Volume 21 No 2/3, 2006, 181
nurture over nature:
a reflective review of confucian
philosophy on learning and talented
performance
Gifted Education International 2006 Vol 21, pp 181-189
©2006 A B Academic Publishers
Echo H. Wu
Curry School of Education, University of Virginia, USA
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Abstract
Achieving talented performance (TP) is a crucial concern at every level of education. In retrospect,
while examining the Western cultural tradition of education and learning to as far back as the ancient
Greeks, it is not difficult to find that nature vs. nurture, or innate ability vs. acquired ability have been
long-term controversial issues. Perhaps due to the influence of Plato, who held a form of rationalism
that maintained that all real knowledge was innate, and Aristotle, who held that the defining
characteristics of things reflected something essential about them -- their essence – views proclaiming
the importance of innate ability have been significantly popular in the West for many years, and are
still prevalent in most Western countries and societies (Wu, 2005). The literature on this point in
China, however, both traditionally and currently, seems to be far more sympathetic to the importance
of nurture rather than nature, which might reasonably be attributed to the profound influence of
Confucian philosophy on theories of learning and achieving. This paper presents a reflective review of
this philosophy, examines its influence in China and some other Asian countries, and discusses some of
its implications for the education of gifted and talented children.
*Email: ew5b@virginia.edu