The beginnings of scientific curiosity.

Children are a distillation of human curiosity. On their tongues may be heard questions that adults would never think to ask, partly because many adults have stopped actively thinking about the world around them: they just take it for granted. Therefore, the most interesting of questions, can often come from the youngest of interrogators.

Recently, Fintan, 9, has displayed a notable increase in the number of scientific questions, he asks. This is not an entirely expected development since his early interests were elsewhere than science.

A couple of weeks ago, at bedtime, Fintan spoke into the darkness, his voice most thoughtful.

“Daddy: can you shoot bullets in space?”

What a wonderful question, I thought, before answering.

“Yes, in fact the bullet in space would go faster and further than in the atmosphere, because there would be no air to slow it down. What I mean is that if you shoot a bullet in the air, it is at its maximum speed as it leaves the gun. Then it begins to slow down owing to friction with the air. In space, it just wouldn’t slow down.”

The silence was ruminative as he listened to me.

“However,” I continued, “that assumes that you are using an explosive for the bullet that doesn’t need oxygen to work. As long as that is so, you can shoot bullets in space.”

I thought this a very interesting moment, for it called to mind the periods of questioning that Ainan went through and Tiarnan is going through – and the flavour of the question is much the same, too. Perhaps, an interest in science might prove to be universal in my children – which makes me wonder whether it is potentially universal in all children. Do parents snuff out an interest in science, by not answering a child’s questions and engaging with them properly? Why is science seemingly a minority interest, when the questions of children can be so scientific, at their core?

I like the style of question that Fintan comes out with. Typically he identifies, in his question, a problem that is not immediately explicable, or sometimes seems contradictory or impossible, at first glance. His mind is attracted by the exceptional and the bizarre, as well as the mysterious in everyday life. This is a valuable kind of thinking since it is often in an interest in such phenomenon that new things will be noticed – if not new to the world, at least new to the child – and in such thinking such thoughts, does a mind grow and does a child’s conception of the world, deepen.

I am left with one thought, though. What would it be like for my children asking so many scientific questions – as they all do or have done – were I a typically scientifically illiterate parent? Were such a circumstance so, I would be unable to answer their questions, their curiosity would go unfed and it is quite possible that their questioning tongues, would eventually fall silent as they learnt, by disappointing experience that it was pointless to ask, or think of such matters, since no enlightenment would ever be forthcoming. In an uneducated household, the scientifically curious child may find their minds stifled. We are fortunate, therefore, that I lived a childhood of scientific curiosity myself – for that experience has better prepared me for the challenge of raising scientifically curious children. Of course, I am not unaware that one circumstance may cause the other: that being disposed to science, may be reflected in one’s genes, and so, too, reflected in the children. Not only that, but one’s interest (an environmental factor), may spark the interest of the children. I think, however, it is more genetic than environmental, since I have never pushed my interests on to my children, but have always waited for them to take the initiative by asking relevant questions: I have let their characters emerge naturally. Thus it is, I see some genetic influences at work, in how their minds are formed and in the ways in which their thoughts are guided to certain kinds of curiosity.

In all, the situation is very rewarding. For I get to have the chance to nurture minds akin to my own, in some way, just as once I attempted to nurture my own mind, largely unaided (since the nature of my interests created an enforced self-reliance on the matter). It is pleasing that, at least, I can be there for my children, when their curiosity strikes.

Carry on questioning, Fintan...and all my boys!

Posted by Valentine Cawley

(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.html and 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/11136175To 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 nature of the Self, in the mind of a child.

Tiarnan is rather philosophical for a six year old. Today, he was having a serious little chat with his mother, when he suddenly asked, with the utmost intensity:

“Who is in control of me?”

His mother, Syahidah, focussed on him, somewhat startled at the question.

“Is it me, me, or is it my brain?”, he continued, drawing a distinction that seemed a little mystifying to her.

“Who do you think is in control of you?”, she prompted, acceptingly.

“Just me.”, he said, simply. “...and God, sometimes. God controls the whole world – but I am in control of me!”

He seemed happy with that conclusion.

