Gifted Mind
Entries from September 1, 2007 - October 1, 2007
The Right to Scholarship
Catana
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“When starting one’s private intellectual journey the question often come up: what shall I study? Sometimes it isn’t even clear which subject area a person wants to pursue. Generalists like Your Humble Correspondent find this a persistent, nagging, and fiendishly frustrating issue.
“Add to this puzzle the otherwise sage and sound advice of P. B. Medawar who, in his wonderful little volume Advice to a Young Scientist, insists that the budding seeker of knowledge spend his or her time on problems that matter.”
This post from Cogito! considers what it means to find problems that matter. And how do we decide what matters? The question is quite different from the point of view of a scientist whose career depends on the right answers, and that of the intellectually gifted amateur who may want nothing more than to find something that matters on a personal level.
The Appearance of Free Choice
The more things change, the more they remain the same. Unless they just keep getting worse. If there's one thing you can count on in public education it's that change is constant and ongoing. On the surface, at least. Underneath the new trends in teaching math or reading, courses that attempt to relate education to the "real world," and the juggling of test scores and achievement standards, things remain pretty much the same. Public education has a mandate which it's never been able to fulfill to anyone's satisfaction, but you have to give it points for trying.
One of the trends getting some attention in the media lately is the requirement that students declare majors as early as the eighth grade. It would have been simple enough to ask how many eighth graders have the slightest idea of what they want to be when they grow up, so we have to assume that this trend has nothing to do with better meeting their educational needs. As a result of some 50 years of education-watching, I have to say that this is just one more attempt to do something—anything—that might have a chance of turning the tide. The tide, in case you haven't been paying attention, is falling rates of literacy, and rising rates of college freshman who are totally unprepared, academically.
A Few Random Questions
Why are there categories for creatively gifted and intellectually gifted, but not for intellectually creative gifted?
Why do the majority of studies and academic articles address the social and emotional needs of the gifted, but not their cognitive needs, apparently in the belief that their cognitive needs are being met if they’re doing well in school?
Why is there such fascination with technological means of boosting intelligence when every available non-technological method is ignored and even subverted?