High Cognitive Minds

I finished reading Alissa Quart's Hothouse Kids: the dilemma of the gifted child, a few days ago and have been mulling it over ever since. It's an odd book, being divided pretty much between discussions of children who are gifted, but mainly under-served or completely unserved by the schools, and those children who are "wannabe" gifteds, though It's really the parents who are wannabes, desperate to give their children a status that they may not be able to live up to. Aside from the disturbing aspects of the book, it served to confirm my feeling that the whole concept of giftedness has changed drastically, becoming ever more muddled over the years. Hothouse Kids highlights the confusion and the degree to which giftedness is believed to be a key to future success and happiness.

Giftedness has always been more than just a way of indicating intelligence and talent. Whether it's a status symbol or a political and cultural football depends on the mood of the times, with prodigies serving as its poster children, viewed with either awe or as victims of parental abuse. It's redefined to be more inclusive even while the reality of the concept is being questioned and actual support for gifted programs is being laid waste.

It's also the victim of two simultaneous trends: the dumbing down of public education, which is part of the general upswing of anti-intellectualism; and the self-esteem movement, which concentrates on personal feelings to the exclusion of all else. Young people know less, but they feel more, and one of the invidious results is that they have a bloated estimation of their abilities and their capacity for insight. The combination of ignorance and ego can be seen everywhere on the web, particularly on forums and personal weblogs. The functionally illiterate, including those who call themselves gifted, offer their second-hand opinions on complex subjects, and expect to be praised for their wisdom. And they usually are, by others who share their ignorance and sense of entitlement.

Long gone, or huddling, dust-covered, in a dark corner, is any connection with intellect. Most gifted children and adults today are as ignorant about themselves as they are about the world. They have no comprehension of the difference between facts and fantasy, no idea how their minds work, how they might work if they were properly developed or of the possible uses to which they might put their minds. All they have, at least some of them, is the feeling that something is missing, something went wrong somewhere.