MGCCon: Malaysian Games and Comics Convention: a strange reaction.

Today, I brought my two elder sons to see the Malaysian Games and Comics Convention, at KDU University College, Damansara Jaya. The reason for doing so was simple: Ainan was participating at the Astromedia stall, as an animator. In his one hour in the booth, he created a comedic animation – a short tale about the life and times of two rabbits. It was very funny. Yet, that is not why I write...something else is.

Whilst I was doing a tour of the booths at the convention, I came across one that was clearly marketing an online game. It was by Garena. I looked curiously at the game paraphernalia on display. At that point, a young man in attendance approached me.

“Have you ever played computer games?”, he asked, in a curiously condescending manner. He seemed to look at me as if no-one as old as me could possibly have ever experienced such pursuits.

“Yes.” I replied very mildly and softly, though well aware of what he thought about me.

He seemed hesitant, as if he still didn’t believe me.

“What have you played?”, he asked, seemingly convinced that the answer wouldn’t be much.

“Oblivion.”

“Oh, Oblivion!”, he dismissed. “This is very different from that.”

He then went on to explain why this game was different from the one I was familiar with.

“Would you like to open an account?”, he asked, at the end of his pitch. “If you do, we will give you the free goodies.”

I looked at the bag of goodies, back at the screen where an account opening procedure awaited me and then back up at him.

“What is the subscription?”

“Oh it is free.”

“Is it an online game?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be back.”, I said and walked away.

Little did he know, but he had lost me the moment he spoke condescendingly to me. The young are sometimes so very stupid. They believe themselves to be superior to the old – and yet, in almost every way, they are the inferior of their elders. This young man looked down on me because I was more than twice his age. He thought that I could not conceivably have any experience of modern gaming culture. So he treated me, from the very beginning, as some kind of lesser life form. It came through in his every word, tone of voice, attitude and demeanour. He just thought I wasn’t likely to have any experience of the kind of game he was marketing. Yet, of course, I have a very good idea of what kind of game he was selling. I have played similar games in my life – as most people have.

There was another reason I didn’t sign up for his game. I really didn’t like the idea of bringing another addictive gaming experience into the house, to waste everyone’s time on. There was no beneficial or productive reason to do so. The kind of product he shifted, is corrosive to family life, in excess...so I would just rather not get involved. So, I actually turned down a FREE game!

The truth, of course, is that I knew rather more about his type of game than he realized – which is just why I didn’t “buy” it. That, and his attitude, of course.

I never did go back to his stall, though I passed it by many times in the course of the afternoon.

For me, the highlight of the event was seeing Ainan’s animation. It was by far the most creative thing I saw there. 

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 dumbest man in the world.

Recently, I wrote about the Samantha Schermanhorn and Kaylie George case of youthful stupidity. Some people thought I was being harsh on them or that I was picking on them – not so, I was merely using them as a specific example of a general phenomenon – people are just rather dumb, these days. Stupidity is not just reserved for the young –mature individuals are quite capable of it, too, as I will now reveal.

I once met an actor who was a tall, muscular body builder. He was enormous. He was a strong, aggressive, very confident man, who had a certain arrogance about him. He really believed in himself. He was an actor on the cusp of becoming famous – he was getting decent sized roles in popular TV series and was, at the time, working on an epic feature film. He would soon be known to the world. He already had a following in certain quarters.

Now he liked to boast. One of the things he boasted about was his Mensa membership. He would actually whip out his Mensa card at random moments in conversation, to prove his intellectual worth. It was quite funny, if a little sad. He would use his Mensa membership as a reference to support his side of an argument, as if to say, “I am bright…so I am right”.

His primary characteristics were size, strength and aggression – but he was fond of referring to himself as “one of the brightest people in the world”. I think he was rather overstating what Mensa membership connotes – since it takes the top 2 % and that is not very exclusive in terms of intelligence, at all.

Anyway, one day, he really gave me pause to doubt his intelligence.

Can you guess what he said that convinced me he was the dumbest man I had ever met? Think carefully.

Well, he began boasting, one day, of how he refused to wear a condom during relations with his HIV positive girlfriend. He considered one completely unnecessary and thought that he had no chance of catching HIV from her, during normal relations.

That really brought a silence to the room.

It seemed that he thought he was so big and tough that nothing so small and puny as a mere virus could harm him. It was quite a mad moment.

