Sophia is eight years old. She is very obviously a bright little spark –
everyone who meets her can’t help but notice how clever she is. Whenever a
parent volunteers to read with her class at her South London primary school,
he or she remarks on her ability. “There isn’t a parent who hasn’t come to
me and said ‘Wow! She was reading to me today’,” says her mother Hannah.
Sophia is a gifted child – at 14 months she knew the alphabet, by the age of 3
she could read and write in English, at 4 she mastered Hebrew and at 5 added
Spanish to her repertoire of languages. In the past year, as a “hobby”, she
has taught herself how to use sign language.
Sophia fits easily into the Government’s definition of gifted and talented:
children with ability “significantly” ahead of their year group and who are
talented academically, or in areas such as sport or art.
Sophia is at a school that has opted to take part in the Government’s “G&T”
scheme so has extra work to accommodate her ability. But will this be enough
to keep Sophia at the top of her class for the next ten years, to keep her
excelling, say, in 20 or 30 years’ time? Will her “genius” survive? For most
brilliant children the long-term prognosis is not promising.
Research shows that excelling as a child is not a guarantee and, in many
cases, not even an indicator of being top of the class as an adult.
It can also, if not handled sensitively by parents, lead to unhappy and
troubled childhoods, as typified by the sad story of Sufiah Yusof, who won a
place to read maths at Oxford at the age of 13 but never completed her
degree and fell out with her parents, accusing them of putting her under too
much pressure.
Joan Freeman, visiting professor at Middlesex University and founding
president of the European Council for High Ability, has been tracking a
group of gifted children since 1974. Those involved in the study are now in
their mid-forties. Freeman admits that she’s “a little disappointed that
more of them did not take their gifts into adult life”. But as she points
out, a lot can get in the way of early promise: the necessity to make a
living, relationships, a tendency in us all to deviate from goals, a lack of
motivation and low expectations of your ability. “Human beings are not
robots – you can’t set them off on a route and expect them to go for it.”
A study of former pupils from the selective Hunter College Elementary School
in New York City – all with very high IQs – indicated that there was no link
between early brilliance and later success. In middle age, these former
pupils were asked about their mental and physical health, their satisfaction
with life and their accomplishments. “What I found was that they were
generally healthy, happy, self-satisfied – in a nice way, they were
professionals and contributing members of society – but they were not doing
extraordinary things,” says Rena Subotnik, of the American Psychological
Association, the research psychologist who led the study.
When Carol Dweck, Professor of Psychology at Stanford University, published
her findings on gifted children she uncovered a more depressing outcome. “I
get countless letters from adults who say that they had that false promise,
that people told them how clever they were and how successful they were
going to be – so they never worked hard, never persevered. Many of them have
a hugely high IQ, but they never graduated from college and never seriously
pursued a profession.”
More generally, Dweck has found that telling children that they are clever can
hold them back – they develop fixed mindsets. A child labelled “gifted” may
become risk-averse in his work, try less hard and take the easier option
every time because he doesn’t want to jeopardise his “clever” status. And
many children believe the hype – that if you’re clever you can just “coast”.
One former gifted child who contacted Dweck is David Heigham, a retired
government economic adviser. In the Civil Service he rose to assistant
secretary level and was appointed CBE – by many standards a huge
achievement, but not to Heigham, who feels at “70+” years that he never
fulfilled his early potential. As a child he was intellectually very able,
but found school work “boring” and disengaged from the challenge early on.
He did “the minimum to survive” at Oxford and went on to spend most of his
working life in the Civil Service. Heigham says that he never acquired a
pride in really understanding a subject as deeply as he was capable of and
did not realise what he was missing out on until he was 40 and it was “too
late”.
“You need to work hard for years to fulfil your potential,” he says. “I kept
doing things that interested me rather than doing things that might have
advanced me.”
What Heigham’s plight and Dweck’s research show is that talent alone will not
take you to the top. An analysis of those who excel later in life shows
their brilliance is only partly down to innate ability; the rest is because
of intense and prolonged hard work, and key instruction along the way. As
the American inventor Thomas Edison put it: “Genius is 1 per cent
inspiration and 99 per cent perspiration.”
