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.)

Arfa Karim Randhawa, child prodigy, dies.

Arfa Karim Randhawa, a Pakistani child prodigy known for being the world’s youngest Microsoft Certified Professional, has died aged just 16 years old. Without warning, on the 22^nd December, she suffered a severe epileptic fit and fell into a coma. On December 29^th, her doctors said there was no possibility of survival. They proved right. She died yesterday, despite showing seeming signs of improvement in the previous days.

Remarkably, perhaps, prayers were said for her by the Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and a number of other government officials commented on her demise, including the Prime Minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani. Her passing has occasioned a degree of national grieving, with public figures, such as the Muttahida Qaumi Movement chief, Altaf Hussain saying that Pakistan had lost a “precious talent”.

Arfa Karim Randhawa’s passing, before she could fulfil the life of promise that seems to have been hers, by birthright, is a harsh reminder of how fragile we all are and how suddenly life can come to an end, when we least expect it. Yet, there is also something of note about Arfa Karim’s passing: that anyone noticed or cared. I am sure that other 16 year olds in Pakistan were busy dying on Saturday, too...no doubt many did so – but the world simply neither cared nor noticed. It is Arfa Karim’s prodigiousness, her early show of talent, that brought her to the attention of Pakistan and the wider world. This explains an observation many have made: that child prodigies seem to die younger than other categories of exemplary people. I have often seen searches for this, arriving on my blog. Well, it is time, perhaps, to explain this seeming phenomenon. It is not what it appears. I don’t believe that child prodigies are fated to die young. It is just that when they do die young, people notice. I am sure that they die young no more frequently than any other type of person dies young. Being prodigious does not portend a short life. It portends the possibility of an unusually productive life, if the prodigy is given the right opportunities. Early death is not part of the seemingly Faustian pact. Arfa Karim Randhawa has died very young. We notice her death, because of her early achievement in computing. Had she lived an ordinary life, with ordinary achievements, no-one, but her family and friends, would have noticed her death. We would not then say that, “Non-prodigious children die young”. In just the same way, we cannot say: “Prodigious children die young”. They don’t. It is just that because of their early fame, they are noticed in a way that other early deaths are not. Of all categories of achievers, child prodigies come to notice earliest. Thus, the early deaths among them are noticed, which drags the average age of death down, for child prodigies. In other categories of achiever, early deaths mean they are not noticed or counted in for consideration: they are invisible, so they don’t bring the mean age at death, down.

Thus, although Arfa Karim Randhawa’s passing is very sad for those who knew her and, it seems, even for Pakistan, itself, it should not be seen as evidence that child prodigies die young. I am certain that they are, in truth, no more likely to die young, than is anyone else.

My condolences to Arfa Karim Randhawa’s family and friends. May she rest in peace.

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 to play computer games, Ainan's way.

Ainan, my 12 year old son, has his own approach to computer games playing.

A week or so, ago, he remarked to me: “I have been editing the lightwarp in Team Fortress 2.”

That sounded rather technical to me.

“How do you do that?”

He looked at me, with mild surprise, as if I had asked “How do you count to ten?”

“It’s simple Daddy. You just open the vtf file and change the colour strip.”

As an explanation, that rather failed to allow me to understand how to do it. Clearly, however, he knew how to do it.

Ainan has been doing this for some time. Whenever he finds himself dissatisfied with a gaming experience, he opens up the code for the game – and recodes it to his satisfaction, producing a game that looks the way he wants it to.

When he first revealed what he was doing, I asked him:

“How did you learn that?”

“I taught myself. It is easy. You just open the code and it is very obvious what to do.”

I am not sure that this “obvious” task, would be that obvious to most.

Ainan has a sense for these things. He seems to have an instinct for how computers work and what to do to make them work the way he wants them to. This, it strikes me, should prove a very useful skill in a future world in which computers are going to become ever more dominant. What is particularly good about this interest of his, is that it is self-directed. He is teaching himself how to do these things, because he enjoys it. It is something which arises naturally out of his own curiosity and joy. This, of course, is the best way to learn something and the way most likely to give rise to productive fruit.

