Wild, Wild West in the East.

Recently, the boys, Ainan, Fintan and Tiarnan, attended a sports event at Fintan’s school. Of greater interest to them, than the “Jogathon”, were the fairground like attractions that accompanied it.

The boys set themselves a challenge: they were going to win various prizes, by their skill at the fairground. I had my doubts about the wisdom of this, having background memories of the fairgrounds of my childhood, in which most of the games were rigged in favour of the fairground…more of an UNfairground, as it were.

My life experience proved telling, at first. A handful of tickets were bought at 3 Ringgits a piece and the boys set about with their plan. The first challenge was to knock down nine “bowling pins”, with three coconuts. At first, the boys thought this looked easy, since they had had some experience of bowling and knew just how to handle the situation. So, they duly bowled the coconuts towards the pins. This, however, didn’t work. The coconuts veered off course, their odd shapes making them unruly. So, one ticket wasted.

Fintan tried, this time. Having observed that bowling wouldn’t work, in this particular “bowling” challenge, he elected to throw the coconuts at the pins. This was much better – he hit the top of one pin and it fell over. The pins beside it, however, were remarkably resistant to being knocked down. There was something fishy here. Fintan’s next throw hit the pins full on, midway up the pins. They didn’t move at all. Now, it became clear just how this game was rigged: the pins were heavily weighted, in the lower half. Hitting them full on, would have no effect on them at all. These were bowling pins that couldn’t be bowled. What a cheat. That wasn’t the only thing that was dishonest. You see, when people assess the challenge, they have an understanding of how much a coconut weighs. But these coconuts were incredibly light: they had been drained and emptied of all fluid, then dessicated. It was like bowling with balsa wood.

So, the fairgrounds of Asia, were just like the fairgrounds of my childhood: unfairgrounds!

The purpose of the fairground was, of course, to make money, for the school. However, it did seem unfair to take away from all those who played this game, any real chance of winning. In other situations, this bowling game would be called a con.

We left the large queue of people waiting to bowl and assessed the other games present.

Ainan’s eyes grew wide when he saw a shooting game. The task was simple. Players had to use a nerf gun (not intrinsically very accurate), to shoot small ducks on a board. The ducks were about three inches wide and about one and a half inches high: not very big targets for such an inaccurate gun.

We watched the previous player shoot his three shots. He missed three times. It just wasn’t particularly easy. Seeing this, I did wonder if the “house” was going to win again.

Ainan held the loaded gun with the utmost casualness. Anyone who didn’t know him, might have viewed his confidence as misplaced. In rapid succession, he squeezed off three shots, re-aiming on a different duck between each shot. Three ducks duly fell. He had won.

Perhaps, the boys’ ambition to win a few prizes was not so misplaced after all!

The attendant manning the stall revealed no reaction, beyond a little evaluative stare at Ainan. He ticked our “prize card”, with a special pencil to signal that we were owed one prize.

The next challenge was a traditional one for fairgrounds: knocking down a triangle made out of tin cans, with three tennis balls.

Again, we watched others attempt the task. It wasn’t so easy either. It was easy to knock down some of the cans, with the first ball (if it hit the cans at all), but that usually left a lot of free standing cans, too separated to be knocked down, other than individually. As a result, all the people we watched ran out of balls, before they ran out of cans to knock down.

Then it was Ainan’s turn.

He held his tennis ball lightly in his right hand, which I thought interesting considering that he is left handed (from the point of view of which hand he writes with). He tossed it casually towards the cans.

Bang! All of them fell down.

Ainan had beaten the game with a single shot.

“I aimed at the mathematically weakest point.”, he explained. Ah. So science had been his secret weapon.

The attendant looked a little surprised and smiled a little, at what he had seen. Tellingly, he didn’t even have the special pencil required to mark a winner. He had to go off and borrow someone else’s – so he hadn’t exactly had many winners.

So, it looked like I was wrong. The boys were going to win some prizes and beat this fairground. Their secret was to stick to games in which there was actual skill involved and which weren’t rigged. In such a situation, Ainan won every time.

