Sherry asked:

A very dear friend of mine has the need to inflict her brightness upon everyone she meets. She does
this with me as well. Another friend of ours is also in pursuit of being classified as being "gifted". I do
not know every word in the dictionary, but I am continuously learning from my experiences and
finding reason for my place in the environments around me. Does my pursuit of a full-felt self not
make me gifted, or is being gifted simply discussing philosophical topics on a regular basis and
getting exceptional grades?

Does anyone have the right to be classified as gifted?

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This is a question fraught with political/ social implications, and my answer here must be taken as
simply my own opinion, which no doubt will be unsatisfactory to lots of people... which is the case for
anyopinion in this arena. So, here goes.

You have two questions here, which are not the same. What does "gifted" mean? Usually it is taken
to mean something like: "having an intrinsic ability much greater than the norm in some area". So,
given that definition, you are born either gifted or with the potential to be gifted. So that's the start of
the controversy; the firstquestion is, what is an "ability", that is, what is it correct to say one is gifted
"in"? Well, the classics are things like "intelligence", "creativity", "musical ability", "verbal ability",
"athletics". We've started touching on the politically incorrect here... because many people want to
say that there is no such singular "thing" or "entity" as, say, "intelligence", or "musical ability", and
indeed these are a very hard traits to define, much less to measure. But, and here's my opinion, it is
not impossible, nor is it meaningless, to define and measure them, and other abilities, even at very
early ages. What supports my opinion? Lots and lots of reading. But, you can object, the people who
object to that point of view also have done lots and lots of reading. True, true. And there you are. If
you want to evaluate this issue, youyourself will just have to do the reading.

So, let's just move on to the next question, i.e., how dependent on genetics is outstanding ability? The
answer to that, politically incorrect as it is, is that there seems to be a strong genetic component to
this (from 30% up). Now... contrariwise... it seems possible, with hard work, to literally rewire your
brain to dramatically increase your intellectual abilities, for example, in areas for which you have
reasonable potential. There are certainly intrinsic limits to human abilities, including intelligence,
dictated, if by nothing else, the size of the head, and the number of neurons (and their metabolic
efficiency, etc.) that can fit into it. It's like weightlifting... some people pick up a weight and put on
muscle, others have to work like crazy, but they all converge, more or less, on the human maximum.
But a 6' 6" man will alwaysbe stronger, given maximal development, than a 5' man or a 5' woman...
for no other reason than there is more muscle mass on a larger frame. Analogously (and very
politically incorrectly), if your genetic potential will stop you growing neurons (and by the way, there is
very recent work showing strong correlation between amount of gray matter — neural cell bodies —
and intelligence — but there is no data on how much this number can be increased by use) before
most others, you just won't be able to develop comparable intelligence, like it or not.

Now, however, we have to ask, how do you know, given that you're reasonably intelligent, what those
limits are? You don't, if you never push yourself... and I mean push.You will get improvement, if you
really, seriously, challenge yourself. But for that you need extremelyhigh motivation, and most people
don't have that, for one reason or another. And here is an area which is an open question as to
"ability" — how much can we train our motivationto train? That's a really difficult one, and I don't even
know of studies in this area, important as it is. Interesting, isn't it? There are all sorts of educational
programs, motivational programs, etc., but no one, that I know of, has asked about the genetic basis
of motivation, and how, and how much thatinteracts with learned motivation.

So there's a kind of minimal background in this area... now, your first question, in two parts. First,
"Does my pursuit of a full-felt self not make me gifted?" The conventional answer would be no, it does
not. The unconventional answer, taking into account what I am saying above about motivation, might
be that you are motivationallygifted, if indeed you pursue self-development intensely. Second, "or is
being gifted simply discussing philosophical topics on a regular basis and getting exceptional
grades?" Clearly this is not the case. The person you're talking about does seem, aside (from what
you've said — and that's all I can judge by in this context) from being rather stuck on herself, indeed
to be gifted verbally and probably with intelligence also...

