Mysteries of the Universe: Gifted Branch Officers.

Why are Singapore's Gifted Branch officers so dumb?

This struck me as being one of the deeper mysteries of the Universe. All of the Gifted Branch Officers we encountered, in Singapore, were clearly not gifted themselves. They struck me as being a bit dumb. So, how on Earth were these intellectually shallow people expected to understand, guide and nurture people who surpassed themselves? It was dumb. I would not have hired any of them. The fact that they were does suggest that the entire system is managed by people too dumb to understand the issues surrounding giftedness, with any real, personal insight.

Singapore clearly has a talent shortage in its educational hierarchy. One just has to look at the calibre of Gifted Branch officers to realize that. They have no real understanding of giftedness at all.

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.) 

Singapore’s mentally destructive education system.

A few weeks ago, my son Ainan was clearly in reverie. He looked up at me, then, a question in his eyes.

“Can doing nothing for a long period hurt your brain?”

“ Yes.”

“ Then Singapore hurt my brain...for years I would get up early, go to a building, do nothing all day and come home late with no time to do anything else.”

I had to agree. Singapore had forced Ainan to go to Primary school, even though he had mastered O level standard work, already. It was a stupid act, of a stupid education system, guided by stupid people. They just wouldn’t let us home school him, despite us asking repeatedly. They seemed to feel a need to control his growing mind, to not let it be free to grow as we would guide it. Finally, of course, we escaped Singapore altogether. Our answer to their not giving us permission to home school him, was to emigrate from the country altogether.

What Singapore has never learnt, and probably never shall learn, is that you cannot constrict the people. You cannot force them into boxes in which they don’t belong. Any attempt to do so, will result in those people leaving the country. Singapore’s education system seems to have a wish to limit its children in certain ways, and constrain them into certain conventional, preordained categories of function. Anything which exceeds those norms, is not handled well – despite the existence of the “Gifted Branch”, of the Ministry of Education.

For several years, Singapore prevented Ainan’s mental growth, by placing him in a situation in which there was nothing to learn, quite literally nothing to learn. Primary school had nothing to offer Ainan – for he had already mastered its content, before he had even joined it. It was a complete waste of time. Ainan found it completely mind numbing. He was beyond bored in his Primary school. The only respite was the chance to play with his friends. Other than that, the school had nothing to offer him at all. It was completely switching his mind off. Yet, the system would not let us free him of it. They forced him to be there against his will and against his best interests. They were interested, it seemed, primarily in two things: control and observation. The Gifted Branch had a huge file on Ainan containing reports which had come from everyone in the education system who had contact with him. Thus, his school was not a school at all. It was an observation chamber, a surveillance system – a means to monitor this unusual young child – for what reasons, was never declared. They were not there however, and were never there, to actually help him grow intellectually. They were there, it seemed at times, to hamper him, in every way they could. They could not have behaved more obstructively had they been specifically instructed to obstruct him – which perhaps they had, given some of the things they did, which did not make any sense, unless their purposes were obstructive.

Singapore is a place for the average person. If a child is born, on that tiny island, who surpasses intellectual norms, in any significant way, they are likely to find the system less than completely understanding of the situation. Singapore did its best to frustrate Ainan’s development, in any way it could. The only significant provisions we secured for him, were arranged by ourselves and not by the “Gifted Branch”. Had we done nothing and let the system take care of Ainan, they would have completely destroyed his developing mind – for as Ainan suspected, doing nothing harms the mind.

We saved Ainan from Singapore’s mandated destruction, by resisting the system and making our own arrangements. Life has turned out well for him, as a result. He is enjoying his courses at Taylor’s University and is learning many different things. We managed to secure him what he needed – but we did so only by escaping a system that was determined to do as little as possible for him.

Singapore doesn’t make great people. Singapore breaks great people. Great people threaten the essential mediocrity of the “system”. So the system does it best to thwart them. That, at least, is the impression of its purpose, operation and intent that we garnered, from our exposure to the “Gifted Branch”.

As I once asked a Gifted Branch officer, who was denying our requests for practical chemistry classes for Ainan. “What is the Gifted Branch for?”

She had no answer, but just sat in silence.

I asked the question again: “What is the Gifted Branch for?”

She didn’t answer me.

From our experience with them, I very much doubt that the true intent of the Gifted Branch is to nurture its gifted children to its best ability. However, the thick file they had on Ainan does indicate that another purpose seems more likely. The Gifted Branch appears to wish to monitor the gifted children, in Singapore...to keep tabs on them. So, if you want your child monitored, on a daily basis, by every educator they encounter, please contact the Gifted Branch, and become involved with them. If, however, you want your child to grow up free of total surveillance...have nothing to do with them, at all. You are not losing anything, because the Gifted Branch interventions are worthless, in our experience. All they will do is frustrate you in every way they can.