The boys went to collect their first round of prizes: a set of Ben 10 stationery and a set of Transformers stationery for Fintan and Tiarnan. They eyed some “Angry Bird” merchandise and elected to aim for that, too. They needed to win four games to get it. Ainan’s comment? “No problem”.

He was right. He duly went off and shot nine ducks in a row and knocked down a pyramid of cans, to bag his prize. It was clearly no challenge for him at all.

To be frank, I hadn’t expected that, since Ainan has shown little interest in sports – yet, the skills required for these tasks were sporting ones (whether he knew it or not). Perhaps, the fact that they were not so obviously sports, or presented as such, allowed him to be interested enough to meet the challenge.

I was pleased to find out that my son was such a “Wild West kid”. Well done Ainan.

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.htmland here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175

To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here:http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at:http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is athttp://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

On the mortality of reputation.

Yesterday, I came across a strange document on the Internet. It was an old 19^th century paper on Irish genius, by geographical distribution. It was more of a list of “great” people than anything else, since there was relatively little analysis in it. What interested me most about it, was the tale it told about reputations.

Each of the people referred to, was held up as an example of “talent” or “genius”. Each person was spoken of as if their greatness would be apparent to the reader, with little explanation. Many were declared as if the reader would know them, for sure. Words such as “worldwide reputation” were appended to people whose names, most curiously, are utterly unknown to me. Of one author, for instance, the writer said: “I am sure his work shall be forever known”…or words to that effect. Yet, I had neither heard of the work, nor the author. It could, in fact, have been a work of fiction, for all the familiarity the names had for me. I recognized perhaps one name in several hundred. That is, much less than 1 % of these people, whose reputations were great enough in the 19^th century, to be held up as examples of enduring “talent” or “genius”, were now known to me. All the others, their entire works, their lives, their names, had faded utterly from memory. It was as if they had never been.

Now, I am sure that the 19^th century is no exception in this matter. The phenomenon that can be observed in this paper, in which the list of “great names” is now without any meaning or substance at all, will, most assuredly, apply to our own times, too. Look around you at all the names offered up to us, by the media, as examples of “talent” and “genius”. Look at all the “famous” people, now spoken of as if they truly matter. Were a list of them to be compiled, by an academic today, and published, as the 19^th century paper was, then, by the 23^rd century, anyone reading it, as I have the other paper, would experience the very same sense of puzzlement: who, on Earth, were these people? Why did they matter in their own time? Were they truly special? Has the passage of time made their works unimportant, or were they not so important to begin with?

What struck me particularly, was the air of confidence, of the writer, that the names he offered up, were truly worthy. The writer was clearly an Irishman (one D. J. O’Donoghue!) – and he was clearly boasting of the greatness of his countrymen. Yet, today, almost none of these people matter to us. Almost every one of them, has been forgotten.

Almost all of the public figures who are now respected, eulogized, famed and courted, will be completely forgotten in a similar span of time, as the 19^th century figures. When seen in this context, modern fame doesn’t really matter. It is so fragile, so fleeting, so perishable, that it is almost as if it were not there at all. Very, very few, of the people now thought “important”, will be seen so, with the passage of a century or two. Only true giants will be remembered – and, of them, there are very, very few. In a few centuries time, only a handful of people from our era, will be known to the common man: everyone else, no matter how “famous” now, will have been completely forgotten. Thus, it can be seen, that “fame” is not really fame, unless it endures for the future course of human history. If a person is known, however brightly, for a brief time – like, say, Tom Cruise is likely to be – then that person is not truly famous. Their familiarity to us, now, is a temporary aberration that will soon pass. I cannot tell you how many people have arrived on my blog asking, for instance, “What did Patrick Swayze do for a living?” and “How did MacCaulay Culkin become famous?” Even relatively recent cultural figures soon begin to be forgotten. It doesn’t take centuries, to become unremembered – it only takes a couple of decades.

Would people seek fame so strongly, if they knew it would pass, almost as quickly as it had come? I am not sure. Some only think in a short term manner: they see their fame NOW, as evidence of their “success”. They choose not to look ahead, to the future time, possibly within their own lifetimes, when they will have been forgotten.