So, Ainan likes to play computer games, at home. However, his computer games tend to have been customised to his own, inner vision, of what they should look like. That he does this, makes me much happier that he is spending valuable time playing such games – for I know that, for him, they are a lesson in computing, as much as anything else. He has managed to turn computer games into a somewhat creative hobby and one that is teaching him a lot more than one might suppose. I have written one snatch of his conversation regarding computer games and their coding. I have only written this quote because it is one that I remember. Quite often, however, his comments are beyond recall, because they are beyond comprehension. They are just too technical to be readily understood, by someone outside the field, like me. I am content, however, to listen and admire his enthusiasm. That is the best thing a parent can do in the circumstances. I enjoy his enjoyment, even if I don’t understand the fullness of his comments on his interest.

It gives me great pleasure to see Ainan deepen his interests, in this way. If, sometimes, those interests become so technical as to defy ready understanding, then I am even more pleased – for it implies that his understanding has gone beyond that of an intelligent, but uninitiated layman.

Anyway, Ainan’s example has shown me that there can be unexpected lessons to be found, even in the most unpromising of places, if the child, in question, is resourceful enough to see something interesting to do with the material at hand. In this case...reprogramming the computer games, rather than just playing them passively.

Carry on gaming, Ainan...and coding, too!

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 Moonwalking Computer Game.

The other day, I saw something very odd. My son, Ainan, was playing an online computer game in which the "soldiers" were acting rather bizarrely. They were walking backwards into the field of fire, then moonwalking on the spot (still backwards). Now, not being completely unfamiliar with computer games, I knew that this was not normal.

"How did you do that?", I asked Ainan, somewhat stupefied.

"Oh, it's easy, I just hacked the game...", he trailed off, not explaining exactly what "hacking the game" involved.

Ainan is just nine years old. I remember being nine years old - and at that age, I don't think anyone around me was equipped to be hacking online computer games and making them do bizarre things. (Not that there were such things...but you know what I mean.) Yet, here Ainan was, playing with the computer code of online games, like a typical child might play with a football.

The mystery of this is two-fold: firstly, how does he do it? Secondly, and more to the point - how did he LEARN to do it? You see, Ainan has not been taught programming in class - this is something he has taught himself, something he has worked out, on his own, through experimentation. Somehow, it is something he instinctively understands. He looks at a computer and sees a playground, that he can make do pretty much what he wants. He is not following the instructions of another, or techniques learnt formally - he is just guided by his own intuitions and insights into how computers work.

Though I have chosen to comment on his Moonwalking computer game, it is not an infrequent occurrence that a computer should behave bizarrely in his presence. Indeed, I have almost come to expect unusual behaviour from computers, once he has been near them. What amazes me, though, is the ease with which he accomplishes these things; the speed with which he does so, and the sureness with which he does so. Yet, he does so, on his own instruction.

He is yet at the beginning of his mental growth, for he is but nine. Yet, I do wonder where and how far he will go in his development and what he will become. He has acquired some degree of skill in quite a few intellectual disciplines, from physics, chemistry, computing, indeed, in anything scientific and mathematical. It is difficult, therefore, to see where this will end up, since there are so many directions he could choose to take.

In the meantime, I shall just enjoy his playfulness in all that he does - and watch that he doesn't play too much havoc on my computer!

(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.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.

IMDB is the Internet Movie Database for film and tv professionals. If you would like to look at my IMDb listing for which another fifteen credits are to be uploaded, (which will probably take several months before they are accepted) please go to: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3438598/ As I write, the listing is new and brief - however, by the time you read this it might have a dozen or a score of credits...so please do take a look. My son, Ainan Celeste Cawley, also has an IMDb listing. His is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3305973/ My wife, Syahidah Osman Cawley, has a listing as well. Hers is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

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

Computer programming by a child.

Ainan is ever surprising - and that, in itself, is the most surprising thing about him. One would have thought that he would have run out of surprises by now...but no, he hasn't.

One of Ainan's surprises is his ability at computer programming. Yesterday, for instance, my computer was behaving in odd ways. It was "talking" to me, in written words, in response to my typed entries. Furthermore, it was doing things in response to my typing, that I hadn't asked it to do.

I asked Ainan, knowing that he must have done it: "How did you do that?"