“I don’t think there’s any evidence that you can suddenly become a genius.
Everyone has to put in the years of concentrated practice,” says Anders
Ericsson, Professor of Psychology at Florida State University and editor of The
Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance. He points out that
when we see an individual who has achieved extraordinary mastery in a field,
we think we can see at a glance why they are such a high achiever, yet few
of us pay attention to the 15 to 20 years that person spent slogging it out
before they hit gold.
After interviewing thousands of high achievers, Ericsson and his colleagues
believe that they have discovered what it takes to be great: deliberate
practice. There is a wonderfully egalitarian whiff about this belief – a
possibility that with the right tuition, the right mentors and at least a
decade of extremely intense focused work we could all get there.
Controversially, Ericsson even questions whether any of us is born with
“genius” – as opposed to something that can be manufactured, an asset that a
few highly motivated individuals can acquire.
“If you look at high-achieving children you will see that the parents have
provided a unique environment for them – and if you were to be able to find
the child who can recognise the alphabet at an early age with parents who
are neglecting their children, I would be very surprised.”
John Sloboda, Professor of Music Psychology at Keele University, found
parental involvement key to excellence in a study of 250 young people
studying musical instruments. What distinguished the high achievers from the
rest was the difference in the amount of daily practice sustained over many
years. By 12 years old the high achievers were practising for an average of
two hours a day compared with the common average for a child of that age: 15
to 30 minutes a day. Behind this extraordinary effort were very determined
parents: “The stories of the devotion and sheer hassling that a lot of
parents indulged in to get their children to do those amounts of practice is
very, very sobering.”
Sloboda points out that there are no examples of children becoming talented
musicians without this type of intense practice, one that requires a team
effort. But parents have a fine line to tread. If you push a child too hard,
they’ll reject the whole lot; there’s many a music teacher with a tale of a
talented pupil reaching adolescence and deciding that enough is enough, he
says.
So what is the long-term prognosis for eight-year-old Sophia? Well, if she
remains in a supportive environment, is motivated and puts in at least ten
years of the right type of hard work – she might just get there. But it
seems that the road to stardom is a hard one and a route that requires a
huge amount of effort from all the family.
The mixed fate of the child prodigy
— Sufiah Yusof fled Oxford University in 2000, aged 15. When police found her
after a huge hunt, she blamed her parents for too much pressure, never
finished her course and became an administrative assistant for a
construction firm. Sufiah never got a degree. She married Jonathan Marshall,
a fellow Muslim she had met in Oxford, in 2004. The couple divorced 13
months later.
— Ruth Lawrence graduated from Oxford at the age of 13 with a first-class
mathematics degree in 1985. She is now a maths professor in Israel, married
with two children
— Ainan Celeste Cawley, the son of a British father and Singaporean mother,
passed his O-level chemistry in Singapore at the age of 6 and is studying
for an A level in the same subject. He has been accepted for a course at
Singapore Polytechnic University.
— James Harries made a name for himself with his appearances on the Terry
Wogan show discussing antiques as a ten-year-old in the late 1980s. On
entering adulthood, Harries underwent a sex change and is now known as
Lauren. He was subsequently found to have attained only three GCSEs.
— Terence Judd made his first appearance as a classical pianist at the age of
12, playing at the Festival Hall with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. At
22 he threw himself off Beachy Head, just before Christmas 1979.
— Vanessa-Mae began playing the violin at 5 years and was soon making regular
TV appearances. She earned £36 million and became the wealthiest British
entertainer under 30 in 2006.
i do think that everyone have the pontential to be the scientist, if he or she want to.
especailly after i have been a English teacher in Wuhan University, it is common that the students who suffer from learning English will devote little time to focusing on learning English.
and some of my friend are studying in the most prosperous college in China.
the reason why they have the opportunities of learning in these famous college is not because their intellgence, but because when they begain to learn, it will spend their only 1 mintues to study, while others will spend at least 30 mintues, and becasue when they are studying, it is very easy for them to continute studying for 5 hours, while others will concentrate on studying for only maybe 1 hour.
intelligence and success, espcially in academic, need your time, and that when you studying, you have to focue on.