I think it is an interesting exercise to consider the achievements of famous people, today and ask: what will future Man remember? What will they see as important enough to recall? Is anyone, today, doing anything significant enough to be known, by the common man, of five hundred years from today?

The answer, I think you will find, is that, for very few of the presently famous, is it so, that their lives and works will be worthy of remembrance. What they are doing is not truly significant – it is just well marketed. That marketing will not continue, long after they are dead – and long after anyone cares about them. So, in time, their “fame” will be no more. They will become as those puzzling names in the Irish genius paper: totally unknown.

Many people are envious of the famous. They need not be, however, for this understanding of the true nature of fame and its fragility, shows that what the famous have, for the most part, is illusory. It is a possession that will evaporate with the passing of a few decades. In truth, the “famous” are no more famous to posterity, than the average man, with very few exceptions. History has a great facility for forgetting, all but the most memorable.

Of course, this meditation leaves a problem for those who wish their lives to have lasting meaning: what can any of us do, to make an enduring effect upon the world? The simplest way, of course, is to have children for that can connect our lives to all future history and make of us, part of the web of human life, forevermore. So it is that the ordinary family man, can leave a more lasting impression on the future, than all but the most famous childless “star”.

Some are fortunate to endure in both reputation, and descendants – but very, very few. Whom do you think, living today, or having lived in the last century or so, will be remembered five hundred years from today? How will they be remembered and thought of? What will they be remembered for?

Please reflect on these questions and give your answers below.

Thank you.

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.htmland here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175

To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here:http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at:http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is athttp://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

The gifted disclosure dilemma.

Often, being gifted feels like a secret. More pointedly, being the parent of a gifted child feels like a rather complicated secret, with many layers of burden.

The big issue for parents of gifted children, is whether to disclose their child’s giftedness to those they encounter socially. You see, the reactions to such knowledge can range widely, from interest, and approval, to shock, envy and open dislike. Often, one cannot judge the reaction, before the news is imparted – so there is ever a dilemma: “Should I tell, or not?”

I generally don’t discuss our lives much, directly, with those who are not close to us. I am typically a little reserved – a listener, more than a talker (though I can talk quite abundantly if I so wish!); a watcher, more than an interlocutor. Again, of course, this can be misunderstood as aloofness, rather than introversion. It seems that everything about the gifted and being gifted, carries its own penalty, if one is not careful to communicate one’s essence, effectively: misunderstanding awaits at every step.

So, being rather quiet, in my own life, I am left to wonder just how quiet I should be on the part of my children, in a social context. Today, for instance, I brought Ainan to a new social group of homeschoolers. The people were very nice. They had a relaxed quality that comes to youngsters brought up at home with their parents, rather than in the conformist, often stressful surroundings of a school. However, there was one question that I didn’t know how to handle, very well.

“What is Ainan studying?”, asked a curious Australian lady, with an encouraging smile.

I wasn’t encouraged, I was a little hesitant.

Should I tell the truth or not? If I did, she might react disappointingly – if I didn’t, I was storing up trouble for later, when she eventually found out.

My words tripped a little on my tongue. “Well… he is at a University, now.”

“What?”, she asked, in a very strange way: she seemed both shocked, and sure she had misheard.

I didn’t answer. I didn’t know whether it was wise to repeat what I had just said.

My silence seemed to answer her.

“Oh.”, she said, as if that said a lot. “I see.”

Again, I didn’t answer her, not knowing how.

It was time for her to pause. I let the silence linger for a while between us.

“Is he the one I read about on the homeschooling website?”, she pursued, more gently now, calmer, perhaps over her shock.

“Yes.”, I said, aloud, “Probably”, I said, to myself, not knowing for sure which article she was referring to.

Then she became very curious and motivated. Something seemed to come alive in her.

“Do you have other children?”, she asked, looking thoughtfully at her own three sons.

“Yes. I have three sons.”

She lowered her voice. “One of my sons, even homeschooling, is obviously more gifted than the others – but I don’t want to focus on just one: how do you cope with that?”