If you have a truly gifted child, Singapore will not provide for them. You will have to go elsewhere. Like we did...so, do so.

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 wisdom of planning ahead.

I have often wondered whether Mankind is a truly intelligent species. I am led to wonder because, on the whole, Man does more stupid, than intelligent things. Mankind is more remarkable for its moments of utter dumbness, than its peaks of intelligent action.

Now, many of you might be moved to argue with me, over this. Yet, it only takes a little reflection on what Man actually does, to realize that it is true. I will give you one example: New Orleans. Most of you will remember that Hurricane Katrina demolished this US city, some years ago. What you might not be aware of, is that this was entirely avoidable. You see, for many years before Hurricane Katrina, disaster planners would use New Orleans as an example of what could happen in the event of a hurricane hitting the US. They even ran a simulation not long before the actual hurricane hit (a year or so, I think). In that simulation, they calculated the devastation that would be caused and all agreed that it would be terrible indeed. Yet, what did they do to prepare for it? Nothing much. As I have noted, Mankind is stupid. When confronted with the knowledge that certain death and destruction is going to occur, sometime, in the future, in a particular locality, the collective will of Mankind is to do nothing about it. People would rather "save money" now, than worry about a "hypothetical" disaster later. Of course, this makes said disaster inevitable, when it could have been avoided. I am even led to propose a principle: there is no such thing as a natural disaster, only human inaction, before it. Hurricane Katrina was as much a product of a human unwillingness to prepare for the future, as it was a result of the movement of air, over water.

What gets me about this, of course, is that the cost of not preparing for the future, is always greater than the cost of actually doing so. There is, in truth, no money to be "saved" by doing nothing to avert predictable disasters.

Another disaster waiting to happen to Humanity, is bird flu. The H5N1 strain of bird flu has occasionally showed itself, over the past decade or two, in Asia, promptly killing most of the people it infected. Indeed, the World Health Organization website says that "avian influenza can reach a mortality rate of 100% in 48 hours of onset". So, bird flu is something to be feared. It is also something, one would have thought, to prepare against. Just imagine that bird flu, say H5N1, mutates to become readily transmissible between humans. Just think what would happen once it boards planes around the world, from China (a likely source), to scatter widely about the Earth before anyone notices. (China has a history of hushing up disease outbreaks, which leads to the world being unaware of what is happening until too late). Imagine a disease as infectious as the common cold, or typical flu, but with a fatality rate approaching 100%. It could destroy the human race.

Yet, what, precisely, is the human race doing about it? Zero. As far as I am aware there is no real preparation for this eventuality which will, eventually, occur, without any doubt. It is just a matter of time. Somewhere, in a rural area of, most probably, Asia, a sick chicken is going to make a child sick and that child is going to kill the world.

What can we do about this, you might ask? Well, it is simple really: make a stockpile of vaccine that immunizes against all the strains of H5N1 that have been noted so far and give two shots to everyone one can find, on Earth. Now, some of you might object that we can't know what the proposed highly infectious strain of H5N1 looks like. It might differ significantly from the known strains. Well, this might be true - but I have read something which is very hopeful on that front. Some people were immunized against a 1997 strain of H5N1. Later, their immune reaction was tested against a 2005 strain of H5N1 - and CONSIDERABLE cross protection was noted. Thus, immunizing against the known versions of H5N1, would probably confer a significant degree of protection against future strains. It may, for instance, turn it from a disease which kills, to a disease which merely makes people sick. Another benefit is that it might shorten the period that specific immunization might take, needing, perhaps, only one shot, rather than two, of a vaccine, to confer specific resistance.

So, here we have an example of something Mankind can do to prevent millions, perhaps billions of human deaths. Indeed, something which might even save the human race. Yet, no nation is doing it. They prefer, instead, to wait until disaster strikes, to wait until people are dying en masse of H5N1, before trying to protect against it. The problem with that is that the lead time for producing a vaccine is about 6 months. Thus, in that period, a pandemic H5N1 could kill millions or billions of people.

It seems that Mankind is so enamoured of money, that "saving" it now, is worth more than the death of the human race, later.

I hope that H5N1 never becomes pandemic. Should it do so, one thing seems most likely: the human race will be completely unprepared and millions of people will die. Should you be among the survivors, remember this: all those deaths were unnecessary, caused only by the collective unwillingness of Mankind to prepare for the future.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 6 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to:
http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

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

My Internet Movie Database listing is at: http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/
Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/
Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

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.)