Reaction to an "intellectual".

Many years ago, when I was barely out of my teens, I was on a train to a place unremembered, reading a book, never forgotten. It was one of Samuel Beckett’s novels, from his trilogy, Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnameable. As I read, quietly, in an end seat in the subdivided train compartment, I annotated the book, writing my thoughts in response to Beckett’s, my understandings of his understandings and ideas of my own that emerged as I read. I wrote in very small writing with a biro. I was very intent.

A voice interrupted me.

“You think you are so intelligent.”, sneered a middle aged woman across from me.

I looked up at her, somewhat surprised, but more puzzled at what she had said.

“I am just reading a book.”, I said, matter of factly, trying not to rise to her provocation.

“You think you are SO intelligent.”, she said again, with even more of a sneer.

Now, I thought this most odd, since I wasn’t thinking of myself at all, but of the book I was reading and the place it had taken me to.

“You know nothing about me.”, I began softly, but with an intensity that made it seem hard, “I have said nothing about my intelligence, to you. So, why are you attacking me for it? I am just reading a book on a train – what is wrong with that?”

Her mouth, if anything, looked even more sour than before.

“You are writing in your book.”, she said, as if that was proof of her view of my self-image.

“I am writing, because I am recording my thoughts in response to the book. That is all.”

Her sourness condensed further.

“You are just showing off.” Her sneer was well on the way to becoming a scar, by now.

“I am not showing anything. I am not writing for your consumption and entertainment, I am writing so that I am able to look at my thoughts again, later. It is not for you that I write.”

She didn’t know what to say, but there was a strange kind of hate cum envy in her eyes. She looked out of the train window. The conversation was at an end.

I returned to my reading and my writing. Aware that she was observing me from across the carriage, but not paying her any more attention. I had become accustomed to hostility from people less bright than myself, but I hadn’t expected to be attacked for reading on a train. I thought it odd that a middle aged lady should be so hateful of intellectual interest. It was odder still that she should assume to know what I thought about myself, from me quietly reading and saying nothing to anyone. Looking back, I do wonder if she were a little mad – and whether she projected her own evaluation of me – that I was “so intelligent” – onto me and ascribed it to me. This would be paranoid thinking and it seems quite possible now that that explains her behaviour.

Yet, there is another explanation that requires far less supposition: that she was hateful of any intellectual activity – that she was “giftist” as I call it. If so, then that attitude was alive and strong about a quarter of a century ago. Even now it is a toxic memory. At the time it was rather like being awoken to the sensation of sandpaper on one’s skin – a rasping reality that could not be ignored.

I have never forgotten her strange action – but was only reminded of it, today, after long years, on sighting the word “annotate”. Suddenly the event flooded into memory again.

It is a wonder that giftism is not more widely spoken of. I even had to create the word myself, some years ago, since at the time, there was not a single hit for it, on the Internet. Attitudes such as this unknown lady’s are truly corrosive, in society and make life difficult for more intellectually minded individuals. It seems likely that she behaved toxically towards any seeming intellectual she met. How many people would she bully in a lifetime? Hundreds, certainly...Imagine if she were a teacher, then there would be thousands of victims. These people are very harmful to society and to the health of a culture – yet she is not alone, there are many people who hate the “gifted”, the “smart”, the “intellectuals”...and even pride themselves on their hate. They think it “trendy” to attack the bookish, the thoughtful, the preoccupied. That woman wouldn’t even leave a young man to read in peace on a train, without trying to poison the experience.

I used to read a lot. I don’t read much these days. Life seems to take up too much time to leave enough time to read as much as I would like. Yet, I am now middle aged and I still see her words to me as foreign. I couldn’t possibly imagine saying them to a youngster reading on a train. I am more likely to feel glad they were reading and just to sneak a peek at the book title, to see how weighty it might be. I would be happiest if it were a complex and rich work. That is what I would like to see in the young today...intellectual preoccupations, thoughtfulness and a desire to learn. I certainly can’t imagine attacking anyone for it.

The UK has gone into a cultural and intellectual decline in recent decades. No doubt that lady, who would now be a pensioner, would be quite happy with the way things are going. I, however, are not. Here’s to a future world in which every youngster reads on trains and thinks in public. How much better a world that would be.

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.

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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.

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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 deification of Arfa Karim Randhawa.

