Top 10 countries for child prodigy.

Google Trends provides a list of the top 10 countries for interest in child prodigy. This is a listing of the relative density of searches from various places, for child prodigy. It is, therefore, a measure of what the populace of those countries are interested in.

I would like you to take a moment to write down what you think this list of the top 10 places interested in child prodigies would be. Please do so. (By the way the search summary is from 2004 until the present, so it is a very significant snapshot of interest in the phenomenon of prodigiousness).

Right. Now which did you think was the number one country in the world for interest in child prodigy?

The answer is, tellingly, Singapore.

I said, "tellingly" because Singapore is one of the world's most competitive societies, educationally: every parent wants a super bright, super successful child. Most parents push their children there (we don't) in ways that are most disagreeable. The child is forced to study endless hours, to practice deep into the night and to endure many hours per week of extra tuition. It is a system designed to turn every child into a drudge for academic work. So, in that society, it is no surprise that there should be so much interest in child prodigies. Unconsciously, or otherwise, the child prodigy is somewhat of an ideal for Singaporean parents.

The other societies in the list were:
2) Malaysia
3) Philippines
4) United States
5) New Zealand
6) India
7) Canada
8) Australia
9) Ireland
10) United Kingdom

Note that the search density in Singapore was twice that of Malaysia and the search density in the UK was a small fraction of that of Singapore. So, Singapore is, by far, the winner in this "competition".

(This trend is even more interesting when the listing for interest, city by city, is looked at. On that listing, Singapore is still no.1 in the world in interest in child prodigies - but Austin Texas is no. 2 and ALL the other 8 places in the top 10 are American cities. This shows great interest, in parts of the United States, for prodigies, exceeded only by that of Singapore. It is, perhaps, no coincidence that both countries are very competitive.)

What is most interesting about this result is that, although the people of Singapore, as a nation, are very interested in child prodigy, the government of Singapore, as embodied by the education system, is not. We found great opposition to the provisions we needed from the education system, in Singapore. It was very difficult to work with the Gifted Branch of the Ministry of Education. In the end, we decided that it would be easier to get Ainan what he needed, elsewhere - and so it has proved.

So, this is another example in which the government of Singapore is out of sync with its people. Singaporeans are enamoured of child prodigies...but the PAP is not. The state of Singapore does little to support prodigies and quite a lot to oppose them. How interesting it is, therefore, to see the contrast between the government's position and the irrefutable tale of Google Trends.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 6 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, 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.

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/

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

Differential support of the gifted.

There are, no doubt, gifted children in all nations of the world, however, are they all treated as well?

Recently, I corresponded with a Malaysian writer. She was very interested in what kind of support Ainan was receiving. Her assumption was that Ainan would be supported directly by the government, in some way - or by private sector involvement, to optimize his chances and development and remove as many barriers as possible. I had to let her down on that one. You see, Ainan is receiving no direct governmental support and no private sector assistance either. The only, though valuable, support is his attendance at Singapore Polytechnic to do Chemistry, which we arranged ourselves. That, however, was not the kind of support she was thinking of. She was thinking of the kind of assistance that allows special personalized programmes to be put in place and the funds provided for them. Yet, Ainan, despite his evident need has no such support.

Singapore has a "Gifted Branch" which, ostensibly, is supposed to support gifted children. As long term readers of this blog will know, Ainan was involved with them from the age of seven. However, we gave up on them because they were repeatedly and consistently unhelpful and obstructive. Their mantras were two fold: "There are no resources available" and "If we do it for him, they will all want it." Thus, little or nothing was done by them to support Ainan and many obvious interventions were point blank refused - for reasons similar to those above.

Singapore prides itself on being a leading nation in the South East Asian region yet, surprisingly, it is not leading in the way it supports prodigious children. The Malaysian writer assumed Ainan would be receiving special support because, in her nation, that is what happens to prodigies: they tend to get direct state support. I have heard of cases where the local government has funded the special educational needs of prodigies, in Malaysia. This, however, just does not happen in Singapore. In Singapore, the parents of prodigious children (of which there appear to be very few, since it is hard to think of any), will experience nothing but frustration at the hands of the Ministry of Education.

My question is, therefore: how is it that a developing nation, like Malaysia, has the wit to realize the importance of special support for its most unusual children...whereas a "developed" nation, like Singapore does not support them, getting hung up, instead, on the idea that no-one should receive any "special treatment".

There is, of course, a short-sightedness here on the part of Singapore, which, perhaps, explains its lack of contribution to the world's greatest thinkers. By not supporting its most able children, on an individual basis, Singapore is hampering the growth of its most promising minds. This can only lead to a stunted intellectual future for the nation. However, perhaps that is what they want: maybe they are uncomfortable that anyone should rise too far from the communal pack...standing out, here, is "just not done".

In a way, it is truly surprising that Singapore should be less able to respond to a prodigious child productively, than Malaysia. It is not what one would think. However, it does tell me something. Perhaps countries like Malaysia, while lagging in some ways, may go on to produce a sprinkling of thinkers, who bring lustre to their national name.

Will Singapore have any such shining individuals or will it just have a great big herd of conformist, rubber-stamped, cookie cutter educated people?

(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/

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

Homeschooling "on the rise" in Singapore

I was heartened by the headline above in the Straits Times - until, that is, I actually read the article.

Have a guess how many primary school children are actually homeschooling in Singapore? (Including all the expatriates who have the automatic right to homeschool, unlike locals.) Factor into your calculation that the population of Singapore is around 4.6 million people.

Well, the true figure is about 280. That is right, less than 300 children are being homeschooled, in Singapore. Apparently, this almost vanishingly small number is regarded as a trend, by the article writer.

The question is, of course, why are so few Singaporeans being homeschooled? The answer is the same one we have received, so far, to date: permission, while it can be given in theory, is difficult to obtain in practice.

We don't have to go far to come to an understanding why so few people receive permission to homeschool. The official Ministry of Education position is, according to the Straits Times: "...as far as possible, Singaporean children should attend national schools to learn a common set of core values, knowledge and skills". Underlying this seems to be the view that homeschooled children might not share these "core values" - hence getting permission for it, is not easy.

I don't know if our experience of trying to homeschool our son, Ainan, is typical or not. I can only say that it hasn't been easy. I have been trying to get permission for homeschooling for one and a half years. We have got nowhere so far. I have written many, many times to the curiously named "Compulsory Education Unit" that is in charge of homeschooling, but the only replies I have ever received are: "We will revert to you shortly". That is fine, except they never revert at all. Six months will pass - and then I write again, only to receive the same reply: "We will revert to you shortly". Only they don't....this procedure may be repeated ad nauseam.

One day I even called up the executive responsible for answering my mails, who wasn't doing so. She would only say: "I can't give you an answer".

Well, there you are then. No wonder there are only 280 homeschooling children in Singapore. I wonder how many of them are, in fact, the children of expatriates? You see such children don't need permission. What I would like to know is how many Singaporean children have ever been given permission to homeschool? Are there, in fact, any at all? We don't know. We only know that we are still waiting for that famous reply to revert - after one and a half years.

The odd thing about all of this is that anyone who really feels strongly about homeschooling will find that almost any other country of the world would give automatic permission to homeschool, to anyone who sought it. Virtually alone in all the world, is Singapore concerned about a "common set of core values". Most other countries are satisfied to offer a diversity of educational opportunities to their people. They are not scared of diversity.

We will still try to secure homeschooling for our son - and perhaps our other children - in Singapore. We will see if we can make that total 281 or more.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and four months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and nine months, and Tiarnan, twenty-six 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, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)