No, I am not talking about cars… though it is something I can easily talk about. I am referring to the “Gifted & Talented” program. One of our kids, I won’t mention who, has been nominated and admitted into the GT program. I for one am not so sure about it though… especially in regards to long-term perspective.
Sure it allows advanced or fast-learning kids to not get bored by giving them more stuff… but I see more drawbacks than anything else… Let me explain. First of all, smart people are easily anti-social and tend to not work well with people… especially those that they don’t consider as intelligent. Second of all, smart people don’t understand how the world turns. On the daily level. Intelligent people tend to get isolated from what normal average people feel and experience.
Ok, so you may think that I am exaggerating things and stereotyping people a bit. And that is true but so far, I haven’t been proved wrong. I worry that GT program would isolate the child even further than necessary from regular people and how things turn around daily… If you recall, I have said over and over that I’d trade smart kids for sociable ones on any given day! Smart kids tend to think better of themselves. My wife’s friend’s child is showing such symptoms, as well as co-worker’s son. I am not saying that all smart people are evil. But it sure seems easy to become so…
If this world is to become a better place, we need people who can tolerate others and work with others. Together. Not a bunch of smart self-reliant people. Take that as my 2 cents… If humility can be in co-existence though… then it can save the intelligent.
I have always been a big Lego person and a supporter… it is by far the single best toy a kid can have! So when I came across this video short, I was immensely pleased and just HAD to share it! Enjoy! And if you have kids, get them some Lego!!
A school in Newark, NJ has really inspired me to see what true education is all about! These are the truest moments when I applaud our education system and the teachers. I sure hope that my kids can someday go to schools like this one…
A friend of mine forwarded this awesome video link that explains the whole credit crisis visually! I now understand so much better of what went wrong and where we all fall. Greed begets greed… and eventually world-wide disaster!
A friend from my college years, Kwon Cho, who went to same church at the time, now hosts and works for a very needed Korean-American Christian media company, KAC Media, and started his very first show! So here’s a shameless push for his show… it’s very good and insightful! His first guest, is a Korean-American Internet entrepreneur who participated in “The Apprentice 6″ and became a finalist!
So with Anna’s diminishing interest in ballet/dancing, she drew interest in piano.
This past Wednesday marked her first tutoring lesson. She was very excited to learn. And the teacher was very good and got along great with Anna. Our take on Anna’s learning to play piano isn’t so much that she would become a professional at it. Far from it. Actually, I hope she doesn’t.
We wanted her to learn music so that it would help her in getting through life. I believe that music, among many other things, can give the person the ability to pull through tough times. I wanted Anna to have that when things got tough and she needed a way to release her emotions and frustrations.
This also meant that I have to oversee her practicing it 15 minutes a day! Yikes! :O But in the end, I hope she will be able to use it to help herself and others get through tough times of life. Is that weird of me?
Lately, I have had to train people. And I am realizing that of the 4, 3 don’t know much about Linux. And as a somewhat of a veteran engineer now, if you are going to enter the engineering job field, please please please learn some basics of the Linux OS!!
So here’s a shameless push for his show… it’s very good and insightful! His first guest, is a Korean-American Internet entrepreneur who participated in “The Apprentice 6″ and became a finalist!