Let the children play

About a month ago, when Fintan was still three, I saw something which made me wonder what some parents think parenting is all about.

Fintan was in the pool - it was the shallow children's pool and there was only one other child in the pool - a boy of about two or three years old (generally Chinese children are relatively small so it makes guessing their age difficult - but he was certainly at least two years old). This child was accompanied by two adults, one of whom appeared to be his mother, the other a friend.

What I noted fairly quickly was that neither adult seemed to be able to play with the child, very well. Their main concern seemed to be stopping him from doing things. They would always intervene when he tried to do something, interrupting whatever it was that he was trying to do. They seemed to be worried that he would hurt himself somehow. After some time, he appeared to basically give up trying to do anything, and stood largely immobile. Here was a child who wasn't being allowed to be a child.

Fintan is a friendly boy. He saw the other little boy and decided to play a game. He approached the boy, swimming like a shark and diving into the water just before the boy, teasing him with the possibility of being eaten. He would then back up quickly, running through the water, while looking back to see if he was being followed. Very clearly, Fintan, three, was trying to initiate some sort of improvised chase game. The other boy never reacted. Never once did he try to chase Fintan in return. He just looked at him, in incomprehension, it seemed.

After a few attempts to make the other boy engage, one would have thought Fintan would give up - but he didn't get the opportunity to. Suddenly, the mother snapped at Fintan: "Will you stop bullying my baby!?" she cried, "Will you stop?"

Fintan and I were both surprised at this since it was clear that she had completely misunderstood the situation. He looked at her in silence - and then backed away, his face somewhat hurt by this unfair accusation. After a minute or two he started to play alone - and ignored the other child completely in the remaining half an hour he spent in the pool. The boy's minders, meanwhile, got on with preventing him from playing.

I felt like remonstrating with the mother, but thought better of it. A woman who misunderstood children to that extent was probably too stupid to reason with. I watched her with her child for a while and never saw any playfulness creep into her interactions with her child: it was all about control. It was one of the saddest pieces of "misparenting" I have ever seen.

This woman - and her friend - had intervened so as to prevent their child from playing. They had thwarted another child's attempt to befriend their child. They had misunderstood Fintan's friendliness as hostility - and isolated their child. In all the time that the other boy was in the pool, he was never allowed to make his own decisions, never allowed to be free to play. Most pointedly, he was never allowed to interact with another child.

I did note, too, her reference to her child as a "baby". That, perhaps, said it all. In her mind, her child was forever a baby, forever needing protection, forever needing to be watched over. From his size and motor development, he was at least two years old, however - and far from being a baby. He was almost Fintan's contemporary.

Fintan and I left the pool, sometime later - and he never spoke of what he felt about what she had done - but we both went home quieter than before, having been subdued by this silly woman's behaviour.

She did teach me one thing, though: how not to be a parent. Perhaps we can all learn from her poor example - and do what obviously she could never do: let the children play.

(If you would like to learn more of Fintan, four years and no months, and his gifted brothers, Ainan Celeste Cawley, seven years and seven months, and 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.)

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.)

The problem with Universities

Universities are often not the havens of academia that they are portrayed to be in movies and literature. There is a very profound problem with many of them.

A University may be of two kinds, in the pure sense: a teaching University and a research University. From what I have seen, it is often the latter kind of University that wins attention and praise and fame, and for which students all over the world compete for admission. I went to Cambridge University - a great research University. However, all research Universities suffer from a very human problem. The staff are researchers, not teachers.

At a research University, it is usual for the staff to have mixed duties: they have their research and they have their teaching duties. You might think that this could create a situation in which students benefit from "cutting-edge" thinking from their famous researcher/Professor. This is usually not the case. What is more common is that the famous researcher type is really only engaged by his research work and couldn't care less about his - or her - students. That was most certainly the impression left on me by my University. The research staff really were only concerned about their research: students were in most cases seemingly regarded as an inconvenience - a distraction from the purity of their research.

Thus, what is a student to do? Well, I would, if I had my life again, ignore all famous research Universities for an Undergraduate or First Degree. I would go somewhere that had, at its heart, a love of teaching (if such a University could be found). I would not even be tempted to attend somewhere famous for its research - for such a place would tend to ignore its student base, for its own inward looking research work.

