Since you already have reco's for Russian lit, my suggestions are: Kazuo Ishiguro - Remains of the day? Murakami- Norwegian wood? wind -up bird chronicle? Toni Morrison- song of solomon? Salman Rushdie- midnight's children? Vikram seth- A suitable boy? Orhan Pamuk- snow? museum of innocence?

Late to the discussion, but has anyone read "Politically correct bedtime stories..." by James Finn Garner? Its a humorous, satirical take on the PC movement in childrens lit. I really enjoyed the book. Some chapters are available for free through a google search.

disclaimer: Schools in India are more or less equal, and relatively safe for children. DD was homeschooled 1st-2nd grade and went to a B/M school in 3rd. Now she is 10 and in grade 5. Academically, she is spinning her wheels, if you will. But, then she didn't go back to school for the academics. She went back because she is an only child and wanted to be around other kids. She had this image in her head where she is surrounded by other like minded curious children. (Turned out to be a mirage :tongue_smilie: ) Yet, she enjoys school most of the time. She mostly enjoys interacting with different teachers, and her classmates. She likes group activities. She's learning a good deal of soft skills- engage with children from diverse cultures, abilities, mindsets. YMMV. She is a playful highly extroverted child, so school- time is play time. Academics are not even on the radar, which is depressing; but the alternative is homeschooling- Not a good idea for us as a family, given our context. FWIW, a huge % of a positive schooling experience is the childs personality. LOG is important, but not the whole picture. If the child's abilities are synchronous, s/he might adapt in a school setting, despite being HG/PG. But, an extremely asynchronous child will have trouble in a age-grade set up. ETA: Had second thoughts and deleted personal info.

FWIW , I wish the present-me had advised the 20-year-me that passion and talent are overrated in the larger scheme of life. Tolerance for routine or the patience to do something well every.single.day will also determine the kind of breaks I will get and how far I will go in my chosen career. ETA: 'Diligence' is the word I was looking for..

If you (general you) are like my parents, you might want to wait patiently until this child gets out into the real world. The average (statistically) skills, the average (again statistically) drive with high tolerance for routine is much prized in regular jobs in the real world. My parents patience paid off as this child turned out to be the most successful adult, in the mainstream sense of the word, in my family and extended family. No..I'm not their most successful child ;) :D

Denial of reality? Hostile? fwiw, hostility goes both ways when views(such as mine) are implicitly suppressed, by calling my posts hostile or suggesting that my PoV has created an unsafe environment. The majority of voices of this forum are extremely vocal about their gifted children and receive enormous amount of support. It befuddles me that a few opposing perspectives can prompt words like 'unsafe', 'hostile' and 'denial of reality' from parents (such as you and dmmetler) who already have exceptional children. btw..IQ is a concept. It is not a law (like the law of gravity). nor is there mutual agreement, even within the gifted circles, on the definition of giftedness and 'high IQ'.

I don't see why not? I admit I'm a natura; skeptic, and tend to question/challenge the status quo. But, most of the posts on this forum (ALB) are overwhlemingly in favor of sharing about (general) your gifted child. This is just one thread that questions the premises beneath the High IQ concept. To my knowledge, no one has questioned your DD's/or anyone other childs achievements or challenged (general) your parenting. Everyone is extremely supportive. Add to it that members here almost exclusively comprise of residents from the U.S., which makes it mono-cultural in a way. If the rarely expressed opposing and diverse perspectives make you feel unsafe..I really have no response to that..

:001_smile: I've been misunderstood by taking the 'questioning and/or challenging pov' approach, so I tend to be cautious online and IRL.

I still don't see the connection between intensity and the 5 traits you've mentioned. Correlation doesn't imply causation... But to each his/her own. Fwiw, I didn't come to this thread intending to pick an argument; just wanted to express that there are multiple and equally valid perspectives to the high IQ issue.

Without negating your pov, I'd like to offer a different perspective. Could it be possible that your DD could be just as intense, driven, eager to learn and focussed- without the 'PG'ness/high IQ? The reason I ask is because the assumption implicit on most threads wrt 'High IQ' is that average or the other categories/segments of intelligence do not share personality traits with MG/HG/PG. I have met extremely intense individuals with average abilities and skills. And I have met very laidback children/adults who show prodigious abilities/skills. IMhO, it's erroneous to correlate personality traits (intensity, drive, ambition) to HG/PG/et al. Often personality and IQ aren't perfectly mapped to each other.

aaah..I understand. Thanks for clarifying.. I didn't read all the responses on that thread or this one because I tend to have a small attention span when discussion centers around IQ. The whole concept (of IQ) is so deterministic and flawed. For better or for worse, I like to believe humans are a lot more nuanced and complex than described by their respective IQs.

Why did it make you sad?

it's so pertinent to my present situation as I'm attempting to teach(tutor) a student struggling in math and I'm out of ideas. Thanks for this article!

