Who is a gifted child?
Recently, there was a discussion in a forum which I participated in on gifted children. Below is what I wrote in that forum.
Let me share with you on this forum my own experiences and opinions.
I took part in the 1st MAS-STAR mind contest and was one of 6 people who got perfect scores in the final test. For all the great minds in in the contest organisers, the tie-breaker was a lucky draw. I guess even great minds are sometimes stumped with the problems they faced. :)
NAGC (National Association of Gifted Children) was a relatively young organisation then. I comtemplated registering my daughter who was still pre-school then. However, in conversations during the MAS-STAR mind contest, I learned that the tests then were quite skewed towards engineering and mathematics. It tests our logical thinking rather than our creativity. Or as the management gurus put it, left brain rather than right brain.
My very young daughter then has started to learn to spell and recognise words. She saw the word "KLIM" on the tin one day and spelt out loud "MILK" milk. (I have to admit it did not occured to me then that KLIM is MILK spelt backwards.) Children obviously are not limited by our paradigm or the paradigm they will be pounded with when they grow older.
Well, my daughter now is an accomplished musician (not the concert type) and works for a PR firm. She went through the science stream when in school, because of all the encouragement to take up "science & technology". Fortunately, she decided to switch when entering college. I am glad she did not follow her father's footstep in taking up science.
Is our education system flawed? It does not appear to be so except that it is very much a paper chase (which was true then in many universities) and the extra encouragement given to science and technology. In my days, the cream of the form are automatically put into the science stream. the remnants put to arts stream. That put a stigma on to the arts student. If there is a flaw in our system, this is it. However, I am glad that this is somewhat improving now with more emphasis given to the arts.
When we talk about gifted children, we should not be limiting ourselves to the few who can do form 6 math while in standard 1. Children have no fear of being wrong, unless we keep reprimanding them for every mistake they make. We all have read about the many failures Edison had before he invented the incandescent lamp. I wonder how many scoresheets ended up on the floow before Beethoven completed one of his symphonies. Dr. Yew KK got it right when he wrote "you are creative, let your creativity grow". Is being creative synonymous with gifted? I'll let you decide on that.
I read in this forum before about our youths applying into Ivy League colleges. I hope that is not the main objective. Someone wrote, look for a job that you like, the rest will fall in line. You need to be happy with what you are doing, to live out your dreams, not someone else's. I have a colleague who took up law to comply with her father's wishes but ended up working in communications. She has moved to different roles but she is happy with what she is doing.
So, it's not just our education system that is pounding our children with their paradigm. We, parents, do the same. Perhaps that's why home tutoring is gaining popularity. Unfortunately, we cannot avoid tests as that is the most common means to assess skills.
My children are both grown up now. For the youths and those with young children, I wish you all the best.
Cheers.
Let me share with you on this forum my own experiences and opinions.
I took part in the 1st MAS-STAR mind contest and was one of 6 people who got perfect scores in the final test. For all the great minds in in the contest organisers, the tie-breaker was a lucky draw. I guess even great minds are sometimes stumped with the problems they faced. :)
NAGC (National Association of Gifted Children) was a relatively young organisation then. I comtemplated registering my daughter who was still pre-school then. However, in conversations during the MAS-STAR mind contest, I learned that the tests then were quite skewed towards engineering and mathematics. It tests our logical thinking rather than our creativity. Or as the management gurus put it, left brain rather than right brain.
My very young daughter then has started to learn to spell and recognise words. She saw the word "KLIM" on the tin one day and spelt out loud "MILK" milk. (I have to admit it did not occured to me then that KLIM is MILK spelt backwards.) Children obviously are not limited by our paradigm or the paradigm they will be pounded with when they grow older.
Well, my daughter now is an accomplished musician (not the concert type) and works for a PR firm. She went through the science stream when in school, because of all the encouragement to take up "science & technology". Fortunately, she decided to switch when entering college. I am glad she did not follow her father's footstep in taking up science.
Is our education system flawed? It does not appear to be so except that it is very much a paper chase (which was true then in many universities) and the extra encouragement given to science and technology. In my days, the cream of the form are automatically put into the science stream. the remnants put to arts stream. That put a stigma on to the arts student. If there is a flaw in our system, this is it. However, I am glad that this is somewhat improving now with more emphasis given to the arts.
When we talk about gifted children, we should not be limiting ourselves to the few who can do form 6 math while in standard 1. Children have no fear of being wrong, unless we keep reprimanding them for every mistake they make. We all have read about the many failures Edison had before he invented the incandescent lamp. I wonder how many scoresheets ended up on the floow before Beethoven completed one of his symphonies. Dr. Yew KK got it right when he wrote "you are creative, let your creativity grow". Is being creative synonymous with gifted? I'll let you decide on that.
I read in this forum before about our youths applying into Ivy League colleges. I hope that is not the main objective. Someone wrote, look for a job that you like, the rest will fall in line. You need to be happy with what you are doing, to live out your dreams, not someone else's. I have a colleague who took up law to comply with her father's wishes but ended up working in communications. She has moved to different roles but she is happy with what she is doing.
So, it's not just our education system that is pounding our children with their paradigm. We, parents, do the same. Perhaps that's why home tutoring is gaining popularity. Unfortunately, we cannot avoid tests as that is the most common means to assess skills.
My children are both grown up now. For the youths and those with young children, I wish you all the best.
Cheers.
posted by Guy in the glass at 10:25 PM
2 Comments:
You have brought up an interesting topic , especially to me, since I have two very young children who is going to experience our so called "education system". Society as a whole is regimented. We tend to classify things into right or wrong. We want to compartmentalize things to better understand them. That's why we have this arts and science stream. To me, I've always been a science stream person. My inclination is towards the scientific world. But in today's society, things are beginning to blur. Streaming is so.... out-of-date.
I hope we get over it and come up with a more refined and wholesome system by the time my children goes to secondary school. Perhaps they will have more choices than what I had....
Of course both your kids are grown up now...but remember, there's still one more who hasn't finished uni yet.. :) but I'm touched.. *blush*
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