Fintan's world of imagination

It is often instructive to ask a child what something represents - the answer is often surprising.

Yesterday, Fintan, three, was playing with Lego. He had built some kind of platform with complicated protrusions. It was a mysterious object whose purpose was not immediately clear to an observer.

"What are you building?" asked Syahidah, of him.

Without looking up, he said: "My country."

We live in Singapore, where there is much talk of "nation-building" - but this is not quite what they meant. Fintan, however, has bigger dreams, it seems: he is set on building his own nation - at least with Lego.

That night he took two things to bed with him: his favourite "teddy" - actually a cow - and his own "country". Fintan slept with a newly built nation in his bed.

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

Raffles Institution: first lab experience

Yesterday Ainan had his first practical chemistry lesson.

Mr. Ong Chiau Jin of Raffles Institution, the venerable Singapore school started in 1823, taught Ainan the basics of lab safety and took him through many foundational chemical techniques.

At first Ainan was very concerned about safety - which is a good sign, I would rather that than rashness in such an environment - but he grew in confidence throughout the session as he learned to manipulate everything, safely. He was particularly wary of the pale blue, almost invisible, Bunsen (or Desaga-Faraday, as I like to call it) flame.

Mr. Ong took him through quite a few chemical analytical techniques - and Ainan accomplished each on the first attempt, under his careful direction. Mr. Ong explained everything with clarity, demonstrating everything efficiently, for Ainan, so that he might learn by his example.

Ainan was utterly absorbed by the class and, at the end, did not want to leave: he wanted the lesson to continue. Perhaps there could be no greater compliment to Mr. Ong and Raffles than that.

We would like to thank Mr. Ong, Theresa Lai and the Raffles Institution for giving Ainan this chance to begin to learn the practical skills that are such an essential part of a chemical education.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and five months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, three, or Tiarnan, fifteen 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.)

Tiarnan of the smile

Tiarnan has a wonderful smile - all angelic and endearing - but that is not the true wonder. The true wonder is that he finds so many reasons to smile.

This morning for instance. I woke to find him awake and sitting between us, looking at me. He gave me his big, funny smile - but said nothing. He was happy to share this waking moment with me. His smile has its own character: it is a broad smile, showing his teeth and his nose wrinkles when he does it. It makes him look very cute - and handsome. He just looked up at me, unmoving, then looked at his mother, still asleep. He began to watch her sleep. Then, as if on cue, her eyes opened and the first thing she saw was Tiarnan, looking down on her. He gave her his biggest of smiles and bounced excitedly on the bed, at having caught her awaken. He then looked from one of us to the other very content simply to share the early morning moment, of his parents waking.

I don't know what he was thinking - but he seemed so happy - and that happiness made us happy too.

Sometimes I don't know how I was ever content before I became a Daddy.

Thank you Tiarnan.

The Value of Child Prodigies

What is the value of child prodigies? I ask this, not because it is my question, but because it was someone else's.

A couple of days ago, someone arrived on my blog having searched "the value of child prodigies".

A child prodigy is a child who exhibits extreme precocity of intellectual development in at least one domain normally undertaken by an adult. Such a child will, by the age of about 11, show adult level capability in an adult domain. Clearly, this is highly unusual. But what does it signal?

It could mean many things - and how much "value" it has really depends, I would say, on the response of the society around the child prodigy. If the child prodigy is welcomed, rather than greeted with hostility, as may be the case, then good things may come of this situation. If the child prodigy is given opportunities to grow at their own pace, then good things may come of this situation. If the child prodigy has a pathway cleared ahead of them, then good things may come of this situation. That is three "ifs" - and for many societies, that is three "ifs" too many. Many societies do not necessarily react in the right way to a prodigy. They do not furnish the opportunities they need. They do not adjust educational regimes to meet their needs. They do not, in fact, do what is necessary to allow the prodigy to flourish. Furthermore, they do not seem to care that this is so.

What loss does this mean to the society? It could mean they lose the music of a new Mozart, the art of a new Picasso, the industrial revolution of a new Karl Benz. The loss could be truly incalculable. You see a prodigy shows a massive "spike" in ability in at least one area. Such a spike is characteristic of adult geniuses who change a domain, forever. Huge focussed ability in an area is a minimum requirement for creative change in that area. Prodigies have this. However, they may not have the opportunity to express it, as a child or as an adult. Many child prodigies have become adult geniuses - but others have not. In many of these cases, one can read a less than ideal welcome for the child. Had the response been better, who knows what might have been the productive outcome.

It has been observed by psychologists that high general ability - such as measured by IQ - is useful for maintaining the status quo of a discipline - for mastering it and utilizing it. However, it is the mysterious presence of a domain specific special talent that signals the possibility of revolutionary change. This is so because the domain specific special talent can be so much more powerful than the endowment of even a high general intelligence can allow. A high IQ will not, in itself, allow a person to outperform someone with a specific talent in an area. The specific talent can be a towering thing indeed. It is these individuals who can, if supported and afforded opportunity, change the world.

Where do we first see such towering talents? Well, many are apparent in childhood and manifest as prodigiousness. Such children have the potential for greatness - but the path from childhood prodigiousness to adult greatness is a long and arduous one. Much support is needed along the way if these young minds are not to be thwarted in their various journeys. Some will become creative adult geniuses. It is for these some that we should help all, so that there might be as many as can be, in each generation. The growth of human culture depends on such efforts.