Now, all that being said, I'm a bit cynical on this issue; I've known lotsof very bright coffee-house
failures who regard themselves as "geniuses" on the basis of a good IQ score, being reasonably
good at chess or whatever, and who work as carpenters or janitors. I've come to a very pragmatic
viewpoint on this... if you do "gifted" work, then you're gifted. Period. So, good grades are nice
(depending on how good your school is)... but the real test is whether, if one does philosophy or
mathematics or art, one producesgood philosophy or mathematics or art, not whether one gets
grades, passes tests, scores high on IQ exams, or does outstandingly on whatever measure of
"potential" there is, even if that measure is accurate in the sense that it correlates with the
achievement of people who doproduce. To put it overly simply, you can have a high IQ and do
nothing, but you can't do good work without the ability that a high IQ measures (or ideally should
measure) and effort.BUT, as I say above, with greatmotivation and hard work, you can quite literally
create ability in yourself, intelligence included.

Your third question, "Does anyone have the right to be classified as gifted?" hits to the heart of the
political issues. The current thinking is, as far as I can tell, mostly "no". I disagree. I think that we have
a crisis in education, brought about, in part, by grade inflation due to not wanting to hurt students'
feelings, being sympathetic to their getting jobs based on grades, etc.... all of which are very nice but
destroy the purpose of education. This is a very unpopular position right now, and I'll probably get
hate mail for saying it. But it's my opinion, for whatever that's worth. To not be aware of, to not
educate on the basis of, to not take advantage of peoples varying abilities andlacks is merely to be
and to encourage ignorance. That being said, there are better and worse ways to go about it... and
that latter debate is one I do not have anything like space for here.

So, keep on trucking... it sounds like you just need some goodfriends.

Steven Ravett Brown

No-one has a "right" to be classified as gifted, even if they are. If you are so classified, you do need to
be highly talented in some area, or maybe get overall excellent grades. Why don't you read my
answer to Fred on Answers 12, it might make you feel better about not being regarded as gifted. You
will see that Feyerabend, a philosopher of science, prefers a well-rounded person to one who decides
to achieve excellence at the expense of balanced development.

If you are at school, there are bound to be others who are regarded as gifted. Once you're out in the
world, you'll find that being gifted isn't a very important quality.

Rachel Browne

How to define "gifted" is not an easy question to answer. Different programs for the gifted define the
word in different ways. Is it a measure of some sort of general superiority (e.g. of intelligence), or are
we looking for those who are gifted in one area while not being gifted in others? How much better
than the 'norm' does one have to be in order to be labelled gifted? Is everyone gifted in some way? I
don't know the answer to these questions.

As for your second question, I'm not sure that I like the way you have phrased it. The right to be
classified as gifted doesn't look anything like a right to me. [I think that in Western society, things that
people want or desire get turned into rights, whereas rights require a stronger justification.] I would
rather ask whether we ought to label some people as gifted.

Assuming we have found a satisfactory definition of "gifted", this question becomes one of
discrimination. The word 'discrimination' is often taken these days to refer to something bad, but that
can't be right. Humans discriminate all the time — we have to. That is, we note that certain things are
different from one another, and therefore we treat them differently. Sometimes this different treatment
is justified (as when we punish bank robbers, but don't punish people who don't rob banks),
sometimes it is not (as when we employ whites but not blacks).

The question then is, should we discriminate in regard to those who are gifted? The answer is that we
often are, but we often aren't. Sports teams choose gifted athletes? For professional teams, this
seems fair enough, but for school physical education classes, it doesn't. Universities choose gifted
students? Might be OK, as long as those who are not gifted but are nevertheless capable of doing the
course also get a chance. Schools students who are gifted get different classes? I don't know — I
think it depends greatly on the circumstances. Perhaps it also depends on whether the different
treatments are (in the phrase sullied by the Apartheid regime) 'different but equal' (that is, each group
is treated in the way that is best for them) or different and favouring one group.

I must end by referring to a newspaper article I saw recently (sorry — can't remember the reference)
which reported a study that showed that labelling children as gifted often did more harm than good,
by singling them out and placing a burden of expectation on them. I personally am very cautious
about gifted programs.

Tim Sprod