BRILLIANT CHILDREN…?

By Goolbai Gunasekara

There is no mother who does not think her child is special if not actually brilliant.

Can any mother be faulted for being a little blind in that area? As a former Principal I have met all types of mothers. All of them caring, concerned and loving. Perhaps into spoiling their children too but then the majority of mothers do this.

However, whenever I heard a mother tell me, “My child is doing brilliantly at school,” warning bells start ringing in my head. So the chat with my old friend, Rima was not one of undiluted pleasure. We were talking of her grandchild.

“How brilliantly?” I ask knowing grand parents are usually biased. (I am of course).

“Always first or second in class,” comes the complacent answer.

“And what class may that be?” I ask a trifle apprehensible.

“He is now in the OL Prep but gets the Form Prize quite regularly.” Of course I hope that he continues this ‘Brilliant’ career but long experience has made me extremely wary of predicting that these outstanding students will continue to have a lifetime of top class achievement.

It is the children who are competent but not brilliant that make names for themselves later on in life. Parents tend to overlook other qualities a child might possess that are non-academic. School reports unfortunately concentrate mostly on telling parents how well or how badly a child is doing in academics. There is rarely a section in school reports that gives grades for the following other talents;-

I shall list them for easy reading.

• Imagination
• Organizational skills
• Leadership skills as opposed to bullying
• The ability to shoulder responsibility
• The ability to get on with others. This is VERY important . Great careers die because of the lack of this.
• A moral dimension must be there.
• The ability to keep friendships going
• Courtesy to ALL. This means to minor staff, children in others classes and of course to teachers.
• Personal charm plus a sense of humour. 
• The ability to project themselves well 
• A good EQ ( emotional quotient) as well as IQ (Intelligence quotient) is needed. And now here is where parents must step in. SQ ,(Spiritual quotient is now being touted among educationists  )

Let me give the example of a young girl who had most of the above qualities going for her. She had won a Sports Scholarship to Asian International School in the AL class. Her results were average but she got a place in a British University.

She zoomed upward academically doing exceptionally well in university and ending her academic career with a Ph.D. She now works for the WHO in highly lucrative jobs all round the world.

By contrast one of those school ‘brilliant’ children won a scholarship to UPenn, one of the USA’s Ivy League colleges. He did very well indeed and gained a Master’s Degree too. He got a fairly good job back in Sri Lanka having failed to get anything abroad. I feel he lacked the personality which was always quiet and studious ONLY.

This is not to say that outstanding students in school never do well afterwards. Of course they do, but only if they have developed other important traits. Parents should never assess their children on grades alone. School life provides a broad base and an introduction to various other disciplines from which a child can develop traits which are sometimes more helpful than academic prowess.

For instance I might mention some of the incidents which cost highly qualified teachers their jobs. One is personal hygiene. I used to have meetings with each class from Form 2 ( International School Grade 7) onwards when sweat glands begin to start acting up and some sort of protection against it became necessary. Children perspire and we live in a tropical country. The importance of fresh underwear and early morning baths cannot be overestimated. Deodorants may not always be affordable but soap, water and powder are.

Lack of personal hygiene abroad can actually lose jobs. Some time ago I read of a woman in Germany who was sacked because her colleagues complained of her strong body odour. In the West you may just be bluntly told, “You stink.” So academic brilliance alone is not enough.

It is the children who are competent but not brilliant that make names for themselves later on in life. Parents tend to overlook other qualities a child might possess that are non-academic. School reports unfortunately concentrate mostly on telling parents how well or how badly a child is doing in academics.

Another mistake parents make is pushing the ‘brilliant’ children into courses of study for which they are clearly unsuited. Being clever their school grades may not suffer too much but when they get to the AL classes the public exams are much harder and performances will not be as good as they could have been.

Here is another example. One child got 10 As at the O/Levels and wanted to do History, English etc. His mother saw no future in that kind of Degree and forced him to do Science with the aim of becoming a Doctor. He got reasonable results but not nearly good enough for Medicine. He got a Medical Degree in China but kept failing the Sinhala test he had to pass back in Sri Lanka in order to practice medicine. So being trained for nothing he eventually took an unsatisfying job in some firm where he is not at all happy. He had hoped to become an academc researcher.

So parents, resist the urge to talk about clever academic children and don’t boast.

You do not want to cause jealousy I am sure. Personal satisfaction can only belong to parents and grandparents ( Principals included!) and academic prowess in school is only the start of life after all. Real success comes much later and you may find the ‘brilliant’ student left far behind in this new world. Many of the world’s greatest academics and minds have not been ‘Brilliant’ students. Brilliance may be just a flash. We should strive that it always remains a steady glow.