Career ambitions of Vietnamese students.

I am privy to an informal survey of the ambitions of Vietnamese students. They make curious reading.

Of a group of twenty young students aged from 12 to 17, a number of interesting career choices were made - and a couple of worrying omissions, too.

Two out of twenty wanted to be scientists, which is encouraging; three wanted to be business people (two boys, one girl); four wanted to be doctors, one wanted to be a lawyer (a girl), two wanted to be architects (a boy and a girl); two wanted to be inventors (both boys); one wanted to be President (a boy); one wanted to go into computers; one wanted to be in Public Relations (a girl); one wanted to be an artist (a girl) and one just wanted to sleep (a boy, usually sleeping in class, or trying to.)

The interesting omissions were that none of the twenty wanted to be a teacher - and none of them wanted to be an engineer, of any kind.

If these children are representative of the attitudes of Vietnamese youth, there is some hope - and some concerns. The hope is that quite a few of them chose creative professions: artist, architect, scientist and inventor - amounting to 35% of the class. The concern is that Vietnam might be a country with few teachers - or teachers who wished they were doing something else.

I don't know what role models they have for engineers in their society - but, since engineers create the structural backbone of a society that it is not among their aspirations is a worry, for Vietnam.

Amusingly, the boy who wanted to be President is the second laziest in class (second only to the one who likes to sleep): he also appears to be one of the least bright. He does, however, have big dreams and is quite clearly able to imagine himself in the role.

Interestingly, none of them would admit, at first, to being ambitious in any way: it seemed not the thing to aspire to. They would only answer when asked, more directly, what they wanted to do in their lives.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and five months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and ten months, and Tiarnan, twenty-seven 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, niño, gênio criança, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

Careers advice for a gifted child

This is a post that will only begin to address the issue and will do so with a tale from our own lives.

When my wife was a child, she had broad horizons: there seemed to be so many things she was interested in, so many possibilities of things she could do. Needless to say, she took her ideas for her future to the adults around her, to those who were in a position to dispense careers advice. Now, the events are so long ago, that she cannot recall precisely who it was who advised her so - which adult, which teacher, which "career adviser", who told her as they did, but the advice has never faded, the exact words used remain with her to this day.

She was a child who thought about many things, whose interests were deep and many and various. So she had more than one vision of her future. So, one day, she asked this career adviser their opinion of her choices:

"I would like to be an archaeologist when I grow up." she revealed, rather shyly - for she was ever rather shy.

"Everything has been found already." was the blunt, dismissive reply.

Syahidah, the little girl, was rather disappointed about this, for she had dreamt of travelling the world, going to strange places, in search of even stranger lost and distant realms, almost forgotten, newly to be discovered. This vision had been dismissed as romantic nonsense - yet, the funny thing is, her idea of the possibilities is closer to the truth than her narrow-minded "adviser": there are still cities to be discovered, lost worlds to be explored. That we have found much, does not mean that there is not much more to be found, deep beneath us all.

Though disheartened by this opinion, she mustered the courage in her small body for another statement of her ambition.

"I want to be an architect.", she said, already proud at the thought of the buildings she might build, the cities she might shape.

"Everything has been built already, in Singapore." was the even more dismissive and bone-headed answer.

Look at the answer of this "adviser". For a start it considered the world entire to be nothing more than Singapore: as if the architectural needs of an entire planet were not worth bothering with. Secondly, Singapore, more than many cities, is very much in need of good architects. Too much of it looks the same as everywhere else. Some architectural genius would go a long way to improving the quality of life in this small but ambitious city. Furthermore, Singapore is constantly pulling "old" buildings down (anything over fifteen or twenty years seems to be too old to leave alone around here) and replacing them with new ones. There is, therefore, both a dire and enduring need for good architects, here.

After two dismissals she didn't have the courage to raise any more of her aspirations to be shot down. The little girl that was Syahidah never forgot those words - and never more did she dream of being an archaeologist - or an architect.

That unremembered adviser, whose words have never been forgotten, deprived Singapore of an architect (which it so evidently needs) and an archaeologist - which I have never heard of it having. Such conversations, between the advising adult and the child - gifted or otherwise - should never be conducted lightly. They have a permanent effect on the child concerned.

In the end, my wife has become an artist - but that is a story too long for this post. Let it be said that no-one helped her along the way - or advised her appropriately.

So if a child approaches you for advice on a career, think carefully. Don't dismiss whatever they offer up as possibilities: look at the positive side of what they are proposing, look at the good things that could come of them. Don't puncture a dream just because you no longer have any of your own (which was probably the case with her sour, disenchanted "adviser"). Let their dreams continue to live - and give them a little encouraging prod. Who knows, perhaps your kind words may lead them to become a fulfilled, successful, happy, productive individual, one day - instead of someone whose progress was blocked and stifled by "advice" lacking in vision, imagination, and knowledge of the world.

My wife's childhood adviser knew nothing of my wife's gifts. Her self-diagnosed possible career paths were, retrospectively, more than appropriate given the mental strengths she has later shown: in particular in visual matters - a strength required in both archaeology and architecture - as well, of course, as in art.

Often the child with a dream, may also be a child with a reason (for that dream). Listen to them, and speak as wisely as you can, for it is a chance for you to help someone become what they truly wish for - and should be.

Fintan's world of imagination

It is often instructive to ask a child what something represents - the answer is often surprising.

Yesterday, Fintan, three, was playing with Lego. He had built some kind of platform with complicated protrusions. It was a mysterious object whose purpose was not immediately clear to an observer.

"What are you building?" asked Syahidah, of him.

Without looking up, he said: "My country."

We live in Singapore, where there is much talk of "nation-building" - but this is not quite what they meant. Fintan, however, has bigger dreams, it seems: he is set on building his own nation - at least with Lego.

That night he took two things to bed with him: his favourite "teddy" - actually a cow - and his own "country". Fintan slept with a newly built nation in his bed.

(If you would like to learn more of Fintan, three, or his gifted brothers, including Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and five months, or Tiarnan, fifteen months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of child prodigy, gifted education, IQ, intelligence, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

The dreams of a child genius

Of what does a child genius dream? Many a dream is lost before waking, so insubstantial do they seem when exposed to the first light of an opening eye...but sometimes, enough is left for memory to recall, and voice to speak of it.

This morning, November 30th, 2006, my son, Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy aged seven years and one week, turned to me, and said, immediately upon opening his eyes: "If our Sun was ten times smaller it would be a failed star, a brown dwarf."

It seems that this child genius dreams of the stars, and the Universe beyond and asks, as he sleeps, "What if things were other than they are?"

His mind is ever active, ever thinking, ever devising, ever asking and ever answering. Even in sleep, it does not rest, but ponders, ever more deeply, the questions of what the world is, and how it may be understood.

One reads of genius and of prodigy - but I do not think that bare academic accounts capture the sense of surprise that children with these characteristics display - you have to meet such a child and talk with them, to fully understand what a marvel it is for a child to be a prodigy or a genius. Speaking with Ainan, teaches me again, to wonder at the world and to hold its marvel in my heart and mind, as he does.

(If you would like to read more about my scientific child prodigy son, Ainan Celeste Cawley, seven (and one week!), and his gifted brothers, then please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, the creatively gifted and gifted children in general.)