The Matthew Effect in Learning: An Early Start Is Not the Whole Story

11/8/2026

Yesterday, I learned a new term: 学习的马太效应 (xué xí de mǎ tài xiào yìng) the Matthew Effect in Learning.

It refers to the phenomenon in which students who have an early advantage in learning tend to gain even more advantages over time, while those who fall behind may find it increasingly difficult to catch up.

In simple terms, the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. The strong get stronger, while the weak struggle to keep up.

But I am not sure this applies to everyone.

In my own family, I experienced the Matthew Effect in reverse. I was behind my two younger sisters in elementary school. They were far ahead of me academically during those years. However, I caught up in middle and high school, while they gradually fell behind. And in the end I was the only one entering college.

My experience made me wonder: Does an early advantage really determine a child's long-term academic success? If not, what else?

Why does the Matthew Effect happen?

Several factors can contribute to this phenomenon.

1. Early advantages accumulate.

Children who develop strong reading and language skills early often find it easier to acquire new knowledge. As their knowledge grows, they have more information to draw upon when learning something new.

2. Success builds confidence.

Students who perform well often become more confident and motivated. They may be more willing to take on challenges, participate in class, win teacher's approval and continue learning.

3. Knowledge compounds.

The more we know, the easier it becomes to understand and acquire new knowledge.

For example, children who read regularly develop stronger vocabulary and background knowledge, which can make subsequent reading easier and more enjoyable.

The reverse can also happen.

Students who struggle early with reading may become discouraged, lose confidence, read less and less. As a result, they may miss opportunities to develop the skills they need to catch up.

This creates a cycle in which early differences can gradually widen.

Where does the term come from?

The term comes from the Gospel of Matthew, particularly Matthew 25:29:

"For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance; but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away."

Sociologist Robert K. Merton popularized the term Matthew Effect in 1968 to describe how scientists who already had recognition and prestige tended to receive even more recognition.

Psychologist Keith Stanovich later applied the concept to reading development in his influential 1986 paper.

What determines whether children keep learning?

Perhaps this is one of the reasons behind early intervention programs in the United States, which aim to help children develop essential skills before they enter school.

But I wonder how much this early intervention alone can accomplish and how many high school dropout it has prevented.

I believe many factors influence whether children maintain their learning momentum from elementary school through middle and high school.

These include:

  • The quality of teaching. A good teacher can make a subject interesting and inspire a child's desire to learn.

  • Family resources and access to books and other learning opportunities.

  • Parental encouragement and support.

  • Peer group influence.

  • A child's own interests, curiosity, and internal motivation. This may be particularly important.

Children may begin learning because their parents encourage them, their teachers expect them to, or their classmates are doing well.

But as they grow older, they need to develop their own reasons for learning.

Back to my sisters and me, I wonder why my two sisters with an early good start gradually fell behind in high school. Perhaps it's due to their peer groups pressure or they lost interest in learning.

But my own experience makes me believe that early academic performance does not tell the whole story.

Children develop at different rates. Their interests change, their confidence grows or declines, and their learning environments evolve.

An early advantage can help establish a positive learning cycle, but it does not guarantee that the cycle will continue.

Likewise, falling behind in elementary school does not mean a child will always remain behind.

What matters beyond an early start?

Early learning matters. But I think the more important question is how to help children maintain their learning momentum throughout their education. Because children need more than that.

To me, I think most importantly, they need opportunities to explore and discover what genuinely interests them.

When children develop their own interests, learning becomes more than something they do because adults tell them to. It becomes something they want.

An early start can open the door, but a child's own curiosity and genuine interest can help keep that door open and get deeper.

Ben Affleck: The Most Precious Investment Being Present for Your Children

11/7/2026

Today, I came across a touching article about Ben Affleck, the American actor and filmmaker, that made me reflect on parenting and the choices we make in life.

Matt Damon, another well-known actor and longtime friend and collaborator of Ben Affleck, shared that Affleck has turned down numerous big acting opportunities so he can spend more time with his three children.

Under his joint-custody arrangement, Affleck spends half his time with his children. As Damon explained, Affleck once told him that if he traveled overseas to film a movie, such as one shooting in Estonia, he could not get those hours back.

