Society's obligation to the gifted

Does society have an obligation to the gifted? I think so. However, I also think that society has an obligation to all its citizens (and non-citizens) alike.

Each of us is born with a certain potential. Some will have more potential than others. A few will have great potential indeed. Yet, the sad truth is that few people reach the fullest of their potential - and this is largely the fault of the societies they are born into. Most societies are rather neglectful of the gifts of their people. Indeed, the more gifted the person, the more neglectful society tends to be. The common feeling is that the "gifted" have enough already and can do without the active support of society. Yet, this is not true, as anyone who has looked closely at the challenges facing the gifted knows. Indeed, the more gifted a child, the more unusual their needs become. So, in that sense, the need of the gifted is greater than that of their more average fellows.

Does any society truly recognize this situation? Well, it is hard to think of one that distinguishes itself in this sphere. There is a lot of room for improvement in every country of the world of which I am aware. The gifted are, by and large, neglected everywhere. Partly, this is the result of political forces: the gifted are the smallest of minorities and so, in terms of sheer numbers, they have little voting power and little democratic weight. It is easy, therefore, to shove their concerns to one side and ignore them, because doing so will never get a politician voted out of office. The ones the politician will pay heed to, therefore are the MAJORITY: the ordinary, ungifted, average voter types. Thus, the needs of the ordinary person will tend to be met, in democratic societies - but the needs of the extraordinary, the unusual, the prodigious and the profound will be ignored. These people, being rare, have no significant weight in society. They are, therefore, invisible to the democratic process.

This is very dangerous. For the very long-term health of each and every society is inextricably tied up with whether or not the most gifted people are able to flourish and make a contribution, in whatever area, to the best of their ability. If they are not, the whole society is weakened. The whole society will, ultimately, fail. So, even though the gifted are small in number, they must NEVER be ignored. To do so, is to ensure, with absolute certainty, the long-term decline of a society. Without the efforts of the gifted, there will be no progress, no advancement, just cultural and scientific stagnation.

So, society has an obligation to the gifted, precisely because it has an obligation to itself. A society must first ensure its own future health. This is actually synonymous with ensuring the future prospects of its gifted minority. Societies which ignore this, will not be societies for long.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and eleven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and four months, and Tiarnan, twenty-one 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, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

When "education" becomes abusive.

Very few people understand gifted children. Most teachers don't. Most school authorities don't. Most adults don't. Why is this? Simple: because they weren't gifted themselves. Only the gifted can understand, truly, what it means to be gifted.

This notion of how understanding is circumscribed by likeness of the self to other, also applies to the gradations of giftedness. It takes a moderately gifted person, to understand a moderately gifted other - a highly gifted person to understand a highly gifted other - and so on, all the way through exceptional gift and profound giftedness. Only someone truly of a particular level can truly understand the other, of the same kind.

Why do I say this? Well, I think that the perspective, and experiences of a gifted child have to be felt personally to be truly understood. The difference between living it and reading it is rather like the difference between reading The Lord of the Rings - and actually being Frodo Baggins in Middle Earth with a rather historic ring on your finger. It is impossible for us to truly understand what it is like to be Frodo Baggins - we can only see him as we imagine him to be, from the outside.

Thus is it with the gifted and the education they receive in schools. Those who educate them only know them from the outside - through reading and what they are told in their training. They do not truly know what it is like to be them.

So, it should be no surprise that education is often inappropriate for gifted children of all ilks. The more gifted the child, the more inappropriate it becomes. Yet, it is unlikely in the extreme that the education system will ever acknowledge the inappropriateness. Most education systems live under the delusion that they know best. I have actually heard a representative of our particular education system here, in Singapore, say, in essence, that she knew better than the parents how the child should be educated. Now, there is a delusion for you.

Education often proceeds by diktat: this is the way it is and all must accept it. It is rare for an education system to actually respond to the child's individual needs. Sometimes education systems talk about responding to a child's needs - while actually not doing so. Again, it is part of the incomprehension that comes with not being gifted - yet administering to the gifted.

Ainan is presently not receiving what he needs, educationally, from the system in Singapore. I very much doubt that he ever will be. This arises in the manner described above: those who can never understand, because they have never been like Ainan, make decisions about his needs, which they think should suffice. In our case, they refuse to listen to feedback that their intervention is insufficient: they think they know better.

