The need for a challenge.

Too often, gifted children are given no special provision. The understanding of many teachers and educational authorities is that the gifted will naturally do well and need no particular attention. What they haven't actually given any thought to is: do well at what? Should a gifted child be given no greater challenge than that of their average age-mates? Most school systems do just that and give their gifted nothing more to do than they would any other child.

Yet, from my experience, I would say that a gifted child should be challenged. They should be given something that demands more of them. Observing Ainan's quickness of mind when he was six, we decided that he needed something to challenge him - or at least appease, to some extent, the drive to understand that he was exhibiting. Thus it was that he began to take exams more typical of young adults. It was a good decision.

What might surprise some people is Ainan's reaction to being required to take science exams. He loves it. He gets a buzz from doing them. When asked what he felt about one particular science exam, for instance, he said: "Happy." It actually made him happy to sit in an exam room faced with a paper which would distress many average students.

That is a key difference between gifted students and the average child - and one that should not be ignored. Gifted students need a challenge - and the more gifted they are, the more of a challenge they need. Ainan is happiest when he is immersed in an intellectual challenge typical of a young adult science student. This is what gives him a sense of excitement.

Now, that might seem strange to some people, but it is important to understand this type of reaction if gifted students are to receive an appropriate education. Far from being "stressed" by a challenging academic situation, Ainan enjoys it. It is actually what makes him happy.

It seems to me that most educational systems - Singapore's included - do not know this. A happy gifted child is a challenged gifted child - by which I mean that the level of stimulus should match the level of ability. In some cases, this means that a rigorous exam is the recipe for a smiling child.

(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.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication prohibited. Use Only with Permission. Thank you.)

Tiarnan's gift for daddy.

A couple of days ago, Tiarnan, just turned three, a few days ago, did something strange and wonderful for me.

We were sitting at a bus stop, waiting to go into town together. He turned to me suddenly and said: "Daddy close your eyes!"

He always does this when he is about to present a surprise.

I did as he asked and closed my eyes.

Then, after a while, I opened them.

His arms stretched out, pointing at the road and he said: "Duh duuuh!"

Tiarnan had just introduced the world to me and more specifically the road, as a surprise.

I laughed out loud, for I understood in his gesture, echoes of other things. For me, it seemed like the act of an artist, to present the world as a surprise - yet Tiarnan had done just that.

He was laughing with me, mischief in his eyes.

Tiarnan is a child who manages to surprise, not just by what he does, but by what he thinks. Here he thought to present the world as a surprise. There seems to me to be a great profundity in that, in a way. Knowing him, I fully expect that profundity to be intended in some way.

Actually, the funny thing is that he DID surprise me. By presenting the road to me, in this way, he could not have done anything more unexpected. He had, therefore, managed to create a surprise out of the most unsurprising thing: a road filled with passing cars. Perhaps that was just his intention, to surprise with the unsurprising.

How surprising he is.

(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.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication prohibited. Use Only with Permission. Thank you.)

The consequences of blogging success.

Success at blogging is a fine mixture of persistence, writing skill and luck. Recently, I have got "lucky" and find that my blog traffic has grown tremendously. This is mainly due to the linking to my blog, by a few major sites that have decided it is appropriate to do so. The results have been startling.

To give you an idea of the change, I will detail my blog traffic over the past week. Last Thursday, I had 341 visitors, for the day; last Friday, 264. These are typical days. On Saturday, I had 248 visitors and on Sunday (always the quietest day) there were 207 visitors. All this is fairly normal for a week. However, on Monday, I had 1,452 visitors; on Tuesday, I had 9,664 visitors; on Wednesday, I had 1,237 visitors and today, so far with half the day left to go, I have had 1,658 visitors. This is very strange. The previous peak day over my two years of blogging was a peak of 3,000 when news of Ainan's achievements first broke in Malaysia. Most of the visitors, then, were from Malaysia. This time, the visitors are from all over the world, since the connecting sites have a global readership.

Were I to use a literary analogy, it is as if I have suddenly jumped from the "midlist" of blogging, into bestsellerdom...at least for the time being. I will have to confess that this makes writing my blog feel like a different kind of exercise. No longer am I writing for a select bunch of people "in the know", in the equivalent of a modest auditorium. No, I am now writing for a global audience of thousands, in the equivalent of a stadium. It feels very different. It feels as if I should now be more careful...yet that is not a feeling that I want. You see, what I have liked about blogging is its freedom. There is no editor, apart from myself, when I blog. There is no other power to say "yeah" or "nay" to my words or what I write - and I enjoy that freedom and have used it fully. If an enlarged audience should lead me to feel somehow inhibited, that would be a pity. I need, as a writer, to feel that freedom to write as I will - for that is what, for me, blogging is all about. It is the ultimate expression of mental freedom, since, only in the blogging format, are there no real restrictions as to what a writer says (except for legal ones, of course). In all other formats - be it for a newspaper, or in a book, there is always another person or people with a say in what the author is allowed to say.

I hope in a few days, I will get used to writing, now, for a much larger audience and that I am able to be as free as I was before. Logically, I think, it should be something I can do - but there is an illogical element in human matters, where feelings are concerned. It IS different to speak to a small room and to a large stadium, in real life - and it feels different, too, on this blog. It is not long since I could look at the records of everyone who visited and come to understand what led them to read my blog, where they were from and what they were searching for. I can't do that now. There are just too many readers. So, I have to be content, now, to write for a large crowd, instead of having a quiet conversation with a few "in the know".

If you are new to my blog: welcome. I try to update it daily and I write about many things - not just giftedness (though this is a common topic). I always write about social issues of relevance to many people and any issue that I feel is worthy of remark, be it the survival of mankind, or the nature of success.