That realization has become a major consideration in his career decisions.

Affleck has chosen to remain based in Los Angeles, where his children live and go to school. According to Damon, this was one reason Affleck wanted to take on the CEO role at Artists Equity, the production company they co-founded. The position allows him to work closer to home rather than constantly traveling for acting jobs.

Affleck has even arranged his workdays so that he can finish early enough to be home when his children get out of school.

Damon mentioned Animals, a film Affleck directed in Los Angeles, as an example of choosing work that allows him to remain close to his family.

What touched me most was Affleck's own explanation of his priorities. He has said that he doesn't want to travel across the country or around the world for work and miss this period in his children's lives.

He wants to be part of their everyday routine: picking them up from school, seeing their friends, taking them to their activities, and simply being around. These may seem like ordinary moments, but they are precisely the moments that make up childhood.

What matters most in the end?

Reading this story made me think about how many parents spend years pursuing career success, professional recognition, and financial achievement, sometimes at the expense of being present for their children.

Of course, working hard and building a career are important. Parents have responsibilities, and not everyone has the freedom to choose where or when they work.

But I think Affleck's example reminds us of something worth considering: career opportunities may come and go, but our children's childhood does not come around a second time.

We can always pursue another project, another promotion, or another this or that. But we cannot turn back the clock and recover the years when our children were young.

What children often remember is not how successful their parents were professionally, but whether their parents were there for them, whether they listened, whether they shared their everyday experiences, and whether they made them feel loved and supported every day.

Success is measured not only by how far we advance in our careers or how much we earn. We should also consider the relationships we build and the memories we create with our children.

The greatest success for a parent is not simply to build a successful career, but to build a meaningful relationship with their children while they are growing up.

Their childhood years are both precious and fleeting. Our children will eventually grow up, develop their own lives, and become independent. When that time comes, I hope we can look back with the satisfaction of knowing that we did not allow the pursuit of professional success to keep us from sharing those irreplaceable years with them.

Let them Sing Without Fear and Let them Play Music

11/6/2026

Yesterday, a family member asked whether both of my children had taken piano lessons when they were young. I said yes. My goal was for them to enjoy music, develop an appreciation for it, and perhaps cultivate a lifelong love of music.

Unfortunately I made a mistake. I chose a piano teacher who was considered "very good," but whose teaching approach seemed to have little to do with helping children enjoy music.

A friend recommended a Ukrainian piano teacher. She was certainly talented, but her teaching style was very strict and old-fashioned. She frequently yelled at my daughter during lessons, traumatized her, something I would never have done myself.

In the end, she accomplished one thing: instead of nurturing my daughter's love of music, she made her hate it.

Looking back, I realize that being a talented musician does not necessarily make someone a good teacher, especially when teaching young children.

I have my own personal history with music.

My mother used to sing a lot when we were young. She had a natural musical gift, which my youngest sister inherited. Neither my first younger sister nor I seemed to have inherited it.

Growing up, I was often ridiculed for singing off-key. I loved singing, but whenever I sang in front of others, someone would ridicule me. I became discouraged and stopped singing in public.

Even as an adult, in my own home, I was sometimes told to shut up because I was tone-deaf. I had always loved music, but I began to feel that singing was something I should not do.

I may not have inherited my mother's musical "cell", but I have her love of music. I know how much it can cheer me up and make life more enjoyable.

Perhaps that is why, from the very beginning, I encouraged my children to sing freely and without fear.

I wanted them to experience that music was something to enjoy, not something to be judged on whether they sang perfectly.

I hope my children will never experience the same discouragement I did. I hope they will feel free to sing, even if they sing on or off-key, and never let someone else's ridicule take away the joy of doing something they love.

After all, music is for expressing ourselves, finding joy, and allowing ourselves to be heard.

Looking Beyond Our Own World: What China's AI Development Can Teach Us

11/5/2026

While much of the American internet is focused on the 2026 midterm elections and the expected Democratic wave, another major story is unfolding on the Chinese internet.

The World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit is taking place from November 2 to November 5, 2026, in Wuzhen, Zhejiang Province, China.

Instead of being confined by the news and perspectives immediately around them, I hope my children will 胸怀天下，放眼世界 — keep the world in their hearts and look beyond their immediate surroundings.

