Einsteins need to be nurtured

Published on 04/05/2007 11:55

LIMITED support services for gifted children in Lothian have recently been announced, but the measures are still woefully inadequate.

The education system in Scotland has marginalised its most gifted and talented pupils and will continue to do so unless we change attitudes towards children with above average intelligence.

Gifted children are in a minority and, like other minorities, including children with below average ability, need help.

It may be difficult to grasp why children with the potential to achieve great things should require special attention. The explanation is that for every Mozart or Stephen Hawking who emerges, a dozen or so more do not.

Those individuals who constitute this creative minority in our society have achieved their eminence in spite of rather than because of our school system. Look at the evidence - Thomas Edison's mother withdrew him from school after three months in the first grade because his teacher said he was "unable". Gregor Mendel, founder of the science of genetics, flunked his teacher's examination and gave up trying.

Winston Churchill was last in his class at Harrow. Charles Darwin dropped out of medical school. Einstein found grammar school boring. It was only when his uncle showed him tricks with numbers that he became interested in mathematics.

In short, conventional academic curricula are sometimes poorly suited to humans of extraordinary potential.

Why should children with unusual abilities have trouble with ordinary school curricula? Precisely because the curricula are ordinary.

Education is a mass enterprise geared by economic necessity as well as politics to the abilities of the majority. Just as a child of less-than-average mental ability frequently has trouble keeping up with his classmates, so a child of above-average ability has trouble staying behind with them. Prevented from moving ahead by the rigidity of normal school procedures, assigned to a class with others of the same age, expected to devote the same attention to the same textbooks, required to be present for the same number of hours in the same seat, the gifted youngster typically either conceals their ability, drifts into a state of apathy or becomes a discipline problem.

If teachers do not understand how a gifted child thinks and works, boredom sets in and all too often the child resorts to bad behaviour, for which they are punished. Add to this the fact that many gifted children can also have a learning difficulty (dyslexia, dysgraphia, auditory retention problems etc) and the difficulties for a gifted child can increase.

It is no wonder that a young gifted child can find their world very confusing at times. It is essential we help them to realise their potential.

• May 4 is the UK's first Gifted and Talented Awareness Day

• National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC), www.nagcbritain.org.uk, 0845-450 0221

• Dr Stephen Tommis is director of the National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC)