NUS High: is education appropriate?

Can standardized education ever meet the needs of a gifted child? (Especially a prodigious one?)

I wonder at this because of Ainan's experience of NUS High. It has taken a long time to go from initial approach to actual attendance at NUS High. The journey has required many different administrative hurdles to be overcome - and, at no stage, could it be regarded as a straightforward matter. Yet, now that Ainan, 7, is attending the National University of Singapore High School for Maths and Science, I note a danger that I had not given enough thought to before. This is the danger that the school might not provide for his needed level of stimulation and education.

This might seem a strange thought for anyone who doesn't know Ainan - surely, you will ask, NUS High School for Maths and Science, should be enough of a stimulus for him, considering that he is only 7. This is not necessarily so. Ainan is studying A level Chemistry at home (and reading sometimes at a higher level still). For comparison's sake, it should be noted that A level is equivalent to a US College Degree, in academic demand.

The classes at NUS High, so far, have not been at the level that Ainan requires to extend his boundaries. He has been recapping material already known. In his first class, for instance, he learnt one new thing. That was a good start: one new thing, in two hours of class work is better than nothing. In his second class, however, he learnt nothing new at all. In the space of two hours, nothing new was covered: he was familiar with it all.

There are more dangers in this than might be immediately evident. With a gifted child, one grave danger is that of boredom. If no new material is presented, or the material presented is new, but trivially simple for the child, then the gifted child will switch off after awhile and become bored. In due course, the gifted child may lose interest in the school and in education itself. All this may result if the student is under-challenged by a course. This is what Ainan is now at risk for. The classes do not cover new material (only one new item has been introduced so far in Ainan's first week), and engage him at a level, at which, he is not charting new territories. I worry about this because I know Ainan. There is one sure way to switch him off - and that is repetition. If you repeat work he has already familiarized himself with - unless you are expanding on the material in some way/adding something new, as well - you will lose him and he will become bored.

Any gifted child may respond in this way to a standardized school experience. Such lessons do not usually adjust for the presence of the gifted child and may not extend the child's knowledge at all. In all such situations, little is learnt and there is the danger that the child may give up on learning, in such an environment. I would say that a gifted child should never be exposed to unchallenging classes and should never be asked to repeat material already known.

It may be that a school is the wrong place for a gifted child - particularly a prodigy - for school will only ever cater for the middle of the road: the mainstream of the pupil body. At NUS High School for Maths and Science, that mainstream consists of mathematically and scientifically gifted children - but there are different levels and needs of such gifted children. Some will need more than others. These children will not be catered for by a system that is aimed - and must necessarily be aimed - at the middle of the pack, if it is to work as a classroom at all.

Perhaps later classes will develop the subject in more depth. Perhaps in time Ainan will be introduced to new material and his interest will be stimulated, awakened and rewarded. This is, however, only a hope of a father who has long sought to find the right educational situation for his prodigious child. What I see, now, however, is a course that is not challenging Ainan, at present. This may change - and I hope it does. I would like to see him extend his boundaries and learn new things. That is, after all, the whole point of an education. At present, however, even in such a seemingly appropriate environment, I don't see it happening just yet. Perhaps it will change. Perhaps they will adjust to fit his needs better. I hope so - but I don't know so. It is just a father's hope. I just hope I don't hope in vain.

(If you would like to read more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and no months, or Tiarnan, seventeen 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 adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)