Another classic Russian tale.

To teach, is to learn of worlds far away. The meaning of this becomes clear, with some teaching experience (which I advise everyone to try, sometime).

One lesson came to me one day, in a conversation with the, by now, famous Russian student I have written of, twice before.

I asked her: "When did you last go to the library?"

"I have never been to a library." said this twenty-four year old woman.

My somewhat stunned silence was my only answer. She took this as a challenge of some kind.

"Why?", she began, defensively, "For what?"

Again, I didn't answer. I let the amazement of her fellow students answer for me.

She had managed to get to the grand old age of twenty-four without stepping foot, even once, in a library.

Perhaps not liking the silence that had greeted her words, she began to talk:

"When I was in school, I got the clever boys, the ones with glasses, to do my homework." (She paused momentarily, as if for effect). "I never did it." She looked up at me, quite proud of herself.

So, not only had she never been to a library, she had never done her homework, either.

"Did you get good marks?" I enquired, keeping judgement from my voice.

"OK...".

On another occasion she revealed: "I never read books. I learnt English by talking, only."

When all these statements are put together, one gets the impression of a determinedly illiterate girl, thriving in the modern world on social skills alone. She has never entered a library; never done her homework, never read a book...yet she manages to get by with a smile and her feminine ways.

I find her revelations a bit of a shock, actually, brought up, as I was, in a world that believed in the primacy of literacy and learning. Here, however, was a girl who believed in neither - and was quite proud of it, too. The funny thing is, she also managed to make her way, despite rejecting the two major tools of the educational world: reading and knowledge.

How many others, are there, like her, in the world? Is she a rarity or is she common in some parts of the world? I wonder...answers, please, if you have any knowledge of this matter.

Thanks.

(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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