The summit has attracted considerable attention on the Chinese internet, particularly among technology professionals and people interested in AI development.

This year's theme is:

“Open Source, Openness, Co-construction and Sharing — Jointly Build a Community with a Shared Future in Cyberspace.”

Approximately 1,800 delegates from 138 countries and regions are attending.

A headline that caught my attention

One of the most widely discussed developments was a new ranking from OpenRouter, a platform that tracks AI model usage.

According to the reported data, five Chinese AI models occupied the top five positions in global weekly token call volume.

DeepSeek V4.1-Flash reportedly reached 33.6 trillion tokens in one week, ranking first worldwide.

Many Chinese netizens interpreted this as a sign that Chinese open-source AI models are becoming major players in the global AI ecosystem, rather than simply trying to catch up.

Of course, a ranking on one platform does not tell us everything about the global AI industry. But it does provide an interesting indication of how widely Chinese models are being used and how quickly the landscape is changing.

Three developments worth watching

1. AI competition is moving beyond the race for bigger models

The discussion is increasingly focused on how AI can become more accessible, useful, and integrated into real-world applications.

Rather than competing only over model parameters, companies are paying greater attention to open-source development, building ecosystems, and industrial deployment (产业落地).

Alibaba's Cai Chongxin emphasized the importance of open source in helping AI spread and deliver practical value.

This is an important shift.

The value of AI is not determined only by how powerful a model is, but also by how many people can use it, what problems it can solve, and how effectively it can be incorporated into everyday work and industry.

2. AI agents are moving toward cooperation

Twenty major organizations, including the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, Huawei, Alibaba, Tencent, and Xiaomi, reportedly jointly released a self-regulatory framework for AI agents.

They announced plans to develop shared infrastructure that would allow different AI agents to discover, connect, and cooperate across platforms.

This points toward a future in which AI systems do not operate only as isolated tools.

Instead, different agents may be able to communicate and work together, potentially making AI more useful in increasingly complex tasks.

The challenge will be ensuring that such cooperation is reliable, secure, and responsible.

3. Open-source AI is becoming more tangible

The summit also opened China's first dedicated open-source ecosystem experience hall.

Rather than discussing open source only in abstract terms, visitors can experience demonstrations and explore how open-source technologies work.

This is another indication that the industry is trying to connect technological development with practical applications and broader participation.

Open source is not simply about making technology available. It can also encourage collaboration, allow developers to build upon one another's work, and expand the range of people who participate in innovation.

What interests me most

What interests me most is not simply how Chinese AI models are performing.

It is how quickly technology is changing the world and how interconnected that world has become.

Living in the United States, my children naturally encounter American news and perspectives every day. But I hope they will also pay attention to what is happening elsewhere.

The world is too big, and its developments too interconnected for us to understand it through only one country's news.

I hope my children will look beyond the country they live in, beyond the news that dominates their social media, and beyond their immediate surroundings.

I hope they will develop a broader understanding of the world, remain curious about different perspectives, and learn from developments wherever they occur.

As the Chinese saying goes, 胸怀天下，放眼世界 — keep the world in your heart and look beyond your immediate surroundings.

For me, that is not simply to follow the news, but to develop the curiosity and openness to understand a world that is much larger than the one immediately around them.

Growing Older, Still Learning: How the Adult Brain Changes

11/4/2026

Yesterday, I wrote about what happens inside our brains when we acquire new knowledge and abilities: neural connections are formed and strengthened.

Both children's and adults' brains undergo changes in neural connections when we learn. However, the way these changes occur differs considerably.

The Big Difference Between Children and Adults

Children (0–18): Build extensively, then refine.

The brain goes through periods of rapid synapse formation, followed by synaptic pruning. It initially creates an abundance of connections, and experience, repeated use, and developmental processes help refine them.

This period of development is characterized by greater plasticity in many brain systems. Children are particularly receptive to certain kinds of learning, including language acquisition. Their brains are still building the neural foundations that will support future learning.

Adults: Build selectively and strengthen existing pathways.

Adults no longer experience the same widespread periods of synapse formation and refinement that characterize early development. Nevertheless, synaptogenesis and neuroplasticity continue throughout adulthood.

