China does not have a unified national talent plan. What we have learned at present is a set of top-notch talent training system formed over the past few decades.

such as the earliestJunior Class of China University of Science and TechnologyYao Class in Tsinghua, Turing Class in Peking University, and experimental classes for extraordinary children in primary and secondary schools.

Although the stages are different, the names are different, and the fields that may be subdivided are also different, they all have one characteristic, that is, early discovery, early acceleration, and compression of the academic system.

Identifying talents relies on difficult written examinations and interviews to cultivate hard-core disciplines such as mathematics, physics, and computers, and a considerable number of them have competition experience.

The goal of the Junior Class of the University of Science and Technology of China is to cultivate talents as soon as possible, recruit students in their 10 s to go to university, so that they can break away from the traditional teaching rhythm and receive academic training beyond their peers.

According to statistics,Of the 3167 graduates trained by the Junior Class of the University of Science and Technology of China, 18%-20% stayed in academia, and more than 200 became professors in famous universities at home and abroad.

Source: NBC

This kind of training idea also extends to the primary and secondary school stage.

The children's class of Beijing No. 8 Middle School selects students through tests for children under the age of 10, and it will take about four years to complete the courses in the upper grades of elementary school, junior high school, and Senior high school.

In junior high school, mathematics, physics and other mathematical foundation and innovation potential become the focus of investigation,Qiu ShaobanIt is through training, to provide high-intensity courses and scientific research resources for geniuses.

At the Senior high school stage, genius education has reached the top moment. Mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, and informatics competition classes cultivate geniuses in different fields.

Participate in high-level discipline competitions, contact university courses in advance, start scientific research experiments, and directly connect with famous universities.

Source: Pexels

The biggest advantage of Chinese genius class is to transform age advantage into time advantage, and then transform time advantage into knowledge advantage and scientific research advantage.

In this process, it is necessary for genius education in all links to be linked together and held up steadily.

Even from a realistic point of view, genius classes can already effectively train top talents, but this model is destined to be difficult to replicate on a large scale.

Because the most scarce talent program is the teacher, the most difficult is to identify the real genius, and this high-intensity, super normal training mode is only suitable for a few students.

But this model also indirectly affects basic education, making schools, parents, and the whole society pay more attention to basic education in science and engineering.

Genius is not the only answer.

With Huawei's talented teenager Ning Boyu leaving his job and returning to his hometown to start his own business, as well as the ups and downs of the aura of genius over the years, the social discussion on genius has gradually become rational.

Whether it is an American parent or a Chinese parent, it is a good wish to look forward to the success of their children and the success of their daughters. Everyone wants to have a genius in their own family.

There are also many parents who devote their efforts to chicken babies, hoping that before their children show their talents, they will not be delayed, and the future will not be too bad even if they do not have talents.

There are also some parents who have entered one misunderstanding after another in the cultivation of gifted children. In the final analysis, we must first break the myth filter of genius.

Source: unsplash

These projects are often portrayed online as mysterious genius factories, as if they can start all the way to become scientists, entrepreneurs or the next great AI god as long as they enter the junior class.

But in fact, when you are in a class with a large number of ordinary people, it is very easy to get the first place, and when you face the whole class is a super student bully, the pressure is not great, it is fake.

This is also a unique genius unspeakable, unbearable pressure.

Because of this, we have to look away from the genius, so that they can grow according to their own route, rather than according to the social preset path of development.

Some young graduates also enter colleges and universities, some start businesses, some enter large factories, and more people end up living a life that is not much different from ordinary people.

But this does not mean that the talent training plan has failed. A mature talent ecology should not give them a standard answer.

In addition to better courses and teachers, genius education requires greater freedom and higher fault tolerance.

They may be particularly curious, they may not like the standard answer, they may like to delve into an unpopular question, or they may suddenly give up a path that everyone thinks is right.

If the entire education system and enterprises only have a unified set of KPI and a set of standard answers, then no matter how smart children are, they may become cannon fodder under the "right.

Source: unsplash

Therefore, the focus of genius education should be to become an adult before becoming a talented person.

There are always a few children with great talent, but there are never many anxious parents.

When many parents hear about genius and youth classes, their first reaction is to rush, compete, skip grades, and prestigious schools. They want to send their children to the fastest track from an early age.

If a child loses the joy of childhood, loses his internal drive, and loses his love of learning in order to become a genius, then it may eventually become another form of backwardness.

To put the line of sight a little further, those children who did not enter the juvenile class and did not show the aura of genius at a very young age, later some people also stood at the Top of their own field.

This actually shows that the genius class is not the only export of genius, it just met a group of children who are particularly suitable for this kind of training.

But there are still many people whose talents cannot be measured by today's exams, competitions and IQ tests. Their potential is also worth discovering slowly.

Because there is more than one way to grow up, and there is no unified answer to the time to become a talent, every child will embark on the road that belongs to them.

Reference:

How China's 'gifted classes' produce tech leaders and CEOs

Gifted classes may not help talented students move ahead faster

America's gifted education programs have a race problem. Can it be fixed?

Gifted Identification Across the Distribution of Family Income