Arfa Karim Randhawa became the youngest Microsoft Certified Professional in 2004 at the age of just 9. This was a very early achievement. However, equally early was her death at the age of 16, following complications from an epileptic attack. Her life was filled with hope and tragedy. Yet, it is in death that the most remarkable things are beginning to happen. Arfa Karim Randhawa is rapidly being deified by her home nation of Pakistan.

Pakistan has just released a commemorative postage stamp on her birthday, February 2^nd, in her honour. I know of no other child prodigy who ever had their own stamp, at least when still a child. So, this strikes me as a particularly unusual honour for a child. So, too, the Ministry for Information and Broadcasting have announced that a book will be produced in homage to the life of Arfa Karim Randhawa.

Arfa is becoming in death, an icon, even larger than the one she was in life. Her brief days upon on this Earth, are becoming a national tale to inspire her whole nation. Now, I see in this something good and something unusual. It is good that a precocious child should be respected as much as she was, in Pakistan. It is good that Arfa Karim Randhawa’s achievements are held up as an example to inspire a nation. Indeed, there is something admirable in Pakistan caring so much, at a government level, about the achievements of an individual child. It seems that they see in her, a symbol of the striving of a nation to become great. Arfa Karim Randhawa is seen to inspire young people in Pakistan to achieve their best. She is also the source of much pride for Pakistan. There is a sense that her early achievements show the world just what a Pakistani can do. Partly, of course, Pakistan’s motivation is out of a sense of loss, that their promising child should have died so young. There is a wish to remember her life and to somehow ensure that her memory lives on, such that it would feel that she hadn’t truly died after all.

All of this wish to hold Arfa Karim Randhawa up as an example, to her people, is in sharp contrast to the way Singapore greeted Ainan. Whilst they were surprised at first, at his achievements, and covered them in the national press, in the spirit of surprise, eventually, as his achievements continued to grow, they turned to ignoring them, or, indeed, eventually, lying about him and us, to make themselves (as a state) look better than they had actually behaved in the situation. They stooped to mendacious propaganda, to defend themselves against the truthful perception that they had been rather negligent where he was concerned. At no time, was there a wish to hold him up as an inspiration. At no time did they seem proud of him. At no time, was there ever any wish to elevate him and make him a symbol of anything at all, to his people – the Malay Singaporeans. Indeed, the first newspaper to fall silent on the subject of Ainan and to begin to ignore him, was the sole Malay newspaper, Berita Harian. It was as if they had been instructed to say no more. It was all rather strange. A rational nation would have been so proud of Ainan. Yet, they didn’t seem to be. They seemed, in fact, to find him an awkward phenomenon they didn’t quite know what to do with. What, on Earth, was a half-Malay boy doing excelling so much younger than his Singaporean Chinese peers? At least, that is what I intuit was one of their concerns, since Singapore is very much a Chinese dominated state, in which the mythology is that the Chinese are somehow superior (or at least they believe themselves to be). They certainly appoint themselves to all the best positions and roles in Singaporean life. That, in itself, allows its own conclusions to be drawn.

So, Pakistan has begun to deify Arfa Karim Randhawa, whilst Singapore began to attack Ainan a couple of years ago. I find this very interesting. In a hundred years time, I am sure that Pakistan will still make mention of their wonder child, Arfa Karima Randhawa. She will, by then, have become a legend. Should Singapore still be run by the PAP however, I very much doubt whether there will be any mention of Ainan, in the Singaporean media, unless it is to attempt to put some perjorative spin on his life story, in some way. Yet, Ainan’s achievements are far greater in number and level, than Arfa Karim Randhawa’s were. So it is doubly strange that Singapore should have adopted this way of discussing him. It is also oddly self-defeating, since Ainan could contribute much to Singapore were he moved to do so, by a warm relationship with them. As ever the famed state of Singapore shows itself to be not as long term in its thinking as it might believe itself to be.

Given the contrasting responses of their home nations to Ainan and Arfa, it does seem unexpected, to me, how Pakistan has responded to Arfa Karim Randhawa. Our own experience led me to expect that negligence was the most likely response of a state to a child prodigy – or even a degree of malevolence – as we experienced – if the child should be from a put upon minority, as Ainan is. So, although I see Pakistan’s response to Arfa Karim Randhawa as unusual, perhaps, in fact, it is Singapore’s response to Ainan that is strange. It certainly feels more wholesome to watch how Pakistan are responding to Arfa, compared to how Singapore responded to Ainan. Singapore actually lied about him, in the national press. By contrast, Pakistan’s national press are being very kind to Arfa.