Ben, Changsha, China
The real curse of being talented is that the others are too slow to bother with, hence social abilities are extremely difficult to obtain.
Having teachers who understand what they'll need to push themselves to the limit of their ability to be even a challenge for you isn't common at all. The few exceptions you encounter can make your day.
I was lucky to encounter a director at school who understood the problem and gave me a way out.
All parent should understand it's a curse, not a gift.
Dealing with it is extremely difficult and getting challenged enough without being pushed to do things you see through in seconds as being to keep you busy is next to impossible.
The best approach for parent is to bring the gifted in tough with things they don't grasp. Soon or later one of those impossible things will trigger attention and become a goal, career and hobby. For me it was Artificial Intelligence used in e.g. computer chess games. I wanted to know how a computer could do that.
anonymous, far away,
At school there were 2 of us marked as being "talented". He accepted the applause, and coasted. I was continually trying to beat him...
He dropped out of education at 19, I graduated 2nd in my year from Vet school and am now happily practicing my profession. No-one seems to know what happened to him - it wasn't just education he dropped out of.
Individual attitude plays a huge role - he got bored, I was always able to find something else to be fascinated by, however irrelevant.
Lawrie, Birmingham, UK
Like Sophia I taught myself for fun as a child, in my case for example; Hebrew.
I am now 34 years old with a good job, although not extraordinary. I dropped out of university and still have not found a subject which really fires my imagination. Despite my early promise for academic brilliance I have spent my entire life searching for satisfying relationships - no matter how many books I read on the subject I cannot master the concepts.
From time to time I yearn for the life of an Oxbridge don - but I'd throw it all away in an instant to feel as though I belong to the human race.
Alexandra, Cologne, Germany
There are a few comments on here from some (self-admitted) phenomenal minds who seem to have a little trouble with basic punctuation and spelling.
Chris, Leeds,
Lets face it if your really intelligent you see through all the brainwashing and decide what you really want to do, not what makes others fell good. That could be as simple as bringing up a family and enjoying the simple pleasures of life.
Rosalind, London, England
I was considered very able as a child but due to adverse home circumstances have achieved nothing. I have learnt that at the end of the day, it's tenacity and discipline that win the day. Remember the fable of the Hare and the Tortoise? I try to instil this in my children but they don't want to know and the British state school system does nothing to encourage detailed and concentrated learning.
Sue R, London,
Childhood should be fun not competitive! Maybe more children gifted or not would recall childhood with happiness and feeling of inner warmth satisfaction if these precious early years weren't a part of the RAT RACE.
Kausar, Glasgow, Scotland
One cannot deny that there are people who are talented for languages, art, maths, science, music, sport etc.
However, interest in a subject is key to excelling in a given area (although this begs the questions as to whether we are only interested in certain things because we are good at them).
Most people's intelligence and even taste in arts and music is around the average.
there are a few naturally bright kids and a few who are thick.
The average job does NOT require great intelligence. In fact, beyond a certain point, the more intelligent one is the more one is likely to see the job as pointless and boring and therefore less likely to excel at work.
There is little room for star mathematicians/musicians (clearly not talking about pop music here!!)/artists in society. These are not skills that can be readily sold as being of any immediate value and kids who were made to feel of value at school for excelling as such may come to feel useless as they realise how society works.
Rob, Paris, France
Surely the highest achievement is to be happy? My father was a very intelligent man who spent most of his working career as a storeman, doing what most people would consider a menial task. He did this because he preferred relating to things rather than people: it was where he was most happy.
I too am gifted, being diagnosed as such at the age of 5. I agree with one of the posters above: the problem is that I get bored far too quickly. Having got postgraduate degrees, I am once again pursuing an interest: I am now a Level 3 student on a holistic therapy course. It's completely different to anything I've done before. Wonderful. But next week it's half term and I'll find something else what takes my fancy... and who knows if I'll finish the course!