What is the result? Lack of challenge, boredom, restlessness in the classroom, disenchantment with school, a loss of interest in learning - and general disengagement will all result, to varying degrees, if the child's true needs are not being met. In this situation, the result can only be described as abusive. It is abusive to keep a child in an unstimulating environment. It is abusive to deny a child true opportunities for growth. It is abusive to hold back a child's development all in the name of "we know better". Why do they "know better"? Because they are not bright enough to realize that they don't.

All over the world, hundreds of thousands of gifted children are being abused in this way, by the standardized classroom situation - by the undemanding education designed for those of average ability. As a result, most of the gifted children of the world end up as under-achievers - end-up as much less than they could be. Who is to blame for this? The educational system itself, for not recognizing that a gifted child has very different needs from an average child - and the more gifted they are, the more their needs will differ.

So, when is education abusive? Whenever a gifted child is involved and the individual child's particular academic needs are not met. In every case in which this occurs, the education received is a form of suffering. The education system is abusing the child. That is what education systems do to the best minds in their care. They abuse them with boredom, lack of challenge, frustration of their desires, and denial of opportunity.

In case you are the sort who doesn't care about an issue unless it affects you personally, consider this: if the growth of many gifted children is being stifled, in this way, all over the world, what do you think it does to the future intellectual health of human society? What does it do to the pace of technological and scientific change, to medical advances and cultural complexity and diversity? All these areas are hindered when the growth of those who become their human constituents are themselves hindered in their development. This issue of the abuse of our gifted children by inappropriate eduation affects us all: it is a universal problem that impacts the lives of all who presently live and are yet to live.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and nine months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and two months, and Tiarnan, nineteen 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, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)

On disability and ability: society's obligation

It is taken as obvious that the mentally disabled should receive assistance in developing the skills and behaviours necessary to allow them to function in society. Yet, it is seen as controversial, in some countries, to make any special provision at the opposite end of the ability spectrum. Is this rational?

What does it mean to be disabled? It means one's abilities are different from the norm, in the sense of being lessened. What does it mean to be gifted? It means one's abilities are different from the norm, in the sense of being heightened.

You will note that the situations have a logical identity and a logical difference. It is the identity to which I wish to draw your initial attention. With both the disabled and the gifted, there is an essential difference from the norm. These people are not typical of humanity in general - and it is their lack of typicality that requires that they be given special attention. The general provision of society for its members is equally inappropriate for both classes of individual: the disabled and the gifted (or the enabled, as one might call them).

There is a view, often stated, though never intelligently held, that the gifted do not need special provision because they are MORE able than others. This view fails to understand the ways in which extreme ability can be a kind of disability, too. The truly gifted child will be set apart by their gifts, from those around them. They are likely to be isolated not only in being mentally different to those around them, but also in terms of being rejected, by them. They are unlikely to fit in. They may have communication difficulties. They may have difficulty in both being understood and in understanding those they meet in the everyday world. Think about my last four sentences. They could have been written about a mentally disabled person - and they would still hold true. The gifted and the disabled both a share a communication gap - they both share a social disability. To be in either state is to be divorced from society - and this is a burden whether it is at the lower or upper ends of the spectrum. The difference, in many societies, is that the burden of the disabled is recognized by all, but that that of the "enabled" or gifted, is recognized only by those who have experienced it for themselves, in most cases.

To both constituents, the gifted and the disabled, a humane society must make a special effort to reach out to and accommodate them and their needs. The key phrase is "humane society". So many voices on the internet seem to be espousing an inhumane, uncaring, cold society - well, I for one, would not vote for such a society.

Both kinds of people need special help in fully integrating into society: the disabled with basic functioning, the gifted with, if you like, "optimal function" - finding the niche that best expresses their abilities and least encumbers them.

A society that ignores either constituent is at the very least inhumane - but it is also something else: it is a society which will fail for obvious logical reasons. A society which does not enable the disabled to function, is one that will be burdened by them; a society which disables the enabled by not allowing them to function at their best - is one that will never enjoy the benefits of such people in their midst.

I will write more on this in future, for otherwise this post would become too long.