Teachers who work with children observe dramatic individual differences between gifted and average children in their ability to learn to ideas, to understand metaphor, and to engage in mental activity for a sustained period of time. Ellen Winner provides a description that resonates with descriptions from others who study prodigies. (see Winner, Ellen. 2000. “The Origins and Ends of Giftedness,” American Psychologist. Vol. 55. No. 1. pp. 159–169. The quote is on pages. 162–3.)
Gifted children have a deep intrinsic motivation to master the domain in which they have high ability and are almost manic in their energy level. Often one cannot tear these children away from activities in their area of giftedness, whether they involve an instrument, a computer, a sketch pad, or a math book. These children have a powerful interest in the domain in which they have high ability, and they can focus so intently on work in this domain that they lose sense of the outside world. They combine an obsessive interest with an ability to learn easily in a given domain.
Gene Landrum, in his popular book Entrepreneurial Genius: The Power of Passion, writes about a gifted child named Jeff:
As a precocious toddler of 3, Jeff insisted that he should have a bed instead of a crib, but Jackie [his mother] denied his request. A short time later, his mother discovered him with screwdriver in hand, dismantling his crib and transforming it into a real bed. Jeff attended a Montessori pre-school where he became so engrossed in each project that he had to be picked up–chair and all–and moved to the next activity.
His elementary teachers in Houston, Texas, recognized immediately that Jeff was a gifted child. At age 8, he was enrolled in the pilot program for gifted students at River Oaks Elementary School. In one of his more ingenious moments, he and some fellow students used a modem to connect a teletype machine to a mainframe computer and used it to play a Star Trek game. On another occasion, he created a makeshift buzzer for his bedroom door to sound an alarm when his younger siblings trespassed on his territory.
Jeff became one of the prized exemplars for the gifted program at River Oaks. In 1977, his intelligence prompted author Julie Ray to feature Jeff as the subject of a chapter in a book she was writing, titled “Turning on Bright Minds: A Parent Looks at Gifted Education in Texas.” In it she described him as a bright student of “general intellectual excellence.” While at River Oaks, he saw his first Infinity Cube–a cube with motorized mirrors that could be adjusted to create multiple reflections that appear to extend to infinity. The visual magic of the Infinity Cube ignited Jeff’s imagination and he asked his mother to purchase the $20 item for him. When Jackie explained that this toy was too expensive, Jeff proceeded to purchase all the parts at a fraction of the price and assembled his own Infinity Cube. As Jeff commented at the time, “You have to be able to think…for yourself.”
You probably know Jeff as Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com. Spend less. Smile more., or as Jeff Bezos, one of the richest men in the world. In either case, he is the kind of person who demonstrates that there is, indeed, a category of intelligence that can be described as “gifted.”
Typically, giftedness is manifest in early childhood. Sir Francis Galton, one of the pioneers of the concept of intelligence was a child prodigy who was purported to be reading by the age of two, fluent in Latin and Greek at age five, and solving quadratic equations at age eight. The brilliant mathematician and one of the founders of the programmable computer, John von Neumann, could divide two eight-digit numbers in his head at age 6 and was proficient in calculus at age 8.
More recently, Terrance Tao mastered arithmetic at age 2 and completed university level mathematics at age 9. Misa Osipov, who was featured on Russian television at age 3 playing chess against Russian Grandmaster Anatoly Karpov, when asked what opening he was using, responded nonchalantly “the Nimzo-Indian Defence.” The next year, he defeated Russian Chess Grandmaster Yuri Averbakh. Other child prodigies whose gifts were recognized early, include John Stuart Mill, Mozart, Blaise Pascal, and Stevie Wonder.
However, giftedness was manifest in others at a later time. Einstein’s giftedness was not evident until much later and he appeared, during his early childhood, to be intellectually limited. His sister Maja reported, “He had such difficulty with language that those around him feared he would never learn to speak.” In fact, one of his schoolmasters predicted that he would never amount to much.
Thomas Edison, who suffered from dyslexia, dropped out of school during his first grade when his frustrated teacher, Reverend G. B. Engle, described him as “addled.” His giftedness was not apparent until adulthood, though it may have been evident at an earlier age had someone observed him closely.
True giftedness probably has its roots in an individual’s DNA, but comes into full flower in the neuron flourish and pruning that happens during infancy and possibly again during adolescence. Giftedness is like porn; it’s hard to define, but you’ll know it when you see it.