Chris Pampling, COVENTRY, UK
One cannot deny that there are people who are talented for languages, art, maths, science, music, sport etc.
However, interest in a subject is key to excelling in a given area (although this begs the questions as to whether we are only interested in certain things because we are good at them).
Most people's intelligence and even taste in arts and music is around the average.
there are a few naturally bright kids and a few who are thick.
The average job does NOT require great intelligence. In fact, beyond a certain point, the more intelligent one is the more one is likely to see the job as pointless and boring and therefore less likely to excel at work.
There is little room for star mathematicians/musicians (clearly not talking about pop music here!!)/artists in society. These are not skills that can be readily sold as being of any immediate value and kids who were made to feel of value at school for excelling as such may come to feel useless as they realise how society works.
Rob, Paris, France
I'm smart. you knows it and I knows it. high iq, top of the class.... but I never resisted the temptation to coast. and I see that as a further indication of my smartness. I spent most of my 'a' level revision time playing football. very enjoyable.
sure, there are a few things I want that I may not be able to have, but there is nothing I want so badly that I lose sleep over it. I'm more than happy. of course, I have got lots of toys, even coasting.
my mother (a pushy parent) says I lack ambition. what this really means is that I have different ambitions for myself than she has for me. how can someone else judge whether I have been a success? so, I'm not running a bank. look at the people who are! I have no stress.
she's not happy, of course. because she's so ambitious. I am contented and I don't care what anyone else thinks. to be honest, if you're not doing charity work, you're a failure anyway. what good is personal success? people are dying in darfur.
jem, london, uk
Making so much fuss about children who display precocial ability in certain areas of intellect is no different to spoiling children - inevitably they miss the key devlopment step of having to put in the hard yards themselves to get somewhere.
The key statement, however, in this article is that high intellects lead happy, productive community minded lives - what's wrong with that?
People who change the world tend to have slightly better than average intellects but their real talents are visionary goals and the perception that goes with them, creativity ourside the measured box and an inordinate dose of perserverance!
Look for a child who has the ability to focus for a long time on solving something, and is self rewarded by their success, who arranges concepts in a way you didnt expect (no matter how apparently how simple the concept) and who surprises you in how they see the world and takes a childhood pleasure from it - they will change the world.
dave, adelaide, australia
But isn't "success" in the eye of the beholder? Tiger Woods sure is a fabulous golfer, has earned a lot of money, and gives every impression that he is happy. But are there other things he might have enjoyed and done well at if he hadn't focused on golf alone from that early age?
And who are the peer groups and social groups for the adolescents at university? Brilliant but unable to interact with the people around you comes with its own problems.
Marcia, New London, PA/USA
I'd echo the comments posted on keeping a child within their age group through school. Kids are not forgiving of those who are different, and can be resentful of those they perceive to be smarter than themselves. The serendipity that the tykes upstaging an older agegroup (merely by their presence within their classes) are generally smaller than those whose egos are 'threatened' is a natural lead to opportunistic bullying.
The experience of being bullied through formative years can be character-building, but generally the downsides outweigh the upsides. Feeling outcast from the group and sporadic bouts of paranoia are hallmarks. Surely the time gained by skipping years is too fleeting a gain, when considered against this psychological burden, which can last a lifetime.
What's the hurry anyway?
Von Nibs, London,
Achievement. That is the article's definition of success. And, how is achievement defined by the author and by most of the herd and lemmings: however "society" defines achievement, and therin lies the problem with most of us and this article. If a bright kid is lucky enough to NOT define her success by societal measureing sticks, it is very possible that kid will not be considered a success in this article. If a bright kid does define his success by societal standards, then odds are that kid will never access his beautiful potential and therefore fail himself, even if he makes it as a success in this article. The book, Awareness Through Movement, is one guide through this swamp intentionally or unintentionally perpetrated by our parents and leaders and educators.
dslurpy, University City, USA / Missouri
I can relate to the comments of complacency and think that you have a very good point. In my case I was diagnosed as a dyslexic before it was popular and was brought up with a maxim that “I would have to work twice as hard just to keep upâ€. This led me to a strong work ethic which has left me happy and successful in my field.
