The following Sunday Times story jumped out at me this morning because I
have a gifted 16 year-old grand-daughter, selected by Warwick University
from several state schools in the UK. She and other GCs from around the
world have just been on a project to Botswana during their summer holidays.
But I wonder how she will survive at least five more years of boredom at
school and university. She has a twin sister who, in my opinion, is even
more gifted. But she is even more bored with school. For the past year she
has been working for a couple of hours a day after school with an
international firm and deals with after-hours phone enquiries from
customers in different countries -- a responsible and enjoyable job for
which her adult day counterpart gets a good salary. She is being strongly
pressurized by her school to stay on and then go to university. I don't yet
know what she will decide but I won't blame her if she opts to join the
real world.
I suspect that many of those mentioned below don't succeed because any
creativity they once had was drained out of them by academia. In my opinion
credentialism has gone far too far. I strongly feel that most children,
whether 'gifted' or not, would actually do better and be happier if they
left school much earlier. If you are a conspiratorialist you could say
that, for the past 40 or 50 years the adult generation have actually
plotted to delay young people from entering the job market for as long as
possible and, unfortunately, the youngsters have fallen for it. The job
structure today could have been a great deal different, and a lot more
vibrant, too, I suspect.
<<<<
Sunday Times 26 September 2010
GIFTED CHILDREN ARE FAILURES
Sian Griffiths
Gifted children are just as likely to become misfits as Mozarts, according
to new research.
A study of 210 exceptionally talented children and what became of them in
later life shows that only 3% fulfilled their early promise.
Professor Joan Freeman, a psychologist who has spent 35 years studying
gifted children, said this weekend: "Of the 210 children in my study, maybe
only half a dozen have been what we might consider conventionally successful.
"At the age of six or seven the gifted child has potential for amazing
things, but many of them are caught in situations where their potential is
handicapped."
A school set up for gifted children closed this year. The Sutton Trust,
which helps children from non-privileged backgrounds, is doing a six-month
research project to help other schools deal with the exceptionally bright.
Lee Elliot Major, its research director, said: "It's not a pretty picture
out there. some state schools are all for giving these these kids extra
tuition and support, but others are even against identifying kids that are
excpetional."
>>>>
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England
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