I promise this is my last post Ruth. Apologies for derailing your thread so far off. The education system (assessment with its inbuilt EF requirements) we have right now is inherently unfair to some (or most?) students. The option is to accept it as reality and/or push for something better. The better option could be equity, instead of equality. Which means that each student has individual and customized grading, letter grades are not assigned but rather levels (satisfactory-good-excellent) are, where assignments are tailored for student ability, and deadlines too. The idea made me uncomfortable at first because I have been conditioned to think of equality as the way. But, when I experienced it going through my M.A, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed learning. My professors pushed me far beyond what was expected of other students, they graded me accordingly, they gave me different support -later deadlines (because I was a full time student who was also a mother) A decent number of professors (and universities) applying the principles of equity rather than equality exist here in India, within the boundaries of rules and regulations from the government. Primarily because university education is not yet a business (with the hazard of corporatisation that comes with it), but a learning space. Things are changing...albeit slooowwwly. But I feel its better to hope and work towards an ideal, however unrealistic that may seem in the present scenario. I'm advocating for equity in my DD's school this year. I'll let you know how that goes.. :D ETA: Equity makes eminent sense in a heterogenous/diverse abilities and ages environment (less selective schools/community colleges). I wonder if it could be applied to a system where student abilities are more or less equal. ETA 2: http://edglossary.org/equity/. One link (there are many out there) that breaks this term down in its minutae.

PM'ed you.

:laugh: priceless!

This post is not meant to be confrontational, rather a questioning of the norms that drive college education. fwiw, It is interesting to me that the frontal lobe of the brain responsible for the executive functioning skills matures only in the late 20s and in some cases, 30s ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2892678/ ). Personally, I wouldn't deem 18 yr olds as adults, but that's just me. (I do know that legally they are considered adults). And education systems around the world seem to hinge on this magic age. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that the normative notion of undergrad students (< mid/late 20s) as adults and hence must be self-reliant is an assumption which has no scientific basis. Furthermore, so much of this is cultural. Some societies (mine for instance) don't consider children as grown ups until they have children of their own. :001_smile: My college admin/profs (undergrad and grad) were/are willing to involve parents when needed. (btw.. I'm not suggesting it as an ideal!) @regentrude- 'maturity screening' was a term used by a pp, not me. Not disputing your points, but maybe your experience (some universities are structured to enable most, if not all, students to pass) is not the whole picture? What about some other univs build their reputation on designing the course in such a way so as to sieve students out in the first 2 years. (the elite univs). What happens to a gifted child who does not have the executive functioning skills in that situation, if at all.. is his/her age considered..? ETA 1: Before I am misunderstood, I am for providing more support/handholding (relative to older peers) to gifted younger students specifically to organizing, planning, meeting deadlines and managing time. ETA 2: I'll stop posting here as I've derailed the thread enough. :D Please PM me if you wish to respond to my post.

@ Q- Oh yes, I'm guilty of the same. It does not help when DD behaves ages 4-20 in a single conversation.

Not picking on you, but mulling over college output norms and expectations and screening for maturity. Building work ethic must start somewhere, right? Unless a student has excellent executive functioning, developing grit/work ethic necessitates a lot of falling/picking up, whatever the age. I can hazard a guess that some age appropriate college students would probably go through a similar learning curve (wrt goal setting/organising/work ethic) as a much younger HG student in a college setting. But, are there more expectations/pressures on the younger student to be self reliant v/s the age appropriate one? Or rather...are we (as parents/teachers/admin) more patient with chronologically placed students than hg/pg (younger) ones?

Musing with you..... If we were still living in the U.S, my DD would have headed off to college at the age when she could physically pass off as a small-for-age teen. That would probably be around the 12 yr old mark. At 10, she is physically a child. So, I suppose physical development would be the first checkpoint. Quality of courses- which includes level of required executive functioning- would be the next. Would the course require a combination of-- hands on projects, research papers, classroom discussions, frequent tests, seminars.? If so, the learning curve will be steep and has to be factored in. Logistics---And the last, either the parent driving the minor child to campus and waiting until classes are done Or child decides to stay on campus. (gulp).

Thanks SQ, that was an interesting read. :thumbup1: What I really liked was that the article busted some general myths and misconceptions surrounding prodigies- that they are weird/like sheldon cooper (Tao is described as affable and normal in behaviour). Or that they don't struggle (Tao experienced failure). Or that they cannot collaborate or usually work alone. (Tao/Erdos are huge collaborators).

In my experience of living in a bi-lingual country, to achieve full/proficient bilingualism/multilingualism, children often go through phases where they use one language consistently over another. For instance, I/we spoke to my DD in her native language only. But, once she gained a certian amount of proficiency, she began adding in words from English and regional languages. For a brief time, English dominated (because of books, other media et al). But, now that she's proficiently speaks multiple languages (can switch languages at ease), she's back to speaking with us in our native tongue; in English/regional language with her friends. Having said that, I don't have suggestions on how to maintain bilingualism in a country where only English/one language is spoken in the public sphere. My DD is an only child so the sibling effect is non-existent.

Nm

School. :-) and then, my parents belong to a group that reads, writes and speaks sanskrit in everyday life to help revive it.

Not a direct answer to your question, but AFAIK, (I studied sanskrit for 5 years)..there is no equivalent word for abstract 'Free'in sanskrit. All the words are contextual- i.e. free from something or freedom from something. From my limited googling, it would seem like free/freedom is rooted in old english, german and dutch?