Barry, Rugby,
IQ is distinct from intelligence, as far as I'm aware. It is also an inately unreliable source for measuring any kind of mental or intellectual capacity - I have tried a number of supposed IQ tests, and have achieved different results for all.
And surely very early intelligence is not that reliable as an indicator of adult intelligence - just as other childhood characteristics do not necessarily translate into adult characteristics -to cite a crude example, I was in the top 1% in "length" when I was born. I am now 5 foot 2.
sally, london,
“I kept doing things that interested me rather than doing things that might have advanced me.†Sounds to me like that's success.
Jeff Myhre, New York City, USA
I saw a programme the other day that was conducting a cognitive visual experiment whereby the delegates were required to memorise a series of numbers flashed on a screen, identify the sequence & key this back into the computer in a vein not dissimilar to questions you would find in a typical IQ or psychometric test.
One delegate was the world memory champion (or something of the kind); the other was a chimpanzee who had previous training in this specific field.
The memory guy repeatedly scored under 25% while the chimp was gaining marks of > 95% with a similar frequency.
It was obviously a G&T chimp, but maybe this could provide quantifiable evidence to support the points made in the article - that it takes more than a high IQ or exceptional memory to succeed in life, whatever your definition of success.
Or maybe I should sub-contract my job to a primate & enjoy life a little bit more! Will not be suggesting this to my boss as not sure there's a response that I'd be happy with!
James B, Leeds,
I agree with the article because l have one practical example to call on. Tiger Woods was talented at Golf from an early age and continues to work on "pertecting" his game; a game that has already won him majors. He may have ended up been a club professional if he didn't have the work ethic to go with his natural talent.
That is what l keep working into my children as they show talent at an early age.
Derrick, London, UK
I hated school. The work was boring. I was in 'top set' for all of my subjects without even trying. In lessons I was a nightmare. Disruptive and confident, I was uncontrollable - the class clown at every opportunity.
It didn't help that I had a turbulent home life at the time; I was essentially living between two homes, and missed huge amounts of school. During one term, my attendance record was 34%.
I ended up attending 3 different high schools. I was kicked out of the first two for my behaviour and poor attendance. Moving around was hard. The schools I attended weren't the most pleasant. It would always be a battle to get 'accepted' when I first arrived. It didn't help that I was very quick to use my fists to solve problems.
Despite all of this I got excellent GCSE grades. At A-level I got straight As too. I am now in my final year at Cambridge. I've found the challenging work here satisfying. I've done well too.
I just wish I could have been challenged like this earlier
I'd like to remain anonymous., Cambridge, England
One cannot deny that there are people who are talented for languages, art, maths, science, music, sport etc.
However, interest in a subject is key to excelling in a given area (although this begs the questions as to whether we are only interested in certain things because we are good at them).
Most people's intelligence and even taste in arts and music is around the average.
there are a few naturally bright kids and a few who are thick.
The average job does NOT require great intelligence. In fact, beyond a certain point, the more intelligent one is the more one is likely to see the job as pointless and boring and therefore less likely to excel at work.
There is little room for star mathematicians/musicians (clearly not talking about pop music here!!)/artists in society. These are not skills that can be readily sold as being of any immediate value and kids who were made to feel of value at school for excelling as such may come to feel useless as they realise how society works.
Rob, Paris, France
Surely if Dave in Slough has an IQ as high as 165 he would realise you are diagnosed "with" a tool, you are diagnosed (if that is even the right word) as "having" an IQ of 165. Must explain the two E's.
dave, worthing, uk
The article sounds very familiar... when I was a kid I was rather good at math, I used to beat all my peers and I reached the finals of several maths competitions.
At school I never had to study or do some homework, and constantly got top marks without any sort of effort.
when I was 14 I went to a "Liceo Scientifico" (an Italian school focused on maths and science), and by the second year my natural ability was no longer enough, I didn't know how to study. I had to retake maths for 3 year in a row, my past performance playing a role in this (since I was supposed to be gifted, the teachers expected more from me than from the others, and they told me so).
