On being an academic reference

It has come to my attention, that my blog is now official reading at one school. I find this quite touching - enough to bring a smile, anyway.

One school has listed my blog as part of the term's reading list, relating to intelligence and giftedness, for a course, of some sort. I am in good company on this list, which even includes Wikipedia.

It is surprising how different people react to what is essentially an exercise in communicating my understanding of giftedness, in particular of prodigy. That a school should make my site required reading is not only positive feedback for all my efforts - it is something much more important than that: it is an opportunity to reach out to all the children at that school and broaden their perspective on education, its ways, its effects and, most importantly, its opportunities. I espouse a much wider view of giftedness than many do - and perhaps that might be encouraging to some children whose gifts are not necessarily rewarded by a conventional schooling.

To me a gifted child is any child who is better than is usual - at anything. By "anything", I mean anything. There are so many ways in which a human being can be outstanding - and I believe that all of them have their place, in a better human society. Giftedness should never be viewed as something narrow, something purely academic - for that only captures a minority of those who are exceptional. Giftedness, in its truest sense, is the potential to exceed the norm, in any positive way, in any positive endeavour - or attribute. (Sometimes giftedness doesn't have to be exerted, it just is.) Perhaps I will write more of this idea another time...but for now, I would like to welcome the readers from that school - and any other that chooses to reference my blog. Thanks...don't forget to credit any quotes, though, to their writer. (That is the way things are done.)

(IF you would like to read more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and six months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, three, or Tiarnan, sixteen months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted children and gifted adults in general. Thanks.)