> in the nearly thirty years i've spent in elementary teaching, this
>argument has been the one most used to argue for the funding of gifted
>education - that gifted students would in time be our future leaders.
> yet in follow-up studies, most gifted students demonstrated social
>success by incrementally adding to their professional fields (doctors,
>lawyers, professors). hardly any demonstrated leadership or intellectual
>leaps within their fields.
>
If we view cognition as distributed, and presumably dependent on or an
aspect of the activities within which it occurs, then giftedness becomes an
aspect of the way people participate in activities, as much a function of
the activities as a function of the individual. It must be
activity-specific, located, cultural.
As Philip indicates, studies of exceptional talent point to a background of
highly-focused often obsessional engagement in specific activities, not to
a universally applicable individual quality, e.g. a famous professor of
mathematics at Edinburgh who spent much of his childhood roaming the hills
playing mathematical games and puzzles in his head.
Graham
Graham Nuthall
Professor of Education
University of Canterbury
Private Bag 4800
Christchurch, New Zealand
Phone 64 03 3642255 Fax 64 03 3642418
http://www.educ.canterbury.ac.nz/ultp.html