I agree wholeheartedly with the statement that society should identify those children who have special talents and provide training for them at an early age to develop their talents.
The basic purpose of a well-functioning society is to ensure the continued well-being and—as far as possible—the happiness of its constituents or members. Societies since time immemorial have divided themselves into cadres or sections which take responsibility for one aspect or another of this overarching goal. A society’s military protects its members and resources from physical attack or appropriation by external forces. A society’s police force protects its members and resources from threats that issue from within. A society’s legal system ideally ensures that its laws are administered fairly and impartially. And so on. The purpose of a society’s education system, then, is to provide its members—traditionally, its juvenile members—with training in the skills and knowledge that they will need for personal success in the future, as well as the ability to strengthen and contribute to the group as a whole, ensuring the society’s continuing survival and strength across generations to come. Identifying gifted or especially talented individuals at an early age, then, and taking steps to develop their gifts or talents, makes sense on two levels: individually and societally.
Individually, this kind of early attention will have short-term benefits for the gifted child in question, as he or she will be intellectually stimulated and engaged in a way that would be impossible otherwise. An extraordinary elementary-school student who is capable of reading and understanding the works of Dickens or Yeats, or of mastering trigonometry, or of playing a complex sonata, would languish in a class of peers who are sounding out Dr. Seuss, struggling with basic arithmetic, or laboriously plunking out scales. In children, especially, this ability to exercise and stretch their talents corresponds to a giddy excitement akin to what we can imagine a young bird feels when it stretches its wings and flies for the first time. Any child with an exceptional ability which is hampered and pinioned by artificial constraints imposed by an overly-standardized educational system represents a small but significant tragedy. On a more long-term basis, the gifted child in question will be given the opportunities and resources to hone his or her special ability and develop it to its full potential, which can only be beneficial to his or her future prospects and career. Education lasts a lifetime, but the first years of education, in particular, are crucial.
On a broader societal level, the identification and provision of special instruction to gifted children as early as possible will also yield long-term benefits. One of the most valuable and least tangible resources a society or nation has is its “cultural capital.” This sociological concept refers to non-financial assets of a society or nation which nevertheless supply it with status and cachet among other societies or nations. Examples include France’s cuisine and fashion, Italy’s history and art, South Korea’s pop music, the U.S.A.’s films and computer tech, and so on. Cultural capital is accrued for a society or nation as a direct result of its members’ achievements—artistically, technologically, scientifically, and so on. When gifted children are identified early in life, and given the education and resources necessary to fully realize their gifts, their subsequent achievements will contribute to their society’s cultural capital and increase its standing and reputation. This is beneficial to all members of society, as it engenders a sense of civic pride, resulting in a more internally cohesive and self-assured society as a whole.
The obvious objection that opponents to this kind of program will make is that it singles out some children at the expense of others—that it will lead gifted children to feel alien to their peers, or will stigmatize those who are merely “normal,” damaging their self-esteem. From this point of view, the best thing we can do is to standardize everything as far as possible, to ensure that everyone has precisely the same opportunities available, regardless of native talent or ability. But this is nonsense. Already at an early age in our society as it stands now, children are separated according to less worthy indicators: familial socio-economic status, for example, or—by middle/high school—athletic ability. Why should a society demonstrate less focused interest on a student with an exceptional talent for art or physics than one who is remarkably good at kicking a ball or putting it through a hoop? In any case, standardization is more suitable to a society of insects than one of humans. The sheer, dizzying variety of abilities and gifts that we are capable of possessing is what makes us so endlessly fascinating. Nurturing such gifts is our responsibility and our blessing: both for the sake of the individuals who are so gifted, and for the benefit of our society as a whole.
Ephemeral GirlyGirl 