Syahidah was quite happy, too, to have heard him think so. Listening to Tiarnan is rather refreshing. He ponders the world, asking questions of matters, that adults have come to overlook, or take for granted. He then reflects on them, deeply, answering them from within the context of his experience – yet, meaningfully, nevertheless. Tiarnan is a little philosopher and, in many ways, is proving to be a deep thinker, prone to pondering mysteries and cracking the enigmas of life. It is notable that the questions that concern him most could all be lumped under the heading: “The Meaning of Life”...for its nature and context are his primary interests. He really wants to understand what it means to be alive. He doesn’t just accept that he is alive and go from there...he is really questioning what life is and what it means to experience the living state. Yet, he is only six years old and has never read any philosophical or religious work of any kind. He is thinking for himself, afresh.

All of this leads me to wonder whether, as an adult, he might become a writer, who ponders deep questions and answers them for his readers. If so, that would be an altogether familiar outcome, for those who are privy to my writings of yesteryear (hint: not the general public, as yet).

Intellectually, Tiarnan has many a likeness to my own preoccupations – though his are in juvenescent form. That doesn’t disguise the fact, though, that he seems driven by the same motivations to question, understand and explain his world. Once again, I marvel at how much genetic influences appear to play in the formation of our minds, our characters and our interests.

I look forward to Tiarnan’s many interesting questions and ponderings, in the future.

Posted by Valentine Cawley

(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.html and 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/11136175To 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 birds and the bees.

It is ever illuminating to see the world through a child’s eyes. Once grown up, this is quite a challenge, however, as a parent, all I have to do is listen, to know again, the thoughts of a child and their perspectives on the world.

Today, Fintan, eight, approached his mother in a reflective mood. His voice was soft and insightful.

“Mummy,” he began, intently, “I think it is harder to be a girl...”

Her ears perked up and her eyes gazed down on her middle son.

“...because girls have to give birth.”

She was touched by his words, for she learnt, in that moment, that her son understood what every mother goes through, to create their children. To have such appreciation, from her young son, was warming indeed.

I like seeing my children come to their own understanding of the world. More interestingly, I like to see them come to their own views on it – to see them weigh issues and come to judgements. Usually, I let them come to their own views, and do not impose mine. It is much better for a child to think their own thoughts and form their own view on the world. It is also much more interesting. Children who have been indoctrinated too much – as some children are – are always so dull. It is much more refreshing to hear a child’s genuine thoughts, based on their own personal thinking – and that is what I hear, everyday, in my household. I wouldn’t want it any other way. Today, Fintan made my wife very happy – simply because he shared one of his own thoughts. Beautiful.

Posted by Valentine Cawley

(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.html and 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.)

How children see the world.

Children have two eyes, just like you or me...but they don’t use them the same way. What children see, in the world, is often markedly different from what we do, as adults.

Recently, I had the opportunity to take my children to a film set. It was outdoors. Now, I fully expected my two youngest kids – Fintan, 8 and Tiarnan 5, to be most interested in the actors, the cameras, the whole paraphernalia of film-making...but no: what they did instead of stand in awe at all these things, was to proceed to dig rocks out of the ground. Yes. They found the local rocks of much greater interest than the other matters proceeding all around them.

At one point, Tiarnan ran excitedly up to me:

“Daddy, daddy...you’ve got to come and see!”

His excitement was acute. What great wonder had he found?

“We’ve found yellow soil and red soil!”, he announced.

I suppressed a smile and followed him to where he led.

He pointed to a hole in the ground which he and Fintan had created by the simple expedient of removing a rock. Its imprint remained. There, sure enough, were seams of red soil – and yellow soil – both colours rich and deep.

I looked interested and smiled approvingly and left them to their interest.

Later on, I took them to see a fight scene amidst the rocks of a quarry. After the scene was over, I asked them: “Could you see the battle?”

Fintan looked a little awkward.

“We couldn’t because of the Sun,” he began, trying out his first excuse, then he looked down and across at Tiarnan. “We found some rocks...”, he trailed off.

“We were digging up the rocks!”, confessed Tiarnan.

It was funny to see their odd enthusiasm for the local rocks. However, upon reflection, I understand it. They had never been to a quarry before. All their lives they had lived in relatively manicured environments – but here, in this quarry, they were faced with a raw, rough, brutal landscape, with strange rocks jutting out of the ground. They had never seen anywhere like it. Now, they had seen people before. They had seen cameras before. They had seen fight scenes many times on TV before. What they had never seen, however, were rocks like the ones strewn all around them – nor a landscape so desolate and lifeless. To them, that was the true wonder of this “film set” – the very place it was set in.