Now, I don’t know how long he had had this particular girlfriend – but it was immediately clear to me that this very tall man would have a very short life. He lived in a part of the world notorious for its HIV rates – and he refused to wear condoms. I have seen two estimates of the rate of transmission of infection if unprotected in heterosexual relations – one in three hundred and one in five hundred. If it is the latter, five hundred instances of unprotected relations – quite possible in say a year or so of a new relationship – would result in a two in three chance of infection. If it is the former, that same year would result in a much higher chance of infection.

So, for all his boasting about his intelligence, his actions prove otherwise. Here was a man dumb enough to think himself invincible, who daily put himself at risk of HIV in a pretty suicidal manner, with a girlfriend known to be HIV positive.

I won’t name him, since he is becoming famous. However, if you are the sort who consorts with film stars, be very careful of those who are tall and muscular – for one of them is very likely to be HIV positive. He will also refuse to wear a condom.

Now, reflecting upon his behaviour I see a comparison with the Samantha Schermanhorn and Kaylie George case. Both are instances of people doing things which have an inevitable outcome, given long enough. Both actions are certain to lead to death or injury if pursued for any length of time. Yet, in both cases, the participants seem unaware of the risks.

So Samantha Schermanhorn and Kaylie George are not alone, in their foolishness. Hollywood has its fair share too. Considering that the actor is at least three times older than the girls, it seems fair to consider him even dumber than them. I hereby propose him as the dumbest man in the world.

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.)

Julia Gabriel Centre and age discrimination.

A few months ago, we enquired at the Julia Gabriel centre, here in Kuala Lumpur, as to whether our son, Tiarnan, four, could join a drama class. Now, those of who have read much of this blog, will know that Tiarnan is rather partial, instinctively, to the ways of an actor: he is a boy of much imagination, given to constructing alternate realities to play in. He has also been on TV, in a reality show, so he is comfortable before a camera. We thought, therefore, that he would benefit from a drama class. However, it was not to be.

The teacher at the Julia Gabriel centre was teaching a class of five year olds, supposedly introducing them to drama. Guess what she said on hearing that four year old Tiarnan was set to join the class? We had told them that he was bright, verbal and given to acting and that he had been on TV. So, just have a guess at what her response was.

Well, she refused to allow him to join the class, saying: “I wouldn’t know how to teach a four year old.”

Err…how dumb, for a teacher to say that, I thought. The only differences between Tiarnan at four and most children at five, is that Tiarnan is brighter, more verbal, more imaginative, more attentive and EASIER to teach. Apparently, this “teacher” didn’t know that there is a lot of individual variability between children and that age is not an effective guide as to behaviour or ability.

This response of the teacher, however, taught us something. It taught us that she would not be a suitable teacher for our son, anyway. No-one who knew so little about children as to dismiss a four year old, because they were not five, is just not suited to teaching our children anyway – or anyone’s children for that matter. Thus, when Tiarnan turns five, we would be unlikely to seek drama classes for him at the Julia Gabriel centre because he would probably end up in a class taught by just this particular dumb teacher. That would, most probably, be a waste of time.

This incident brought home to me, however, just how common the stereotyping of children by age is – and just how little understanding there is among, even teachers, about the intellectual variability of children. Age lockstep education is ALWAYS a bad idea, since it ALWAYS leads to underchallenged – or overchallenged children. The only type of education that makes sense, is education by ability, not by age. Sadly, the whole world’s education is done by age stereotyping, with very few exceptions.

Anyone who knew Tiarnan would know how dumb that teacher was to turn him down, without even meeting him, when he was more than capable of doing her class. Just this type of educational injustice is occurring all over the world, to millions of children, even as I write.

Let education be by ability and interest – and let age be nothing more than what it is: a number that increases in proportion to our time on this Earth – and nothing more.

Rather ridiculously, we were unable to find a drama class for Tiarnan, at four, anywhere in KL, that we knew of. Does the education system think that he learns more by NOT attending a class to match his interest? That is the effect of age discrimination. Perhaps, there would be wisdom in a law to ban age discrimination in education, just like there are laws in many parts of the world, to ban age discrimination in the work place. We would then see a world in which children ended up classes suited to their abilities, and not their ages and social stereotypes. I hope, one day, to see such a world. Tiarnan would be happier in such a world too.

We may have some time to wait…