An unexpected maturity; a surprising immaturity.

Today, I saw something remarkable - and a little sad.

I was with Tiarnan in the Science Centre, after having seen the Leonardo the Genius exhibition. Tiarnan, three, was in the mathematics display area of the Science Centre and he was investigating the Double Gravity Well exhibit. He found it most absorbing.

Tiarnan first wanted to stand on the exhibit, to be able to see into it. It consists of an ellipitical table like surface, which is curved, dipping towards two holes along the central axis. The idea is that you should roll a ball along the surface and watch how it is affected by the twin wells, representing two gravitational masses near each other. I gave Tiarnan a ball, while he stood on the table but, instead of rolling it while standing on the top, he jumped down to the floor to do it "properly".

He held the ball in his left hand and rolled it. He was delighted as it careened around the table top, drawn in a curve around the wells and between them. Eventually, it rolled into one of the holes. Immediately, he rushed off to get more balls and rolled them, one by one, in different paths, to see what would happen. He managed to do it three times, before he was interrupted.

Laughing, shouting and pushing each other, there came a group of teenage boys into the room. They saw, at once, what Tiarnan was doing and rushed over to the balls and, immediately, started to throw them at each other. Tiarnan, who had three more balls in his hands, stopped in his tracks, and watched these older, bigger boys behaving so strangely.

The teenagers were among the least well behaved people I can ever recall seeing in a museum. They threw the balls at each other, hard and fast in rapid succession. Then they rushed over to the table and huddled around it. One of them jumped up and tried to punch a ball into the hole, forcing it down a hole it was never meant to pass through. He punched it several times, until it was thoroughly jammed. Tiarnan was shocked at what they were doing.

The teenagers ran around chaotically - from Tiarnan's perspective they must have seemed like giant lumbering lunatics. There was no order to their behaviour, it was just an exuberant, messy, riotous chaos. Tiarnan stood stock still, his three balls unused in his hands. He seemed to be waiting for them to go away. I looked down at him and he looked up at me in a shared understanding. He looked back at the boys, wondering, perhaps, just why they were behaving as they were. Tiarnan, you must remember, is just three years old and had never, in his short life, seen boys behaving like this before.

After the boy had given up trying to force the ball through the hole, with his fist, they started a battle on the table top. This involved moving the balls around the table as fast as possible, and trying to hit them together. This they did for a couple of minutes, before their short attention spans were exhausted. Then they decided to throw all the balls in the room on the table, upending the containers filled with them to do so. One container was upended over another boy.

I called Tiarnan away, lest they run into him.

He understood the need to move, at once, and came with me.

Behind us, the boys rioted on, scattering balls all over the hall, shouting as much as they threw.

For me, the contrast between my three year old's attentive, concentrated attempt to understand the double gravity well and its properties, and the teenage boys' mindlessness, could not have been sharper. Tiarnan seemed infinitely more mature, more composed, more thoughtful and more intelligent, than the mindless oafs who had taken over the museum hall. It was more than a little disturbing to realize that these boys - who looked to be about 18 years old - were SIX times older than my son - and yet, had none of his self-control, none of his consideration for others and none of his maturity.

After the gravity well, the gang of boys went from exhibit to exhibit, interacting with each in a very aggressive way - as if trying to test them to destruction. The hall was filled with the sounds of banging and bashing, alongside their shouts. We retreated as far from them as we could.

I didn't say anything to Tiarnan about it, then, but I think I should. I think those boys provided a terrible example to my son of what constitutes a reasonable way to behave in a public space and with public property. I wouldn't expect a three year old to try to be so destructive as those boys were. Isn't it shocking to think that 18 year olds are capable of behaving in a way which would be considered out of place even for a THREE year old?

The conventional overseas view of Singaporean school going students is that they are all a studious, serious lot. I can tell you now, however, that that is certainly not true of all of them. I imagine that far from being studious, the bunch of boys I saw today would be more likely to tear the pages out of a book, than read them.

I am left with a thought: those boys were pre-NS. I wonder, just wonder, how they will cope with the discipline of NS, when their natural inclination is to riot? I think they are in for a surprise..either that, or the NS people are...

What was sad, for me, was seeing Tiarnan watching these rioting boys huddled around the gravity well table, in utter astonishment at what they were doing, then looking down at the balls in his hands, wondering, I thought, whether he was ever going to get the chance to continue his investigation. He didn't.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight 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, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

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IMDB is the Internet Movie Database for film and tv professionals.If you would like to look at my IMDb listing for which another fifteen credits are to be uploaded, (which will probably take several months before they are accepted) please go to: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3438598/ As I write, the listing is new and brief - however, by the time you read this it might have a dozen or a score of credits...so please do take a look. My son, Ainan Celeste Cawley, also has an IMDb listing. His is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3305973/ My wife, Syahidah Osman Cawley, has a listing as well. Hers is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

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