The funny thing, though, was that the only two people to really appreciate the location, deeply, were my two little sons. They saw in each rock, something wonderful, something strange. The adults, however, just saw awkward bumps underfoot to be avoided. Not one adult did what my sons were doing: taking a close look at the rocks, their shape, their form, their substance. In a way, I suppose the only two people who came to a full appreciation and understanding of this uncanny landscape were my two little sons: they are the only people who really studied it, at all.
The adults, on the other hand, were focussed on the human things and the technical things – on their acting, their costume, their make-up, their motion and emotion, the camera work and the lighting. The actual nature of what lay underfoot was ignored by all except my sons.

So, that day, there were two sets: one that the adults saw – and one that my children saw. My sons saw the place as it actually was. The adults saw it, in another way – as a backdrop to their filmed events.

It is funny to reflect that, in a very real way, only my sons actually attained a real grasp of their environment. Everyone else just took it for granted – and labelled it, reflexively, as “rocky landscape...enquire no more”.

When they got home, I asked my sons what the best thing about going to the film set was:

“The rocks!”, they both cried out, at once.

They had learnt something – not the lesson I had thought they would learn - but they had learnt something about the world. I had, inadvertently, taught them another set of lessons, altogether, than the one I had hoped to teach them. Or should I say, they had taught themselves lessons other than the ones I had hoped they would imbibe. I think that their lesson was a better one to learn – for it arose from their own interests in the world and what is important in it, for them. They saw what they wanted to see and learned what they wanted to learn. They picked out what was newest, strangest and most unusual for them – and that, unexpectedly for me, was the rocks underfoot. In so doing they taught me, too, to realize that my world and the way I see it, is not theirs. They have their own view of the world and their own categorizations of what is important and worthy and what is not: actors are not, rocks are...at least to them, at this young age. I have come to understand that I mustn’t assume their view on things – I must observe what turns out to be their view – and to anticipate, in an open way, that this may be very different from my expectation. This, however, is good. It is refreshing to see that their view is different to my own. That is a good sign, for it means that they are growing up in an environment that allows them to nurture their own viewpoints – some families probably don’t do that.

I am left with a funny thought. In years to come, should I ask them about that film set visit, they will most probably not remember any of the things most people would remember from a film set experience – but they will be able to tell me about the types of rocks they found there. That is a delightfully quirky thought.

Posted by Valentine Cawley

(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.html and 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.)

Where things come from.

Today, Tiarnan, five, asked one of his quintessential Tiarnanisms. I use the term to capture the distinct way he thinks about the world.

His mother had just been cooking. Tiarnan looked across at the sum of her work and enquired:

“Mummy made the soup...but who made God?”

His mother had no answer but a captivated smile. Once again, Tiarnan had asked a question that I doubt any other person has framed, in exactly the same way, ever at all.

Tiarnan is much troubled by the question of God, at present. His elder brother, Fintan, eight, has been heard to complain:

“Mummy: Tiarnan won’t leave me in peace, in the bathroom: he is always asking me about God!”

Tiarnan has come to see the question of who made God, as a bit of a problem. He understands the idea of a being that makes all things...but then, he is led, ineluctably, to the question of how the maker made themselves – or who made the maker. Like a good little scientist, he has seen the logical problem in the God Solution, to the origin of the Universe – and it concerns him.

Now, I could sit him down and tell him of my own thoughts on the matter. However, I don’t think I will. I believe that it is better for him to ponder this question on his own and come up with his own thoughts on it. Besides, telling him my thoughts, would only deprive him of the pleasure and reward of thinking it through himself. So, I will let him ponder – and enjoy the reports of his thoughts, as they fall off his tongue, at random intervals, in the times to come. It is better that way. Childhood is more entertaining, when left to the children, to think through.

Posted by Valentine Cawley

(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.html and 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.)

Real Steel - a boy's reflection.

The other day, we took our boys to see Real Steel, the robot boxing film with Hugh Jackman, largely because the younger ones were keen on seeing it. As ever, it was interesting to see how they reacted to it. Tiarnan, five, in particular, was thoughtful, after the film.

“Mummy...”, he began, with a sober air, “not all that is shiny is good.”

Syahidah peered down at him, curious about the meaning of this elusive remark.