I grew up with everyone next to me thinking that I would become some sort of top class mathematician, instead I became a (reasonably succesful) banking lawyer. I learned to work hard and to stury hard when I was about 22, so it was nearly too late. Luckily I learnt it in time.
Marco Ferretti, Milan,
I was diagnosed with an IQ of 165 and was put up a year at the age of 8, which, as my birthday is in July, made me at least 11 months younger than anybody else in the class and in one case 34 months younger. At a stroke I became a freak and generally disliked. Being small did not help. It was not until I got in the sixth form and lost a year through doing no work that I went down a year and suddenly became normal again. I scraped 2 grade E 'A' levels. Ironically, that failure motivated me far more as an adult that years of easy success. Oh yes, one benefit of it all was the ability to avoid fights and resolve conflicts between men much bigger than me, however drunk.
dave, slough,
My husband was assessed as having an IQ of 150 when he was 16 (so that would make him highly gifted), he wasn't accelerated through school and he had normal friendships with this peers. He did get a scholarship on the assisted places scheme, which enabled him to go to a good public school and on to Cambridge. He has done well as an adult. He earns just about a 6 figure salary and he enjoys what he does, but he isn't setting the world on fire. I think expectations of what a gifted child will achieve are too much. There are plenty of people making a success of their lives who are gifted in lots of different ways. My eldest son has Asperger's and it is hard to tell how he will develop (he is only 4), but I can see already he has a design/engineering bent. I think some of the people mentioned here could have asperger's or know people who are gifted but also had asperger's. There is an overlap with autistic traits and gifted characteristics.
M, Northants,
I'm smart. you knows it and I knows it. high iq, top of the class.... but I never resisted the temptation to coast. and I see that as a further indication of my smartness. I spent most of my 'a' level revision time playing football. very enjoyable.
sure, there are a few things I want that I may not be able to have, but there is nothing I want so badly that I lose sleep over it. I'm more than happy. of course, I have got lots of toys, even coasting.
my mother (a pushy parent) says I lack ambition. what this really means is that I have different ambitions for myself than she has for me. how can someone else judge whether I have been a success? so, I'm not running a bank. look at the people who are! I have no stress.
she's not happy, of course. because she's so ambitious. I am contented and I don't care what anyone else thinks. to be honest, if you're not doing charity work, you're a failure anyway. what good is personal success? people are dying in darfur.
jem, london, uk
I apparently have a high IQ although what it is exactly I'm not that bothered with. I was not that great at school being averagely lazy and too busy having fun with my friends, and I have only really came into my own at post graduate level.
Arnold Ward, Weybridge, Surrey, UK
Interesting that the first two "Sophia" and "Suphia" were both named from the Greek for wisdom.
Presumably the parents were hoping for geniuses right from the start.
Lucy, Glasgow,
Have you seen the junk they now put on tv?
Farrukh, Woking, UK
I still resent the fact that my parents did not push or encourage me as a child. I have perfect pitch and through my own efforts passed music theory exams by saving my own pocket money for lessons, however I could not afford to do more and my parents would not pay for what they saw as frivolity. I was mathematically gifted but again my parents did nothing to develop this. Age 17 I got reasonable A levels but my parents wouldn't contemplate university and by that stage I couldn't see myself with a degree so I went out to a series of dead end jobs. By the time I found enough self confidence to realise that I still had potential I couldn't afford to stop working.
Sally Marshall, Bristol,
I empathise totally with readers who mention the problems of being 2 or more years younger than their classmates. I was also very small for my age and I had to develop a very aggressive attitude to protect myself from bullying. I became known for coming first in exams without working, but as lessons became more complex it became more and more difficult to keep this up, and I started to drop out of subjects that were beyond my natural abilities - so I am terrible when faced with complex challanges, cannot work in a group, always have to prove myself etc. Parents - do NOT take your gifted children out of their age group, developing their social skills is the most important thing for their furure.
