Are NUS/NTU graduates creative?

NUS and NTU are Singapore's leading Universities. Their graduates are locally very respected in Singapore. No doubt, they have studied long and hard. Yet, I have cause to wonder, are these graduates creative?

Recently, I had a conversation with an American who works in an American company working in a creative industry. It is a famous American company, so I shall have to leave clues out of this account, lest it be identified. Let it be said, however, that the work that this company does straddles a couple of major creative industries with global reach.

Now, this American was observing to me about hiring practices which puzzled him. You see, one of the senior managers in the local branch of this global company was a Singaporean graduate of NTU. It was part of this manager's job to choose whom to hire to do the creative jobs that they had vacant. What troubled my acquaintance was just who this Singaporean was hiring - and why. Every single time a creative job came up, this Singaporean NTU graduate manager would look through the pile of CVs he had in front of him and select the Singaporean NUS and NTU graduates who had the best academic records. He picked the ones whose grades glistened...whose resumes dripped with A grades. Now, if you are Singaporean you will probably be nodding at this point, thinking that this is the right thing to do and is only natural. However, my American's experience with the people that were hired in this way, says otherwise. You see, the problem with these NTU and NUS graduates is that THEY COULD NEVER DO THE JOBS.

If you are Singaporean, and conditioned to believe in grades as the be all and end all of education, you might be shocked at this. I shall explain for you. The problem was that these NTU and NUS graduates with the great grades were UNABLE TO BE CREATIVE. Their resumes looked wonderful. They had jumped successfully through every academic hoop along the way - but something was missing. They had learnt to pass exams and shine in that situation - but they had never learnt how to think creatively. They were, according to my American acquaintance, unable to do the job, in every single case. They were just not good employees of this creative company.

Interestingly, have a guess who WERE the most creative employees of this company? The Indonesians were. That is right, employees who had grown up and been educated in Indonesia were the best workers in creative jobs, at this American company. The second best were the Thais - my American contact remarked that they were creative and had a good work attitude, as well.

So, this problem with NTU and NUS graduates being uncreative, is not a problem that applies to all graduates, everywhere. It doesn't apply to the Indonesian graduates from overseas - nor to the Thais (or he noted the Vietnamese)...but it does apply to the Singaporean graduates of NTU and NUS.

This leads me to understand that the type of education being received by Singaporeans in Singapore is creating graduates who might be competent in an academic sense and able to handle known and familiar tasks, in structured environments (isn't the whole of Singapore one big structured environment?) - but they are not creative. At the end of their long and arduous education, there is little creativity left in them.

Now, this really didn't come as a surprise to me, having taught in the Singaporean system at all levels, and witnessed the dearth of creativity at close hand. What did surprise me, however, was that Indonesians (who are customarily looked down upon, by many Singaporeans, perhaps because their young women tend to be maids in Singaporean households), were the most creative of all the races (other than "Americans" was implicit in his observations) employed in this large, global American company.

Many Singaporeans clamour to get their child into NTU or NUS. Yet, do they understand what the results of such an education are? Do they really want those results? Do they want an academically competent, but creatively incompetent child? If so, NUS and NTU - and the whole Singaporean education system - are perfect. However, if you would like to have a creative child...perhaps it might be best to send them overseas to Indonesia or Thailand!

(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.

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/

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

The fall of the tower of Babel.

There are, according to UNESCO over 6,900 living languages today. Unfortunately, however, 2,500 of them are endangered. Both numbers surprised me, and the latter number, shocked me.

A language is more than a set of sounds. It is a way of seeing the world, a way of understanding the world, it is a codification of the world. Each language is a unique perspective. That 2,500 languages should be in danger of being lost, is terribly tragic. If unrecorded, each loss of a language is a permanent loss of a human perspective, of a world view that will never be, again. Each language is also part of the puzzle of how language came to be, to spread and to become so diverse. All languages are intertwined in one complex "evolutionary" whole. To lose one part of the puzzle is to make the whole forever more difficult to understand: it is to impoverish our understanding of what it is to be human.

Many languages are near their end, preserved in the minds of only a few people. One hundred and ninety-nine languages are spoken only by fewer than a dozen people. These include Wichita, spoken by just ten people in Oklahoma and Lengilu, spoken by only four people, in Indonesia. The deaths of a few people, will push these languages to extinction.