Perhaps a new norm should be established. Students should attend specialized teaching Universities for their first degrees - and only later, should they go to a research University - when they are doing a research degree. No-one should have to suffer the experience of being ignored by research staff intent on their personal research, at the expense of their teaching duties. That is a terrible experience that usually destroys the student's love of learning. So many people that I know who went to famous research Universities were very disappointed with the experience. It often destroyed the lives they had planned, in a very profound way.

So, if you have a bright child, I would suggest that you look beyond the famed Universities. Sometimes the less famous, more teaching based institution may be a far more welcoming place, than a place that has built its reputation on research, but not on teaching.

In many ways, this is one of my more important posts.

(If you would like to read 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.)

The universality of intelligence

There is a person called Koko who is very special in a way that might surprise you.

Now Koko has a curious disability - being unable to speak, but can use 400 signs of American Sign Language. Koko has an interesting sense of humour and makes jokes and rhymes using these signs. Koko even uses metaphor, sometimes - all in Sign Language. So, although unable to speak, Koko can communicate.

Koko's IQ is not what you might call gifted - and so may not seem a suitable subject for this blog. Koko's IQ regularly tests at around 80. You might not think much of that - but I do. You see, Koko is a gorilla.

Did that surprise you? Koko is more intelligent than many humans - for an IQ of 80 is not actually all that low, when you consider that the average for the United States is 98 (and the average for France 94). There are even countries on Earth, populated with humans, whose IQs average in the 60s and 70s. Thus Koko is more intelligent than many humans. Yet, Koko is not free, in the sense, of being self-determining. Shouldn't Koko, whose IQ is well into the human range, have rights just like those other primates - the humans?

You should note that the IQ tests used on Koko are normal, human IQ tests for which no adjustment has been made for the differences between gorilla and human culture. Given this disadvantage, perhaps a culture fair test, that took account of what it means to be a gorilla, might actually produce a higher score. I would be surprised if this did not, in fact, occur.

Koko is a thinking being with a rich life of thought. Yet, most people would dismiss him (her?) as "just an ape". I think it is time to revisit our ideas of what is intelligent - and who - and think a little more clearly about how we treat our fellow "animals" on this planet. Koko would probably make a very interesting person to talk to - what with his (her?) different perspective, allied to fluency in a human language - American Sign Language.

Koko's abilities also lead us to ask: what is the role of education in the development of the human? Koko has been educated by Francine Patterson, since 1972 - and the results are incredible. If an educational programme can do this for a gorilla, what other animals, in our environment, could attain human level performance? In the light of this, are we humans fair, kind and reasonable in our conduct towards animals in general? These are uncomfortable questions but they have to be asked. If all that separates us and our near relatives is a decent education, then we have really, really, really, not been behaving well towards our kindred.

Perhaps it is not the place to point this out, but I think I should. A gorilla, if educated, can perform in the human intellectual range. Yet, gorillas are still considered FOOD for some people in this world. Now, that really is an awful thought.

By writing this post, today, perhaps I can enlarge people's respect for our fellow animals - and perhaps cause some of you to think about what it means to be human - and ask how we got that way in the first place. After all, a gorilla can go pretty far to becoming "human" by just being given the chance to grow, intellectually. There is a very profound lesson in that.

(If you would like to read 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, adult genius, baby genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted children and gifted adults in general. Thanks.)

Tiarnan's taste in food

A week or two ago, when Tiarnan was sixteen months old, his mother asked him a question.

"Do you want green bean soup?", enquired Syahidah of her littlest son.

"Red bean bun.", he replied, clearly.

This was a funny reply for many reasons. Did he really want a red bean bun - or was he making a visual joke? Was he juxtaposing the red, against the green? There were many foods that he could have asked for - but he chose one that had a visual and semantic relationship with the one being asked.

It is notable that neither food was in sight.

(If you would like to read more of Tiarnan, seventeen months, or his gifted brothers, Ainan Celeste Cawley, seven years and seven months, or Fintan, four years and no 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.)

Educational testing and intellectual performance

Why do education systems test their students? Usually they want to find out "how good" their students are. Does this work? Does constant testing improve the students, or does it prevent them from learning?

I have written about the problem of over-testing in the UK (and Singapore, indirectly), recently. My contention was that obsessive testing of students would get in the way of their real education, by focussing the students upon an ever smaller set of knowledge, driving them away from a true pursuit of education and learning. I offered this as an opinion yet, I have found evidence, now, that it is true. The more you test, the less you get, in terms of student development. England tests their state school students over 70 times between the age of 7 and school leaving age. What effect does this have on the students?