Thank you for deciding to visit and read my words. Don't judge the whole on the contents of one or two posts, for there are many different kinds of posts here. Just take your time to read around. Most people should be able to find something of interest to them. The Guide to Scientific Child Prodigy is a link at the bottom of every post. It is helpful but does not list all posts, just most of them.

Best wishes to you all, wherever you are from.

(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.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication prohibited. Use Only with Permission. Thank you.)

A partial eclipse of the Sun.

We took our three sons to see a partial eclipse of the Sun, on Tuesday 27th January 2009.

From about 4.30 pm the Sun, in Singapore, began to be partially occluded. For the occasion, we went to the Science Centre, with the intention of viewing it through the telescopes, there, at the on-site Observatory.

Before viewing the eclipse, we went around the Science Centre with the boys. They were very excited and the three of them showed each other the exhibits, with great enthusiasm, interacting with them, curiously. It was their sense of excitement that impressed me. For them, the whole Science Centre is a kind of adventure, filled with strange experiences. They ran around seeking the most interesting exhibits, Tiarnan, in particular, and rather sweetly, climbing up onto them for a better look.

Tiarnan has been asking to go the Science centre for some time - which is quite an unusual request for the two year old he was, to start making. He was most keen on the idea. Finally, we took him, on the day of the eclipse.

When it came time to go to the Observatory, our eyes were met with the most unexpected queue, considering that it was Chinese New Year. The large room adjacent to the telescopes was filled with people eager to catch a glimpse of the eclipse, through the telescopes. There were three scopes and hundreds of people - so, seeing that, we abandoned the idea of viewing the Sun in that way at all.

Syahidah had been given special dark glasses ("optical density 5") for viewing the Sun directly, but I didn't want the boys to risk using them, in case they were tempted to take them off, while viewing (or they slipped). Luckily, there was a projection screen set up with a feed from the largest scope.

There was no need to look through the scopes at all. Our view would be just as good in front of the screen - and that is where we sat on the concrete steps, as if in some Roman auditorium.

By the time we arrived, the Moon was already partially covering the Sun. About a fifth of it was gone, as if a giant with very close set teeth had taken a bite out of it.

We explained to Tiarnan and Fintan that it was an eclipse and how it worked.

Tiarnan stood up and pointed at the projection screen: "This is the Sun." he said, turning to me, as if lecturing and "This is the Moon."

He understood alright.

The boys were very interested at first, sitting, studying the screen and watching the Moon slowly progressing across the Sun, covering more and more.

Ainan pointed out what appeared to be sunspots. They were darker blotches on the face of the Sun. Now, whether they were sunspots or not, I do not know - but they did look like them.

Syahidah sneaked out to look directly at the Sun, through her glasses.

"It is very small.", she observed, somewhat surprised, on her return. I didn't do the same, but stayed with the kids.

Ainan sat throughout, beside me, watching as the Sun was gobbled up. By 5.49 pm, it had reached a maximum eclipse of 80 % or so.

Fintan and Tiarnan divided their time between sitting with us and watching for a few minutes at a time, and running around the auditorium, treating it as an impromptu playground.

It was a good day. The best part of it was seeing how well the brothers worked together in their explorations and how excited they were to do so. I think all of them found it an interesting experience.

As for the partial eclipse, I think it made an impression on them all - even little Tiarnan.

It is not the only eclipse Ainan has experienced - he once was present at a total eclipse - but that is a whole other story (and a lot more funny). Perhaps I will write of it another day, or in another place.

(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.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication prohibited. Use Only with Permission. Thank you.)

Bedtime for a fish.

Yesterday, Tiarnan, did a drawing on a type of magnetic sketchpad.

"It's a fish.", he explained, to his mother.

"A fish?", she queried, looking down at his carefully drawn lines. "I don't see any eyes."

"Oh...it's sleepy."

Then he took a hold of the sketchboard controls and swiped across the image, which promptly disappeared.

"...and now it's dead.", he observed.

(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.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication prohibited. Use Only with Permission. Thank you.)

The happiest man in the world.

A couple of days after Patrick Rocca's suicide, seemingly over the loss of some considerable sum of money, it is supposed, I met one of the poorest men in Singapore.

I was on my way out in the morning, when I passed by a roadsweeper, cleaning up our estate.

He looked up at me from his work and threw the biggest of smiles. Reflexively, I smiled back, though I didn't recognize him.

"Good morning!" he said, to me and it was clear from the bounce in his words that it was, indeed, a good morning for him.

"Good morning!" I said, in reply, rather surprised at his evident happiness.

He had given me much to reflect on, as I went to work, that morning. You see, in Singapore, manual jobs such as the one he laboured over are exceptionally poorly paid...the equivalent of three digits per month, in US dollars and absolutely no more. That is for sure. He would barely make enough money to eat at a subsistence level for one person, never mind have a decent roof over his head. Yet, he was happy. He was unaccountably happy to be alive.

I thought, then, of Patrick Rocca who had blown his own brains out, over the loss of a huge sum of money (which I think it is likely would not have wiped him out down to this man's level). Patrick Rocca was a rich man, who had gotten somewhat poorer, though, by this man's scale he would still have been a rich man. Yet the roadsweeper was the happy, contented one.

There is a lesson in this, for us all. It is not our station in life that determines our happiness in life: it is how we feel about it. Rich Rocca was suicidal at his own circumstances - circumstances which are rich beyond imagination, for the happy roadsweeper.

Perhaps it is true, indeed, that money doesn't buy happiness. Perhaps all that is needed is a broomstick and a sunny morning.

(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.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication prohibited. Use Only with Permission. Thank you.)