So to answer the searcher: the value of child prodigies is as much as you want it to be. It is up to the society to make that value as high as possible. The prodigy has the greatest of potential, of any child - but if that potential is ever to be fully realized so much needs to be done to allow them to grow to their fullest. Too many societies, throughout the world and history, have failed to do what is necessary - and continue to fail to do so. The resultant loss is a loss to us all.

(If you would like to read about Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and five months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, three, and Tiarnan, fifteen 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. Thanks.)

Raffles and the Laboratory

It has been about eleven months in the coming, but finally we have a laboratory for Ainan.

Raffles Institution have agreed to give Ainan some basic training in the procedures of a chemical lab. This is great news for us. We only wish it had come months ago, for Ainan"s progress has been held up considerably by this delay: basically he has been able to acquire no lab skills since the need arose almost a year ago. This is a serious deficiency in his scientific training. Hopefully, he will now be able to make up for lost ground.

Our thanks to Raffles for making the necessary arrangements.

Tomorrow is Ainan"s first day in the lab. He is really looking forward to it.

Tiarnan, the little policeman

About three days ago, Tiarnan, fifteen months, stepped in to control his brothers' behaviour.

Ainan, 7, and Fintan, 3, were playing in a rough and tumble style. This is characteristic of boys everywhere and, generally speaking, no-one really gets hurt: it is just play wrestling. Tiarnan, however, thought differently of this. He looked at Fintan on top of Ainan on the couch, the two struggling together and he looked up at me, then pointed at his brothers: "Heh..."

I looked at where he pointed, then decided to do something. I stepped in and pulled the two boys apart. The funny thing was Tiarnan's reaction. He was flabbergasted that I had listened to him and taken his instruction. His little pixie form began dancing around the room in excitement that I had acted on his tip off: he was exhilarated.

It was a little thing - but in listening to Tiarnan and acting on his intention, I think I did much to reach through to him. What does he think now: that Daddy listens to him.

It was a good moment.

By the way, the boys didn't go back to their wrestling.

(If you would like to read more of Tiarnan, fifteen months, or his gifted brothers, Ainan Celeste Cawley, seven years and five months, or Fintan, three, 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. Thanks.)

Karl Benz: child prodigy.

You may find the name Karl Benz familiar. It should be. From him sprang Mercedes Benz, Daimler Benz and Daimler-Chrysler. Yet, did you know, he was a child prodigy?

Many of history's most accomplished individuals began life as child prodigies. Prodigy is not just a childhood phenomenon, therefore: it can presage the beginning of a most productive life. That this is not more widely known is simply because in time we remember these former prodigies for their adult achievements - and forget that once they were prodigious children. Examination of the lives of adult geniuses, turns up many who were child prodigies.

What did Karl Benz do? Well, he was the inventor of the petrol (or gasoline) powered automobile; he held the patents for all the processes that allowed a petrol powered internal combustion engine to work; he invented the carburettor; the water radiator, the ignition system based on sparks from a battery; the spark plug; the clutch; the accelerator. It would be fairly true to say, that he invented the car (in the sense of most of the things that allowed it function in the way that is familiar to us all). He also invented an engine now used in motorsports - the flat engine or boxer engine - oh, and the axle-pivot steering system. On top of that, he made car designs, too.

All of this accomplishment has its roots in a scientifically prodigious childhood - a prodigiousness that was clear in his primary school years. Though he came from a very poor background (owing in large part, one would think to his father being killed, in a railway accident, when Karl was only two years old), his mother struggled to ensure he got the best of educational opportunities. He didn't disappoint her and he started at the scientifically oriented Lyzeum at nine years old. From there he moved onto the Poly-Technical University and finally another University - the University of Karlsruhe which he entered at the age of 15 to study Mechanical Engineering.

After his formal education, Karl Benz, like many people of genius, found it difficult to fit into normal working life. He moved from job to job, never really finding his place. After seven years of this, he started a mechanical workshop with Auguste Ritter. Though the first year was a disaster - to which he responded by buying out his partner - this new independence proved the foundation of his future success. It allowed him to work on his ideas. Soon he had invented a two-stroke engine. Thence forth a river of inventions flowed from him, each contributing to the motor age.

It was not until he had formed another company, however, Benz and Company, having been sidelined by others, in his first company, that he was free to work on his dream: "a horseless carriage". In 1885, he invented the Benz Patent Motorwagen, the world's first automobile. The age of the car had begun.

He was born in the age of the railway, and by the time he died in 1929, the world had been transformed by the car - and it was largely his doing.

Benz is but one example of a child prodigy, who grew up to be an adult who changed the world. I shall look at others, over time, for each is an interesting example of what may come from a prodigiously gifted child who receives the opportunities they need to flower as they might.

(Karl Benz, child prodigy, inventor of the automobile, 1844 - 1929).

(If you would like to read of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and five months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, three or Tiarnan fifteen 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.)

Searching for a tutor

Contrary to what people might think, Ainan has never had a tutor: his chemistry knowledge is a product of his own study and a little help from me.

However, recently, he has developed an interest in mathematics. Now, it is a long time since I studied maths - too, too long. So I was left with a choice: relearn maths alongside and teach him as I recovered old skills - or find him a professional tutor.

Yesterday, we met one such tutor. He was affable, passionate about maths, dedicated to it - taught it seven days a week - in most ways he seemed an ideal choice. There was just one sticking point. The price.

So, I am back to my original position. Either I relearn maths and teach Ainan myself - or engage a tutor. The only problem is finding one who chooses to be affordable. I have an idea therefore. Do you know of a good, dedicated maths tutor, living in Singapore, who would like to teach Ainan maths (to a high level) pro bono? (Or at least affordably?)

If you know of any such generous soul - please write to me with their contact information. Thanks.