One hundred and seventy-eight other languages are spoken by between ten and one hundred and fifty people. Though somewhat safer, it wouldn't take much to extinguish these tongues either. Indeed, the last three generations of mankind has seen the loss of over two hundred languages - including Manx (from the Isle of Man) in 1974.

India stands to lose one hundred and ninety six languages; America, one hundred and ninety two languages and Indonesia, one hundred and forty seven languages.

With the death of the last speaker of these tongues, so too, dies the language, probably forever.

I do not know, as I write, whether efforts are being made to preserve these languages. If not, there should be. Linguists should be sitting down with these last speakers of exotic tongues and recording, in as exquisite detail as possible, each of these languages before they are lost. In some ways, the task is as urgent and as important as the preservation of species - for the loss of a language is as irreplaceable as the loss of a species.

I feel a certain ambivalence about this situation, for I know one cause of it: the spreading of global languages. I love English, and was born into it - but I would not that English bestrode the world and pushed every other language to extinction. That would be too sad. For though I appreciate English for what it is, I also appreciate that there is great beauty in all the languages I have never heard and never known - each is a world of its own and each deserving of conservation.

Philosophically I like diversity - in people, in ideas, in things. I am, actually, very uncomfortable with conformity. What greater conformity could there be than that all spoke one language? It is a hideous thought and I hope it never happens. I would like the world to continue to be a diverse place, with diverse people, thinking diverse thoughts and living in diverse ways. One of these important sources of diversity is the languages they speak. I don't want a world reduced to Mandarin, English, Spanish, French, Japanese and Arabic. That would be awful.

So, I would urge the nations of the world, to appoint sufficient linguists to capture the essence of every language now living, so that none is fully lost, when its last speaker passes on. As for the speakers of exotic tongues: why not teach it to others? Teach it to linguists if no-one else will listen...or better still, have a child, and speak to it in the crib, with the almost dead tongue you speak, so that one more person might live, to pass it on.

I do not want to see a future in which all Man's great diversity has been lost. All should be conserved...for we are all diminished by the loss of each type of diversity. When a language falls silent, Man has forgotten one way to speak about the world. In a sense, one whole world dies with each dead tongue.

Let not Babel fall, but let the world babble on, and be rich in its diversity.

(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 best student writer I have seen.

I have written much about the quality - or lack thereof - of writing amongst the students I have taught, over the years. Rarely, have I seen competency in the most basic of all skills: literacy. However, one student comes to mind as coming closest to what I would consider to be a good writer.

I would like you to think about what kind of person you think this student is. Is this student a scholar? Is this student a girl or a boy? Is this student Chinese, Malay or Indian? In fact, is this student local, at all? Picture the student in your mind. Consider whom you think is most likely to be the best writer I have seen since 1999, while working in Singapore.

The writer in question, is an Indonesian boy.

Were you surprised? Did it upset your preconceived views of who is likely to be the best at a literary task?

When I saw this boy's writing, I was surprised by the vision he showed. He seemed to have a very clear idea of what he wished to say. His writing shone with understanding. Each word was well-chosen and added to the picture he wished to portray. There was also great detail in his writing, detail of observation, thought and feeling. Here, I thought, is someone who knows how to write.

There were occasional blemishes in his work: some words were misspelt, for instance - but overall, he showed great ability in expressing himself with words.

He was a foreign student studying in Singapore, in a normal secondary school. He was not a scholar and was not on any special programme for the "best and brightest" - yet his writing was better than any I had seen since my arrival in Singapore. This made me very curious.

I asked him: "Who taught you to write like that?"

"I taught myself.", he said, quietly, without pride and perhaps without awareness of how good he was.

He had taught himself. That warmed me - and surprised me - in equal measure. I have often observed that the best people at any given task, are often self-taught. The genius of a person can only live when the instructor is oneself.

"It's very good.", I observed, with an encouraging smile. He looked down at his work and up at me in a way that made me understand that few, if any, others had said as much. That is a pity, for his work has much promise.

Since I have come to Singapore, I have observed that quite a few Singaporeans look down on their South-East Asian neighbours as somehow "less" than they are. I have always thought this somewhat unwise. Yes, it is true that Singapore is more developed than the neighbouring countries - that it has organized its economy more efficiently and the infrastructure is good - but and this is a BIG but - that doesn't make the people, themselves, any better than those of their neighbours. Singaporeans risk making serious errors of judgement if they think that they are innately superior to their less developed neighbours.

Consider Indonesia, for instance. Many Singaporeans have an Indonesian maid - and quite a few look down on them - and on all other Indonesians, by association. Yet, this is not a very reasoned approach to the situation. Indonesia is a vast country with 235 million people. That means that Indonesia will have more gifted people in its population than Singapore's entire population put together. What that means is that for every ordinary Singaporean of average intelligence, Indonesia would, by force of sheer numbers alone, be able to counter with a gifted person of high intelligence. To a lesser degree, the same argument applies to the other countries in South-East Asia, some of which are also very populous.

Thus, it makes no sense for Singaporeans ever to look down on any other nation - for those nations can outmatch the whole of Singapore, with relative ease, should they wish to try. What impedes them, of course, are infrastructural, political and economic failings. Were these failings ever rectified, it would not be long before Singapore was drowned out by the much larger voices of its larger neighbours.

Yes, some Indonesians are maids. However, one should not forget that others will be as my former student was: the best student writer I had ever met in Singapore. There is a lesson in that, that wise Singaporeans should learn from. The "superiority" of Singapore is a fragile thing and not really founded on a large body of talented people. It could easily decline. Other nations in South-East Asia have many more gifted people to offer than reside in Singapore. In time, they may be afforded a chance to shine in their own countries. When that time comes, Singapore won't seem as bright as it now appears to be.

(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.)

The dangers of mobile phones

Mobile phones are dangerous things. Some of the dangers are obvious. Studies suggest that their use can induce brain cancer. That is not a surprise to most people. Yet, mobile phones can be dangerous in other ways, too. They can distract a driver, on the road, and cause accidents. That, too, is a common phenomenon. However, there is another danger rather more unique. Indonesians, from my observation, seem to specialize in finding new ways to make old things dangerous - and the mobile phone is no exception. A recent example proves the point.

On Thursday night, the ferry Acita 03, was making its way past the town of Bau Bau, in south-eastern Sulawesi (where the Bugis are from - but more of that in another post). Many of the passengers, being of the impatient variety, and not willing to wait until they got to shore, decided to clamber to the ferry's roof, to make a mobile phone call, since there the reception was better. So many of the passengers did this, at the same time, that the 22 m long ferry became unbalanced and capsized. In Hollywood, such an event would have seemed comic - but in the real world it is not so funny: as of today, 31 people are known to have died, 125 have been rescued and an estimated 32 are still missing (probably dead). All because people just couldn't wait to make a mobile phone call.

I have been living in South-East Asia for some years and the sinking of an Indonesian ferry is really no surprise to me. Indeed, Indonesian ferry disasters are a bit like buses: common and readily available. The archipelago nation is becoming famous for the inadequate safety of its ferry system.

Famous Indonesian ferry disasters include the sinking of a ferry off Sumatra in February 1996, killing at least 338 on board. I say, "at least", for a very good reason. You see Indonesian ferries often understate the true number of passengers on board. They don't just do this by a little, but by a lot. The Acita 03, for instance, had a stated 60 passengers on its ship's manifest. Yet, 188 people were actually on board. It is not unusual for Indonesian ferries to be packed to the brim with people, every nook and cranny overflowing with them. It is no wonder then, that the death toll is so high, when disaster occurs - as it does with awful frequency. Who can escape when there are so many crowded around you?

My favourite example of this tendency to understate the passenger load is of the MV Kanada II. This ship was caught off Bengkalis, Riau, carrying a hugely excessive 441 passengers. The ship's manifest, however, said that the ship was...wait for it...empty.

Ferry sinkings occur with mind-numbing regularity in Indonesia. In December last year, an estimated 400 people died when a ferry sank off Java. In February this year, scores of people (again the actual numbers are unknown) were killed when a ferry caught fire off Jakarta. Imagine that: being burnt alive while out on open water: unbelievable.

From a regulation perspective, it is interesting to note that in February, after the burning ferry episode, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono called for improved safety on ships, from passenger boat operators. It appears that they weren't listening to him.