Jane, izmir, turkey
I can't really tell what this article is saying. There is definitely a balance to be struck between the individual and the society here. Does it matter to the individual if they are massively gifted and end up working in a McJob smoking the weed, but have found the best woman in the world? Does it matter to society if an above average child is drilled daily by his folks into becoming massively talented in his field, but socially inadequate?
mount, dorset, gb
I think the article makes very good points - I was supposedly 'gifted' as a child, though I suspect that was more down to having been taught and coached extensively at home before I was school-age, rather than some innate ability I was born with. Having found school pretty easy, I struggled at university and actually failed my first year, because I'd never learned to buckle down and 'cram' for exams, having never needed to do that before. Also I was deeply unhappy due to not having developed the social and general life skills to cope away from home.
There's much more to success in life than IQ scores. Being smart is good, of course, but getting ahead means being willing to work hard (even when the work is 'boring'), and also being able to get along with other people. It's important to nurture these traits in children, not just their particular 'gift'.
Sarah, London, UK
I think it was JC Penny who said something like:
"Show me a shop assistant with ambition and I will show you someone who will change the world - show me a genius with no ambition and I will show you a shop assistant".
Talent is nothing without application and goals - but clear goals and dedication to achieving them can make up for all manner of shortcomings.
Father Ignatius Brown, London, UK
The notion that "anyone can" is a pathetic joke, one that socialists have wasted billions of taxpayers money and the lives of millions of people who can be contributive but will never be particularly academic.
The two tricks are in identifying those children with particular talents and then nurturing them as best as possible. The two worst things that the pseudo-marxist education system this country does to children are ignoring the needs of the able to learn the arts of learning and practice and foisting an academic education on those not ready to appreciate it.
The solution to both is a selective component in education from a very early age, teaching children what they are ready to learn in groups of their true peers affords them the best chance of success.
Edward Andrew Green, Upminster, England
Many of the gifted children will not be outstanding achievers as they go through a complex childhood. I was too young for my class and suffered the bullying of other children for years, so being sensitive I withdrew into a shell. Among the adults, my talent itself was sufficient to get appreciation. So I never acquired social skills. Except few areas like research in sciences, rest of the areas require high level of social skills-the ability to handle subordinates, colleagues and bosses.
Parimala rao, New Delhi, India
I was a gifted child, with an IQ of 171, and I have seriously underachieved in terms of what I know I am capable of. I explain the problem mostly in terms of social exclusion - the people I've met at my IQ level have all been seriously weird, and no doubt that's how I appear to others - which may explain why I have very few friends. I have managed to get married and have children, but my husband is one of the few people I've met who enjoys the same breadth of intellectual pursuits as me.
Now in my fifties, with some time on my hands, I'm studying at the Open University. I hope to graduate in a couple of years time, and assuming that I carry on with the sort of grades I'm now getting, I shall have a first. And then, now that ageism is being outlawed, I'm considering going for a doctorate; I'll still have 10-15 years to contribute to academia, and the IT area could do with some input from the senior end of life.
Mary, Spain,
What I have noticed from some of the "special" friends/children that I have come across is that they feel that they need to excel in everything. This can be negative in two ways. First, that they expect to excel in everything means that they are prone to disappointment when they are unable to hit the outcome they pursue. Second, I find that these "special" people are not high in e-q. They lack the tact and emotions in handling other people, the majority of them who are not so "special".
While the first factor explains their unhappiness later on in life the second factor explains why they are unable to be as "successful" as they were when children.
Sophie, Hong Kong, China
"An analysis of those who excel later in life shows their brilliance is only partly down to innate ability; the rest is because of intense and prolonged hard work, and key instruction along the way."
Oh, how wonderful to hear confirmation of what I've been saying for years. People tell me "Oh, you have a gift for languages", and I keep telling them: "No, I haven't. It's all down to sheer hard work. Study, study, study while everyone else is playing. Repeating, writing down, practising, memorising, reading...
Just as with the best musicians. The best musicians are also the ones who practise the most day after day after day after day.
"Talented" people are those who work hard at whatever interests them. So many people are not willing to put in the hours.
