Genius Denied (eBook)

Introduction

At the Davidson Institute for Talent Development, a nonprofit organization we founded in 1999 to help our nation's brightest children get the education they need, we're always amazed by the stories families share with us. We receive an e-mail from a mother who describes how her son, at age two, learned all the state capitals as an afternoon diversion and later solved three-digit arithmetic problems when he was bored in his stroller. We smile at the story of another toddler who tried to weasel out of trouble for throwing a toy back at his sibling by claiming he was just following 'Newton's Third Law.' A ten-year-old composes a set of complex piano pieces. A teenager pursues a patent on an antibody he developed to slow the growth of tumors.

Sadly, not all the stories we hear make us smile. Most tell how schools and communities neglect these highly intelligent children. They are kept with children their own age, rarely given work that challenges them, and told they will just have to learn to work at the same pace as everyone else. We hear of children who read and comprehend their math books in the first two weeks of school and spend the rest of the year gazing out the window. Teenagers who read Dostoyevsky for pleasure suffer the tedium of classes that devote weeks to books written for young adult audiences.

This book is about their stories. We have changed these children's names, but not the details of the difficulties they have encountered trying to eke out an appropriate education. This book is about whether schools and communities choose to squelch or nurture the flame of intelligence in their young people, and what happens when they choose to deny or embrace this national resource. Learning becomes a joy when children have what we call 'aha!' moments. An equation works, a story makes sense, and a little connection forges in a child's brain. The harder a child has to work to make that connection, the brighter the lightbulb burns.

People always ask us why, when we sold Davidson & Associates, our educational software company, and entered the world of philanthropy, we chose to work with gifted children. Our reply is that we have always wanted to help children become successful learners. Even before founding Davidson & Associates, Jan taught English at the college level and tutored children of all ages. Bob's ideas for our math and reading software helped thousands of students discover that learning can be as much fun as playing video games. We want all children to have these 'aha!' moments. So we searched for the population that traditional schools serve least, the population that is least likely to learn and achieve to its potential. We believe that highly gifted students are that population.

Over the years, we have discovered that when it comes to leaving no child behind, highly gifted students are the most likely to fall through the cracks in American classrooms. They are the most likely to underachieve, to suffer the greatest gap between their potential and what is asked of them. This is what we mean by 'genius denied.'

'Genius' means extraordinary intellectual ability, and people use the word in two different but related ways. In one sense, genius means high intellectual potential, in the other sense, genius means 'creative ability of exceptionally high order as demonstrated by total achievement.' This book uses both meanings. Works of eminence require years of preparation and require minds working to the best of their abilities. If we fail to recognize and nurture extraordinary intellectual ability in our children, we will deny them the opportunity to develop their talents to their full extent and deny them, and the...