Personally, I find it mystifying that any nation can continue to allow this to happen. A ferry should be among the safest ways to travel: it is low speed, low energy travel. There should be little possibility of death in such a mode of transport. Yet, Indonesia has found a way to make it hazardous indeed, to travel by ferry around its archipelago nation. That is a worry when, in an archipelago nation, you really have no choice but to use a ferry for many of the trips - unless airstrips are available on the particular island in question. But then, Indonesia's aviation industry is not exactly a model of safety either. It is a pity, actually, because parts of Indonesia are truly beautiful - despite the problems the nation faces.

I hope that they get serious about transport safety - before hundreds more die while on holiday, or going to visit relatives: such a simple act should never lead to death.

The lost vessel was travelling from Tomea Island to Bau Bau on Buton Island, about 1,500 km north-east of Jakarta, Indonesia's capital. Notably, Tomea belongs to the Wakatobi group of islands - which are famed internationally as being top dive sites and attract many international tourists.

Not before time, the Indonesian government is now deliberating over new regulations for old ships. That is good. What is not is that, in Indonesia, many people ignore regulations, whatever they might be. That is something else which has to change then: if a regulation is there for the greater good, it really should be obeyed.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and ten months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and three months, and Tiarnan, twenty 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, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

David Beckham, footballer and legend.

David Beckham. You didn't expect me to write those words, did you? Well, neither did I. It is just that I couldn't resist after hearing something about David Beckham, yesterday.

David Beckham is one of the most famous young men on Earth - but would you think of him as one of the brightest, too? Anyone who knew anything of him, from his interviews, is unlikely to think so. He comes across as a sweet but tongue-tied man, who finds it diffficult to express himself coherently in words. Yet, if there is one thing he is good at, it is PR. Either it is public relations, at work, or the global effect of Chinese Whispers has led to an interesting view of David Beckham, here in Singapore. Yesterday, a girl from Indonesia, who was twenty years old, told me this about David's life: "He went to Oxford University, but left without finishing his degree, because he wanted to focus on his football."

I greeted this with a long, almost reverent silence, that anyone could believe such a thing. Then I asked her: "Who told you that David Beckham went to Oxford?"

She couldn't remember where she got the information - but was sure of it. Now, either she had read it in a mistaken journalist's article - or had heard it from another, sometime - or she had imagined it. She was unable to source her knowledge. Yet, "know" it, she did.

Now, if you know anything about Oxford University, you would know how immensely difficult it is to get in. It is challenge as unlikely in its own way as becoming a leading professional footballer - but it is a very different kind of challenge. I cannot imagine, in anyway, that Beckham was ever a serious candidate for Oxford University - nor that he could have gained entrance. The internet confirms my view in that I couldn't find a confirmatory story. Indeed, he was a footballer by the age of 17 and, not being a child prodigy, did not have time to go to Oxford before then. So, clearly, this story about Beckham's aborted academic career is just that - a fiction, an urban legend of Indonesia. The question is, where did it come from? Was it a published source, perhaps the result of cheeky PR...or was it a mistaken journalist, perhaps conflating life stories, accidentally and coming up with this amazing tale - or was it a rumour started by an idolizing fan, for whom Beckham was a God? We shall never know, but it does point up one of the strange things that happens to the famous: people relate with confidence, information about them, which simply isn't true. Strangers adorn the life story of the famous one with embellishments and details, adoring additions that create something other than an image of the real person. Perhaps this only happens with a certain kind of celebrity. Perhaps it only happens with those who have popular mass appeal. I feel doubtful that it would happen to a serious individual famous for very sobre achievements - such as Richard Feynman. It may occur - but I somehow doubt it. However, whether or not it is a universal phenomenon of the famous - it is certain that it happens to some of them - and one of the victims of this is David Beckham, here in Asia.

I don't know how widespread this "information" about David Beckham is - but Indonesia is a very populous country (of almost a quarter of a billion people) and my informant came from a small town in Indonesia. It is a remarkable testament to the power of the media that she knew who Beckham was considering her isolated origins - but it is also an indication that perhaps this tale about Beckham's Oxford University days is widespread. If it is the product of a rumour, the rumour monger is, statistically, more likely to have come from a large city. Therefore, if this is so, the fact that the rumour had spread to a small town, in an isolated area, indicates that the rumour has spread far. This reasoning brings us to the hilarious conclusion that many Indonesians might believe that David Beckham, a man of no academic background or pretensions whatsoever, was an Oxford University drop-out.