Tiarnan gathered that an explanation was required.

“Noisy boy was shiny...but he didn’t even last.”, he observed.

Noisy boy was a robot in Real Steel – a robot that had been promoted as being talented at fighting. In fact, it got absolutely trounced, “shiny” though it was.

It seems clear that Tiarnan had absorbed a very interesting lesson from watching Real Steel. He had come to understand that one should not “judge a book by its cover”. He had taught himself, by observation, that not all is as it seems and that the substance of something may be very different from its appearance. This strikes me as a useful lesson to imbibe – and all the better for being one he taught himself, rather than one in which he was instructed. It is always, without fail, more effective for a child to come to their own understandings, than to be led to them, by “teachers”, I think. The child who thinks things out for themselves, is the child who becomes a good thinker. The child who is “taught” too much, may never learn to think independently. Thus, I am happy to see my own children working life and the world out for themselves: that is how it should be.

There is another side to his thinking which is evident. Tiarnan is forever forming little theories about the world. This remark: “Not all that is shiny is good”, constitutes a mini-theory – a summation of his understanding of the world. In toto, all his observations and theories amount to a nascent world view. It is fascinating to watch him construct this theoretical model of the world, from his lived experience. What is even more fascinating, is that he is doing it entirely himself, since the kinds of things he comes out with are not things in which we instruct him. We let him – as we let all our children – do their own thinking.

I can imagine him remarking to a diamond seeking girlfriend, in decades to come: “Not all that is shiny is good.” I wonder if she will understand what he means?

Posted by Valentine Cawley

(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.html and 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 End of the Universe.

Yesterday, Tiarnan, five, asked an unsettling question of his mother.

"What happens after the end of the Universe?", he enquired, with a somewhat serious voice. It clearly bothered him.

Now, his mother, Syahidah is an artist, not a cosmologist, so she didn't really have any ready or satisfying answers. However, his question surprised her for another reason altogether: for she, too, had asked the very same question, as a child of much the same age as Tiarnan. It was almost as if the query was embedded in her DNA and passed on to him, marked "Unanswered concern", for the next generation to solve.

The big question here is why does a five year old ask such a question? We have no TV in the house, only DVDs. He has not been exposed to any programmes on cosmology or astronomy. This question emerges from his own thought, therefore. He has clearly looked at the world and come to the conclusion that, one day, it would end. Then, having so concluded that even the Universe must die one day, he asked the next question: what would follow the death of the Universe?

These seem rather deep and troubling questions for a mere five year old to be asking. At times, it seems that the littlest people have the biggest thoughts, because they trouble themselves to ask the questions, that adults have long ago stopped thinking about. Perhaps it is because children are inexperienced enough to think that, by asking such questions, they might readily find answers, whereas adults develop an instinct for identifying questions that are, to them, unanswerable and so don't even ask them in the first place. All in all, it makes young children, sometimes, more interesting company, than adults - for they have tendency to ask questions that adults would not. Sometimes, even more interestingly, they answer them.

I shall have a chat with Tiarnan about the Universe and try to give him some understanding of the scale of it, the age of it and how much time there is yet to come. I have a feeling though that even these vast spans of time, will not reassure him about his essential point: the Universe, like all that lives, is mortal.

It seems that Tiarnan is not just concerned with death, but with the biggest Death of all - the end of everything. What a big concern, for so little a boy. I am led to wonder if he is going to make a lifelong habit of such questions. I wonder, further, whether he will make a career of answering them.

Mischievous marketing to children.

A few days ago, my son Fintan, 8, asked a question that made me wonder at the deviousness of marketers.

“Do Smarties make you smarter?”, he asked, most innocently. He seemed quite prepared to believe that they did.

“No, Fintan, it is just a name.”

He didn’t seem entirely satisfied with that. I intuited his unspoken thoughts as being along the lines of: “If they don’t make you smarter, why call them that, then?”

This little exchange drove me to ponder the freedoms we give marketers: they are allowed to call their products anything at all – yet, sometimes, they don’t seem to use this freedom honestly. Fintan was right. There IS the suggestion in the name “Smarties”, that the product is connected, somehow, to smartness. It IS a fair and quite reasonable step to infer, as Fintan had, that the product must be so called, because, somehow, it induced “smartness”. Indeed, perhaps that is exactly the reason they were named “Smarties” in the first place. Perhaps, they wanted children, all over the world, to associate their product with smartness and consume them, therefore, in increased numbers, motivated by the illusion that they were going to enjoy positive cognitive change.

