From: Andrew.Probert@f20.n772.z3.fidonet.org (Andrew Probert)
Newsgroups: k12.ed.tag
Subject: Gifted Children
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 93 01:26:08 PDT
Organization: FidoNet node 3:772/20 - IBM NZ Ltd Gate, Auckland

Hello Linda. It is nice to receive letters from people so far away.
Thanks. In fact I have presently got a cousin living in Regina. Her
husband is working with the Deloittes accounting firm over there for a
couple of years. Also, i lived for a couple of years in Vancouver, BC,
when I was growing up. You said

  =8> I am from Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.  I am a mother of a gifted child
  =8>18 also one of 7.  I was very interested in you
  =8>conversation and how your parents encouraged you all at the
  =8>right time.  It is hard to know sometimes what to do and
  =8>when to do it.  For my 18 year old I let him proceed at his
  =8>own pace but I had lots of help from teachers.  Right now
  =8>my 7 year old is in grade one and having straight A's and
  =8>is not finding it too hard.  He is beginning to like school
  =8>which is a real positive.  How about yourself, if you can
  =8>give me some input on how to encourage a 7 year old in this
  =8>day and age, it would be greatly appreciated

To introduce myself, I am now 24 years of age, doing degrees in law and
economics at a university in New Zealand. I was IQ tested when i was
about 9 or 10, and classified as gifted. However, i wasn't homeschooled
as homeschooling hadn't really taken off in NZ at that point. I didn't
do too badly by the school system here, though there were some things
which I feel were neglected in my case.
I have always had a gift for being able to put together disparate
strands of information and to see the connection between
them, ie to see the underlying patterns. As a result I have always been
at my intellectual best when thinking laterally, in fact I probably am a
true lateral thinker in that I have always had to work to think
vertically from A to B. As long as I am left to think in the way I work
best, I can usually arrive at the same or similar results as would a
mainly vertical thinker.
Unfortunately in the traditional school system here in NZ little worth
is ascribed to lateral thinking of the true sort i am talking about,
whereas all the value is given to those that think vertically, ie that
think 'concisely, clearly, etc.' As a result, I went through school with
the tag of being a wishy washy, woolly thinker, someone who 'wastes
time'. Moreover, the NZ school system does not take any account at all
of an ability to synthesize ( put together peices of information and see
the underlying patterns).
It has only been in th last few years that I have come to recognise that
its not that I am a 'bad' thinker, but rather that  I think differntly
from many of those around me including other 'gifted' people. Moreover,
I have come to recognise that i have in quite some measure an ability
that is difficult to describe properly because it is so alien to the
system of learning in which we are brought. However, I am sure that
there must be many other people who are gifted in the way in which I am
gifted , and probably many who are much more gifted in the ability I am
talking about than am I.
I am also coming to the belief that in the future, when our world enters
ever more deeply into the Information Age, the sort of ability I am
talking about will become ever more important, if we are truly to
understand and control the flows of information in the world. Yet, as
far as I am aware, there is no recognition, let alone training of such
lateral thinking abilities in our education system.
Thus, I am concerned. Possibly, you have heard of schools training
people in Synthesis and in Lateral Thinking.

I am sorry to go on about this. To change the subject, what abilities
are your sons particularly gifted in? What are their interests?
Have you or your 7 year old son heard of computer games called
Civilisation, SimCity and Railroad Tycoon?. These are great fun and are
also very good for developing an ability to see patterns underlying
pieces of information I have found.

Does your 7 year old play chess? If so would he like to start up a game
of long distance chess? If so what colour would he like to play?

Anyway, Ihope to hear from you again soon,

Bye,

Andrew
___
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