I wonder what else is believed of Beckham around the world? What a strange thing fame can be.

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

Reactions to Ainan in Indonesia

My wife spotted something funny on an Indonesian news site today. They had picked up on the story on Ainan and written a piece in Bahasa Indonesia on him. That, in itself was not surprising. What was, however, was the news category that they had filed him under. Can you guess?

Well, they had filed him as "Strange but true"!

It is curious the way different cultures react to Ainan's precociousness. In Indonesia the reaction is one of marvel. The piece was very sincere, which was warming to read. Thanks to the journalist who wrote it.

(If you would like to read more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and four 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 child prodigy, IQ, giftedness, intelligence, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

Child Prodigy Schools In Asia: Hope or Hype?

Schooling all over the world is not the same. Despite the every effort at homogeneity made by the export of Western educational culture to the world, through European examinations, such as the O Level and A Level and the IB (International Baccalaureate), and American University degrees, there remains an element of cultural uniqueness to most educational cultures.

One element of uniqueness in the Asian educational landscape is the emergence of the prodigy school. Now, anyone who knows anything of prodigies might be a little taken aback by that statement: I was, too. The idea that a school would purport to create a prodigy, on demand, is quite astonishing. Yet, in several Asian countries such schools have been established. They are to be found in Korea and China, as well as, surprisingly, Indonesia (more of that later).

The question is: can a school create a prodigy? Firstly, we must understand what a prodigy is. As you may know, a prodigy is a child, under 11, with adult performance in an adult discipline: that is a high bar to expect a school to meet.

What type of children do these schools take? In Korea, they take the top 1% of children - so all their entrants are gifted. That gives us hope, except to note that this is not nearly selective enough to isolate prodigies. So their pool consists of gifted children, but not naturally prodigious children. I think, in some ways, these schools have been mischievously marketed, for what they offer is not to make a child a prodigy, but to educate a gifted child to a high level.

The Chinese case, however, is a little worrying. Promotional material for one school promises to take a child of "average intelligence" and to give them, at age 10, "the intelligence level of a University student", by which they seem to mean the actual intellectual performance of a University student. Well, there is one word for that: impossible (for the child of "average intelligence", anyway.) The school will give each student an exhaustive education in a regimented fashion (if photos of the students at work are any guide). The result will be an educated child, who has been taught by rote, largely speaking. The child will know a lot - but I think it is very unlikely that the process will enhance their intelligence, as we properly think of intelligence. The child will still be a child of "average intelligence" - who happens to have been educated. That is not a prodigy.

In most countries, a school making such a claim would be shut down pretty quickly, especially when its fees are looked at: up to 138,000 yuan per year (which, in terms of affordability, is like the same in US dollars to an American, when salaries are taken into account). The school also begins by teaching students as young as 1 year old. Apparently, they have 400 students - which, in terms of income, is a very successful proposition for the owner of the school. It remains to be seen whether they will produce any prodigies, however.

The Indonesian case is odder still. They have a photograph of Ainan, my scientific child prodigy son, on their website. The implication seems to be that Ainan is a product of the school. This is not so. Ainan has not attended a "prodigy school". I know of no prodigy who has actually attended a prodigy school. So, if you see material promoting Ainan as the product of such a school - know it for what it is: opportunistic marketing. Ainan will never attend such a school, for he is prodigious already, a gift that arose naturally from within him.

What can we expect from such prodigy schools? A group of intensively educated children, with a high level of knowledge, but without, I think, the dimension of gifts characteristic of prodigies. To ask an average child to be a prodigy is a bit like asking the average person to be an Olympic sprint champion: no amount of training is going to get you there - but training will make you faster than you would have been without it. The same thing applies to prodigy schools. No amount of training is going to make you a prodigy if it is unsupported by the appropriate native gifts - but it will make you better at the trained task or subject than you would have been: nothing more and nothing less. I am not sure that is worth the fortune that is asked for by some of these schools.

What are your thoughts on prodigy schools? Will they give Asia an advantage over the Western world - or are they a misguided attempt to thwart nature and create prodigies on demand?