"It is simple." he began, obviously believing it to be, before he launched into a very rapid, detailed and utterly incomprehensible description of the programme he had used to do it. He listed the programme from memory (or recreated as he went along...I couldn't tell which), detailing, in a programming language, how to achieve what he had just done. After a while, I tuned out, knowing that attention would not inform me any better what he was saying. Finally, he ended his descriptive download. I hadn't understood a word of it.

"Who taught you to do that? Do they teach that at school?"

He looked at me like I had said something fundamentally silly. Perhaps it was the suggestion that school might actually teach him something.

"No, Daddy." he began with the kind of patience that told me he didn't think much of my question, perhaps questioning its underlying view of the world, "You can teach yourself that."

So, in between all the other things he was doing, in the sciences and maths, in art, and writing, in reading, and playing, he had found time to learn to programme computers, too - in what seemed a very natural way. He did it as if it were as easy as breathing.

I programmed computers, once. I was 17 and working at the National Physical Laboratory, in the UK. I had to create a programme to analyse data, but didn't know the language to do so - so I picked up a programming book and began to read. Three days later, I was programming. However, I was 17, not 9 and Ainan has been programming since at least 8, perhaps younger.

I am left to wonder what other surprises he has for me...and what other things he has learnt without me realizing that he has done so.

(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.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.IMDB is the Internet Movie Database for film and tv professionals.

If you would like to look at my IMDb listing for which another fifteen credits are to be uploaded, (which will probably take several months before they are accepted) please go to: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3438598/ As I write, the listing is new and brief - however, by the time you read this it might have a dozen or a score of credits...so please do take a look. My son, Ainan Celeste Cawley, also has an IMDb listing. His is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3305973/ My wife, Syahidah Osman Cawley, has a listing as well. Hers is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

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

A curiously personalized personal computer.

Ainan's computer does things my computer doesn't. Furthermore, it isn't because he has bought software I haven't got - it is because Ainan has made his computer behave that way.

Somehow, he has taught himself how to programme certain aspects of his computer. Making particular entries brings up unique message boxes, with comic messages in them (written by Ainan). One popular programme launch button has even been booby trapped so that pressing it shuts the computer down. Ainan thinks this is hilarious, since anyone, but him, who uses his computer is likely to run into that and various other problems. Ainan has made his computer quirky. It has a personality all of its own, with a set of responses that no other computer has.

Even after all these years, in his company, Ainan still manages to surprise me. He has never had a single computer programming lesson. He has never been to a computer class. Yet, he has taught himself, from online files, how to get his computer to behave in a personalized manner. He is programming the responses he wants from it.

As I watch him teach himself things no-one has ever ventured to teach him and master them with what seems effortless ease, I come to the conclusion that, if every child was like Ainan, schools would be entirely superfluous. A child like Ainan doesn't need a school to learn anything - they just need books (or the internet equivalent) and their own innate curiosity.

I am reminded that, when Ainan was six, he taught himself Chemistry, from the internet. Here he is, then, again, teaching himself some programming skills - also from the internet.

A resourceful child needs only a net connection (or a well-stocked library) to educate themselves. I don't see in what way schools are superior to the process I observe in Ainan. At his age, school would not yet even have started to teach Chemistry or programming - yet Ainan is quite able to learn these things on his own, already. School, perhaps, only has utility for those unable to teach themselves. Those who are, however, are probably hampered, rather than enabled by the requirements of school.

To date, almost everything Ainan knows has been learnt at home - much of it by himself. School plays little part in his education.

Back to the topic in hand: mercifully, he has not, yet, booby trapped my computer with any quirky behaviour - but I rather enjoy watching the things that his does, when one tries to interact with it in a normal way.

It is good to see him add another area of skill to his repertoire. He seems to be laying down all the key skills he would need to be scientifically and technically proficient, as an adult - and he is making the selections himself.

By the time, he reaches the age when schools actually begin teaching the skills he is acquiring, he will already be expert in all of them. It would almost be funny, if it wasn't so sad. You see, schools should really allow kids like Ainan to develop when they want to - and not put them on a "go-slow" programme, which would bore them.

Luckily, Ainan has his own solution: it is called an internet connection, a pile of books and lots of curiosity.

(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.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.

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