Well, a recent study of over 10,000 British students tested at the age of 11 and 12 for cognitive performance has produced alarming results. The research was performed by Michael Shayer of King's College London and published in the British Journal of Educational Psychology. The study showed that in their cognitive and conceptual development, today's 11 or 12 year olds from Britain were TWO or THREE years BEHIND their counterparts from 1990. This means that, in real terms, young British children have regressed intellectually compared to children of 15 years before: their actual ability to think and reason is impaired by comparison. Think about what a three year difference at age 12 means: it is a 25% difference - which, if it were IQ, would indicate a 25 IQ point difference. This is a HUGE drop in intellectual function, for a whole nation.

In the same period, in which the drop occurred, Britain became a test-mad nation. The students were subject to endless tests beginning at seven on their performance on every little matter of schooling. The idea behind the tests was to guarantee that students were adhering to "standards" - but what, actually has happened? In real terms, Britain's kids have got stupid, by comparison to their former intellectual performance. Is there a connection? Does excessive testing drive children away from true education? Does it prevent children from actually growing intellectually? This situation in Britain would seem to support my understanding that excessive testing will get in the way of true education.

When I was in school, there was very little testing other than formal examinations such as O level and A level. So, too, the children from my generation were demonstrably smarter than the children of today's generation: is there a direct connection? Were we freer to think and grow and learn owing to less testing? In my heart, I feel so. I was one of many students who studied because we loved to think and to learn. I was not studying because there was a test coming up - because there just WASN'T a test coming up. It was a better way to learn, I think.

The research threw up many alarming results. One was that the gender gap had vanished. Girl students were traditionally better than boys, being more studious and less disruptive by nature - but that advantage has gone, too, with girls showing great deterioration in intellectual performance.

In the new Britain, one in six British people do not have the literacy skills expected of an average 11 year old. You would think that was bad enough - but it gets worse: half of British people do not have basic functional numeracy. That's right: 50% of all British people today are not sufficiently numerate.

What is the real world effect of such educational and cognitive declines? Well a review by Leitch, found that a 1 % increase in literacy in a population, resulted in a 1.5% increase in GDP, for the nation - and a 2.5% increase in labour force productivity. Thus even slight changes in the educational standards of a nation have noticeable real world effects on the standard of living and quality of life, in that nation.

Education should be about learning and growing, in all the ways that are suited to the child. As soon as it becomes about bureaucratic measurement - as it long has become in Britain and some other nations - then, I contend, that is a nation that will fall into decline - because in such a test obsessed environment there is no time for, or attention given to, real learning, real growth, real insight.

The Shayer study is strong evidence that education conducted in the way it is conducted in Britain - as an incessant round of tests that bedevils pupils throughout their education - simply does not work to bring about real intellectual growth. Britain's pupils are now demonstrably stupid compared to their forebears of only fifteen years ago. A drop of 25% in cognitive performance is a massive decline. It is almost the difference between a moderately gifted student and an average one. It is a huge disparity.

It is time, for all countries that are obsessed with testing and measurement of their students, to throw that aside in favour of a classroom that favours true learning by the student: deep, exploratory, insightful learning that will bring forth the intellectual leaders of the future. The alternative is national decline and failure.

Will Britain choose to do anything about this situation? I think not, for one can read in the reaction of their media the true attitude towards the situation: indifference. Not one single main British media outlet covered this story about the Shayer study. Only one magazine, the Spectator, wrote of it. All the British newspapers ignored it. So, where does this leave the British people? They are left ignorant of the true state of decline in the mental quality of their children and in the education they have been receiving. Yet, these children are the future of Britain. Based on their decline in ability, at age 11 or 12, one can safely say that in twenty to thirty years, when this generation of children are in their thirties and forties, that Britain will have declined significantly as a nation. It cannot be otherwise, when the quality of minds on which the nation is built has declined so precipitously. It is all very well to be indifferent to the situation now, but in two or three decades the price of that indifference will be paid - by the whole nation.

So, nations everywhere, should focus on an education system that truly allows their children to learn - and not binds them up in an incessant bureaucratic requirement for testing. Britain made that latter choice - and the results are very clear: a generation of dumb kids - and a generation of dumb adults to come.

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