Created Equal?
Does this mean that anyone with the right mindset can do well? Are all children created equal? Let's take the second question first. No, son children are different. In her book Gifted Children Ellen Winner offers incredible descriptions of prodigies. These are children who seem to be born with heightened abilities and obsessive interests, and who, through relentless pursuit of these interests, become amazingly accomplished
Michael was one of the most precocious. He constantly played games involving letters and numbers, made his parents answer endless questions about letters and numbers, and spoke, read, and did math at an unbelievably early age. Michael's mother reports that at four months old, he said, "Mon Dad, what's for dinner? At ten months, he astounded people in the supermarket by reading words from the signs Everyone assumed his mother was doing some kind of ventriloquism thing. His father reports that at three, he was not only doing algebra, but discovering and proving algebraic rules. Each day, when his father got home from work, Michael would pull him toward math books and say. "Dad, let's go do work."
Michael must have started with a special ability, but, for me, the mos outstanding feature is his extreme love of learning and challenge His parents could not tear him away from his demanding activities. The same is true for every prodigy Winner describes. Most often people believe that the "gift" is the ability itself Yet what feeds it is that constant, endless curiosity
and challenge seeking Is it ability or mindset? Was it Mozart's musical ability or the fact that he worked till his hands were deformed? Was it Darwin's scientific ability or the fact that he collected specimens nonstop from early childhood?
Prodigies or not, we all have interests that can blossom into abilities. As a child, I was fascinated by people, especially adults. I wondered: Wh makes them tick? In fact, a few years back, one of my cousins reminded me of an episode that took place when we were five years old. We were at my grandmother's house, and he'd had a big fight with his mother over when he could eat his candy Later, we were sitting outside on the front steps and I said to him. "Don't be so stupid. Adults like to think they're in charge. Just say yes, and then cat your candy when you want to"
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