Martina, Dusseldorf, Germany
I agree with the contentions printed here. Certainly I have acheived a satisfying life and realise that many times I was in the right place at the right time. My social and family background led most of my teachers to believe that a hydro apprenticeship out of grade 12 was suitable for me. With some luck and determination, I graduated out of McMaster U with a Bpe and ba geog as well as bed and had a satisfying 32 year career in education. Could I have done more with the right situation? I do not know.
As I told one young man who was coasting under his "gifted" title. You have a much better set of mechanics tools than the average student, but some of them will become a better mechanic than you because they will learn to use their academic tools with practice while you may not if you continue to coast. I hope to get feedback from him some day as to the effect of our one on one conversation.
Beverley Holmes, Sault Ste. Marie, On , Canada
As you pointed out in your article, there is a great difference between having a supernormal visual memory and being genius. Unfortunately, there is still no scientific proof that these two have much relevancy to each other. It is a superstition cultural concept that goes back to centuries back, relating the supernormal visual memory (that is why we call those with this ability as ‘Gifted’). These people are normally good in absorbing thing, and here is the problem. They have no free choice to think differently and see beyond what they have been programmed. They are in way biological computers.
Ironically, many of those who are known as ‘geniuses’, do not need to be smart in memorising things. They are the people who have difficulties with accepting those things that we call them ‘facts’. Eventually, a genius challenge the way we all accept as facts. They invent and discover things that we then feed them into our children brain. Technically, a genius is a programmer.
Mackname, Harrow/London, UK
High intelligence bears the innate perception of the folly and futility of achieving excellence in any occupation. Nothing people do is worth doing, especially longer than two years. High intelligence simply means unendurable boredom.
John, Toronto, Canada
As a child I found everything easy. I only had to hear it once and I knew it, and could figure out extensions of it. Family and friends all said I was 'gifted' and would 'go far'.
But after Primary School, it got so boring. I trudged through High School and made a few false starts at University but the drudgery and the dullness was too much. I can pick clever people from merely educated ones and many, if not most, of the clever are not high achievers. A common thread is "I'm not going to tie my life down like that. Let them get some other sucker."
I am at home among my books, and my magnifying glass and my atlas and globe, and am a member of a number of astronomical societies. But don't try to tie me down. I'm too smart for that.
ron, Bathurst, nsw australia
It's surprising to find communist propaganda to the left of Stalin being printed in the London Times. Even the Bolsheviks allowed for the existence of a class of intellectuals. We're into pure Pol Pot territory with this article.
I assume Part 2 in the series will conclude that, as high IQ is meaningless (and even destructive to those unfortunate enough to possess it ), those who have been running society based on this fraudulent qualification are exploitative parasites who should be rounded up and sent to the rice fields.
There are certainly many high-IQ individuals who for varying reasons don't achieve "success" in life -- especially given the remarkably flexible means of defining this.
But you'll be hard pressed to turn your peasant with an IQ of 80 into a civil engineer capable of keeping Cambodia running, despite "years of concentrated practice".
John, New York, USA
The article mentions "the top", "being great" and "getting there" without ever actually defining what this may mean. With such vague targets to aspire to, it's no wonder hardly anyone ever achieves this elusive level of success.
The gifted children who went on to be "healthy, happy, self-satisfied..contributing members of society" have surely made successes of their lives. Yet they are dismissed as not having achieved anything "extraordinary". I think this may give us a clue as to why so many gifted children end up depressed.
James Remmington, Shanghai, China
I agree. I was what some would class as a gifted child, with an IQ in the top 1-2% of the population, but coasted through school as I was rarely motivated or challenged. It wasn't until I did a Masters degree that I found the right topics and teachers to motivate me and even though I kept working full time, I was able to finish the degree in about the same time as a full time student and my marks improved as my workload increased as I became more productive. One problem that these gifted children will suffer from is that they can become outcasts as they are "too smart" for children their own age and "too young" for the people they will be studying with, assuming they are accelerate. It's a bit of a double edged sword.
Steve, Sydney, Australia