Adult learning relies heavily on modifying existing neural circuits, strengthening connections through repeated use, and forming new connections in response to experience.

In other words, adult brains do not stop changing. Their changes are generally more selective and influenced by established neural pathways.

Synaptic pruning and other forms of neural refinement also continue in adulthood, although their patterns differ from those during childhood. Skills and mental habits that receive little use may gradually weaken, while frequently practiced skills become more established.

How Adults Should Approach Learning

Because adult plasticity is more selective, our learning strategies need to change as we age.

Instead of relying primarily on broad exposure, adults benefit from deliberate practice, repetition, and consistent engagement.

1. Focused, spaced practice

Random exposure alone is not enough to develop a new skill.

To establish and strengthen new neural pathways, adults need repeated, active engagement over time. Spacing practice across days and weeks, rather than concentrating everything into one session, helps support long-term learning.

Whether learning a language, playing a piano, or developing a new physical skill, consistency matters more than occasional bursts of enthusiasm.

2. Expect slower progress, but recognize that progress is possible

Adults generally cannot acquire every new skill as easily as young children acquire their first language.

Some learning processes become less efficient with age, and may take longer to develop and stabilize.

But slower learning does not mean an inability to learn.

Adults bring something children do not yet have in the same measure: accumulated knowledge, experience, and the ability to understand connections between new information and what they already know.

These advantages can make adult learning more meaningful, even when it requires more practice.

3. Changing old patterns is harder than learning new information

Adults have spent decades developing established neural pathways, habits, and ways of thinking.

These pathways can become highly efficient and automatically activated. That is useful in everyday life, but it can also make changing an established habit or reaction difficult.

Changing a habit is not simply a matter of adding a new one. It often requires learning a different response, practicing it repeatedly, and gradually reducing reliance on the old one.

This is why changing our behavior, biases, or automatic reactions requires more than understanding what we should do differently.

Try thinking differently from yourself. Hard, right? We must practice doing it differently.

4. Enrichment still matters, but its purpose changes

For adults, an enriched environment remains important for maintaining cognitive health and supporting the brain's capacity to adapt.

Physical exercise, social interaction, intellectual engagement, and new experiences all contribute to a healthier environment for the brain.

These activities do not guarantee mastery of a complex skill overnight. Instead, they help maintain the conditions that support learning, cognitive reserve, and healthy aging.

We don't aim at making our brains young again, we aim at keeping them active, engaged, and capable of responding to new experiences.

5. Sleep and recovery are essential for learning

Learning does not end when we finish practicing.

Sleep plays an important role in memory consolidation, helping the brain stabilize and reorganize information acquired during the day.

Adults sometimes try to compensate for limited practice by cramming more information into a short period.

But temporary activation is not the same as lasting learning. Without sufficient sleep and recovery, newly acquired information may be harder to retain and use.

For adults, effective learning requires not only focused practice but also enough time for the brain to consolidate what has been learned.

In Summary

Children's brains undergo extensive development, building and refining neural connections as they interact with the world.

Adult brains, by contrast, rely more heavily on established neural pathways. Although they remain capable of forming new connections and adapting to experience, changing old patterns and acquiring unfamiliar skills often requires more deliberate effort.

The adult learning strategy is therefore different:

Deliberate practice, repeated engagement, spaced learning, the willingness to change established habits, and sufficient sleep and recovery.

Some forms of learning are especially sensitive to developmental timing. Certain aspects of language and sensory development, for example, are more readily acquired during childhood. Adult learning cannot always reproduce the same developmental conditions.

Adult neuroplasticity is real, even though it operates differently and has limitations.

And perhaps this is the most encouraging lesson: We may not be able to learn everything as effortlessly as we did when we were young, but we can continue to learn, develop new abilities, and change the way we think and live.

As long as we remain curious, keep challenging ourselves, and give our brains the practice and recovery they need, there is still room for growth.

In the end, I think of this Chinese words: 活水源头 (Huó shuǐ yuán tóu) — A fresh water keeps flowing because it has a living source, a metaphor for keeping our minds fresh, active, and open to new ideas. Like flowing water, our minds stay vibrant when we continue learning, exploring, and embracing new experiences.