“Give each son what they need. Their needs will usually be different.”

She nodded at that, as if seeing differences in her own children.

“Never compare them. Never say: “Look at your brother, look at what he can do.” If you do that they will hate each other.”

Again she nodded.

“A lot of parents do compare. They think it will goad the others on. It won’t. It is very destructive.”

“I make sure they do different things.”, she revealed.

“It doesn’t have to be different – though it usually is. You just have to make sure you never compare.”

There were other questions, all delivered with the same intensity.

I needed a drink, so I said so.

“Of course, I have more to ask, but I don’t want to keep you.”

Her parting gaze seemed very meaningful and evaluatory. There was much thought in her unvoiced, perhaps many questions unasked and unanswered.

I recognized that look. I have seen it many times before. It comes to people who want to find out how and why Ainan became the way he is. (Or at least, her look seemed like that look.)

The answer, of course, is one that they wouldn’t like very much: the largest part of what made Ainan occurred at the moment of conception, when particular genes from the mother joined up with particular genes from the father. It was this natural endowment that gave him all the potentials we have seen unfold, to date. Without his native gifts, I don’t think it would be possible for any child to do as he has. Still, however, that doesn’t prevent people from asking, from trying to find out some hidden “secret” about what made Ainan, Ainan. Of course, I don’t think I can ever really satisfy them, since there is nothing that can be imparted to them, readily, to magically transform their child, in an instant. Though, I often sense that that is what they are looking for.

I rather regretted my openness with the Australian lady. I felt her attitude change from the casually friendly to the intently interested and it made me uncomfortable: I would prefer it, if she had remained casually friendly. Perhaps some of my discomfort comes from my own quietness of person: I prefer to be left in peace. To speak of Ainan’s particular gifts is to invite a lack of peace into one’s life. Then again, once people know that about him, the way they see him is likely to change. Perhaps they will come to expect certain behaviours from him, certain mannerisms, words and deeds. I don’t think it is fair for him to have such expectations. He should be free to be as he is – a child of eleven – even if one particularly blessed in one particular way.

Maybe I will decide on total silence on the issue, in future social meetings. I might decide on secrecy, as the best policy, moving forward. It seems a pity, however, to have to do that – but, at times, I feel that it is not helpful for people to know that about him, at the outset. Perhaps, they should gradually find out over time, by simple acquaintance and observation of their own. Of course, there would not be a need to even be considering secrecy on the issue, if people could just quietly accept him as he is. More often, however, one sees an elevated interest in finding out ever more about him and what made him the way he is. That, I find discomfiting, largely because it is misplaced interest: they are looking in the wrong place, for his essence. With Ainan, nature is stronger than nurture. That is clear looking back to the beginnings of his life. He was always unusual, right from the very first glance, out of the womb. That is something people consistently fail to understand. I wish they understood that. Then they could go about befriending him, rather than being interested in decoding him.

Up until now, I have been honest and open with people when they ask about what my son is studying and other matters of academic development. However, today’s experience has made me pause to re-evaluate my stance: am I doing the right thing? Should I just give noncommittal, empty replies, that evade the issue? Should I learn to obscure, rather than reveal? Do I risk isolating Ainan by being open about him? Would it be better to be cloaked?

Even these questions are uncomfortable for me, because I am not one to dissemble. Though reserved, I am open when I speak. Yet, witnessing the reactions of people to news of Ainan’s nature does make me think that perhaps I should learn to be a little obfuscatory on the issue. I haven’t tried it, so I don’t know if it would make me more comfortable. It remains to be seen whether I will adopt that stance in future. I shall continue to observe people’s reactions to him and allow that to inform my decision. In the meantime, perhaps readers who have had similar experiences might like to discuss them, with me, in the comments below. Do you think it is better to keep silent about a child’s giftedness, in new social situations – or to be frank and open about it? Does being open risk isolating the gifted child, further? Is it better for the child to be accepted for what people come to see them as, rather than viewed in a certain way, because of what they learn of them, at the outset?

Your views, thoughts and feelings below, please…

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.htmland here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175

To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here:http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at:http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is athttp://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)