Children and unintelligent adults are susceptible to manipulation through the naming and marketing of products. It would seem wise, to me, to place safeguards on the naming of products so that false associations and inferences are not attached to products, for the purpose of increasing sales to vulnerable groups. Fintan is a bright child. He is socially very switched on. Yet, his conclusion when faced with a product named: “Smarties”, is that they must induce smartness – for why else call them that? How many other children, around the world have the same, perhaps unvoiced thought? How many of them UNCONSCIOUSLY make that link and are motivated to buy them? It is a somewhat disturbing thought. In a way, there is something unethical about naming a product with a reference to a property it doesn’t have, creating an association it cannot fulfil. Smarties don’t make you smart – but they might make you fat, or your teeth rot, if overly consumed. That would be a fair set of truer associations to link to the product, than “they make you smart”.

The funny thing is, that, until Fintan pointed it out, I had never reflected on the implications of the name “Smarties”. Sometimes, children are quicker to see the broader truths of things, in their world, than we are. Perhaps that is because they are thinking about them for the first time, and trying to find meaning in them – whereas adults, in some ways, have lost that habit, to some extent.

Thank you, Fintan, for your question. Smarties won’t make you smarter – but perhaps thinking about them will.

Posted by Valentine Cawley

(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.html and 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.)

A much better name.

A couple of days ago, Tiarnan, five, was playing in the TV room, whilst his mother, Syahidah, talked about a film that was on, to Fintan, eight.

Suddenly, Tiarnan stopped his playing and stood in a mix of puzzlement and startlement:

“What’s the Lizard of Oz?”, he asked, seemingly captivated by such an odd name.

My laughter was his initial reply.

“Wizard, Tiarnan: it is the Wizard of Oz”. I then explained about the film.

He didn’t seem so impressed by Wizard, as he had been by Lizard.

I must say that I much preferred Tiarnan’s misheard name: it seemed so much more exotic. This little moment pauses me to reflect that young children are able to think things, that older children and adults not only do not, but cannot. The more we learn, the less that is possible, for us, in a way – for we know what cannot be or should not be. The more we know about the world, the less we can entertain its possibilities. To my mind, Tiarnan’s state is superior to that of an older child – for him, it is quite possible that he had heard Lizard and not Wizard. I fear an older child would not be able to hear such a thing, even if said: their knowledge of film, would intercede.

Posted by Valentine Cawley

(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.html and 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 at http://www.genghiscan.com/

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

A lecturer in waiting.

Presently, we have a guest, in our house. He is a Professor, from Brazil. His primary field is Computer Science, though he writes in several other fields. His presence, in our house, unannounced as it was, has drawn some curiosity from my sons. Tiarnan, five, in particular, is most interested in our guest.

“Mummy,” he began, with a serious question in his studied gaze, “Why is that man, here?”

“He has come to give a talk, to adults.”, she explained, with well chosen words.

He absorbed this odd preoccupation of adults. Ramifications sparkled in his eyes.

“Do you want to give a talk?”, his mummy pursued.

“Yes.” He nodded, with an unexpected enthusiasm.

“What would your talk be about?”

“Why there are so many people in the world.”, he declared, seemingly certain of the answer.

“Why are there so many people in the world?”, prompted his mummy, with a gentle smile.

“It is easy.”, he asserted, with a nod to himself. “It is because it is infinite. When one person dies, another pops out….when one person dies, another pops out…”, he trailed off, the endless series left unsaid.

From his five year old vantage on the world, little Tiarnan had identified the cycle of life, and perceived its potential infinitude. Yet, he was also aware of the mortality of Man. He saw both the infinite and the finite in life. To me, that seems quite a lot for one so young to encompass.

It is interesting that he is developing an historical perspective on the world – in the sense that he is intuiting how things got the way they are. He is identifying causes in the world, of the way the world is.

Sometimes, perhaps, we forget or overlook, how much the little people in our lives, see into the depths of the world. It leads me to wonder what they understand, but never speak of. Of that, of course, I can only guess. The best that can be done, to see the world as they do, is just to listen carefully to them – and that is just what I do.

(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.)