Because of this reluctance to acknowledge intellectual differences, no one tells high-IQ children explicitly, forcefully and repeatedly that their intellectual talent is a gift, and that they are not superior human beings but lucky ones. They are never told that their gift brings with it obligations, and that the most important and most difficult of these obligations is to aim not just at academic accomplishment, but at wisdom.
The encouragement of wisdom requires a special kind of education. It requires recognition of one's own intellectual limits and fallibilities--in a word, humility. This is perhaps the most conspicuously missing part of education of the gifted. Many high-IQ students go from kindergarten through an advanced degree without ever taking a course that forces them to say to themselves, "I can't do this".
2 comments:
Bright children often wrap themselves in their "smart" identity. Many times that leads them to become risk-averse. After all if you attempt something and fail, it may prove that you're not really smart and then what do you have.
I was identified as smart (also underachieving and disruptive) early in my school career, but I was blessed with a practical mother who reminded me again and again that, "God gave you smart, Wally, so you can't be proud of that. But you can be proud of what you do with it."
Wally,
Smart, underachieving, and disruptive? That sounds like young Winston Churchill!
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