Personally, I hope the deification of Arfa Karim Randhawa continues. I hope she becomes an emblematic figure, to inspire her nation for many decades, perhaps centuries to come. Every nation needs such people. Perhaps she can, in death, fulfil some of her potential, through her posthumous influence on the psyche of her people. I hope so. At least, then, something wonderful would have been made out of her brief life.

Perhaps Singapore could learn a thing or two about how to value the talents of its people, by looking at the ways in which Pakistan clearly values Arfa Karim Randhawa. There is something touching in their response to her – and something unsettling in Singapore’s response to Ainan.

I wish Arfa Karim Randhawa’s family well. I hope the efforts of Pakistan to honour her memory bring them some solace.

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 gifted disclosure dilemma.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My silence seemed to answer her.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes. I have three sons.”

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

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

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

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

Again she nodded.

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

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

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

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

I needed a drink, so I said so.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your views, thoughts and feelings below, please…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Too many gifted students in the world".

A searcher reached my site today with the terms: "Are there too many gifted students because of pushy parents?". The surfer was from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. I thought their question, of the internet, eminently revealing of all too common attitudes that need to be countered.

Firstly, there is the idea that giftedness is somehow created by "pushy" parents. Personally, I think this is an impossibility. The idea that one could "push" an otherwise ordinary child into becoming gifted is quite extraordinary. It would be a bit like saying that if you dunk your child's head under water long enough they will be able to breathe it. It is really quite silly.

Gifted children are the way they are, largely because of their fortuitous inheritance. The correlation between the IQ of the parents and their children (when they become adults) has been established to be 0.8. This is a very high correlation. It is actually cruel to think that one could "push" a child without such a lucky inheritance into performing as a gifted child can. No measure of demands from the parents are going to raise the ordinary child's IQ above the magical 130 IQ threshold that commonly defines "giftedness".

Then there is another assumption in their search terms that I take issue with: the idea that there are "too many" gifted students. What does this mean? This person seems to think that the world is better off without intelligent children...they seem to hold the view that intelligence is something to be minimized and contained, not encouraged and expanded. To say that a society has "too many" gifted students is a bit like saying that it has "too much money"...for gifted people comprise the intellectual wealth of a nation.

The IQ threshold of 130 that defines the "moderately gifted" is met by one child in 44 in a society with an IQ mean of 100. This means that in a Singaporean class of about 40 students there will be, on average, one moderately gifted child. Is that too many? Would it be worse for the nation were there two such students, or five in the class? I cannot think of any way in which the nation would be worse off, were that so.

Obviously, higher levels of giftedness are much rarer. The profoundly gifted (IQs of 180 or more) are usually thought of as literally one in a million. Would the world be a worse place were they one in 100,000? I cannot believe so. Were they more common, the rate at which uncommonly difficult problems in science and other disciplines were solved, would only increase. Surely, that would be better for the world as a whole.

Giftedness is present in all societies of the world. Yet, it is odd to observe, that it is misunderstood in all of those societies, too. In some societies, it is marginalized, disapproved of, disparaged, in some quarters. This is most peculiar - for the gifted among us, have, historically as a group, built most of the culture, science and technology on which human civilization rests. Are such people to be disregarded or shunned?

Sometimes giftedness is disconcerting for the less well endowed. They feel comfortable in a world filled with people as ordinary as they are. Yet, what they fail to realize is that such a world would be a very much more limited world. Science would come to a halt. Technology would remain static. Doctors would not be sufficiently competent at their jobs to save lives. Books would not be written and libraries would go unfilled. In fact, all the civilized world that we know, would cease to be. Perhaps, were this situation so, people would appreciate what the gifted among them have contributed. Perhaps, only then, would they welcome them (though too late, for they will have gone).

The welcome or otherwise, of the gifted, should not be determined by the ordinary among us, with a "democratic" agenda, of all having to be alike. The welcome should be determined by the gifted themselves. The prevailing culture should be one that affords opportunity to all who are gifted, to fully become what they may be and contribute what they may do. Such a culture does not include the idea of "too many gifted" people - nor the idea of the "pushy parents created them". Such a culture accepts gifted people for what they are - and is happy to have them.

The question is: which cultures are such cultures? My surfer suggests that Australia may not be one of them. How are gifted people welcomed (or otherwise) in your culture? What are the prevailing attitudes to them? Are they seen as "geeks" or "nerds"? Are they marginalized? Are they shunned? Or are they welcomed and valued? I would welcome your comments, views and observations from wherever you are in the world. Thank you.

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