Multi-Giftedness

My first thought about the concept of polymathic education was about the relationship between polymathy and giftedness. This is, however, a sensitive topic to discuss, at least in Europe.

Countries with strong humanistic traditions are very sensitive to the term “gifted child”, and it is generally avoided. The commonly accepted belief is that “every child is gifted.” And multiple-giftedness? This sounds almost insane.

Besides which, there is no Europe-wide definition of giftedness. The government of Sweden does not recognize giftedness, even though Sweden has given out Nobel prizes. Even teachers consider it unethical to suggest that gifted children require special learning conditions. The Italian education policy doesn’t offer support for gifted students, and although gifted children are recognized by the French government, they are not supported by any countrywide policies. Austria officially recognizes special needs of the gifted and even offers some programs, but in reality it doesn’t achieve very much. One possible option for a gifted child is homeschooling, which is luckily legal in Austria (unlike in some other European countries, like Germany).

Anyone who is skeptical that gifted children may have special needs can look at the biographies of polymaths; most of them benefited from a lack of formal education and/or more freedom in schooling. As strong self-directed learners they need more freedom to explore and opportunities to acquire knowledge in their own way and at their own pace.

It’s astonishing how the common description of giftedness, particularly multi-giftedness, fits one-to-one with the description of polymaths.

“The issue is that gifted people like exploration, not routine; and they need a lot more intellectual stimulation than is common. For a lot of people, traditional roles, rules, and expectations feel good, and create a sense of safety, but many (if not all) gifted people feel imprisoned by routine, tradition, and rules-based contexts.”,

says the homepage of InterGifted, a worldwide community for gifted adults. A gifted child is typically compassionate, passionately inquisitive, with an impressive memory and acute perception, quickly able to see connections.?Multiple-gifted children are often self-taught, and have an irrepressible interest in a wide variety of subjects, but precisely because of this they are often underchallenged, misunderstood, and bullied at school. In the USA, where the promotion of giftedness has a longer tradition, there is interesting empirical data on this phenomenon.

The National Association for Gifted Children (USA) has done extensive research in this area, and through its publications has challenged common myths about gifted children and their learning process, in many cases exposing them as false. For instance, the myth that “all children are gifted”: indeed, all children have strengths and aptitudes, but in the educational sense of the word their cognitive abilities (capacity to grasp ideas and learn quickly) vary. The label "gifted" in a school setting means that a child has an advanced ability to learn and apply what is learned in one or more subject areas, academic or artistic, compared to other children of their age. These advanced abilities require modifications to the regular curriculum to ensure that these children are challenged and learn new material.

It is important to note here that “gifted” does not mean better, this is simply a term that can be used to identify students for support to meet their individual learning needs. Another myth is that gifted students make everyone else in the class smarter by providing a role model or the challenge of competition. Alas! Life experience proves that they do not. The truth is that less cognitively strong students do not see the gifted students in the class as role models. Watching or relying on someone who is expected to succeed does little to boost a student’s self-esteem.

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Another common myth is that a gifted child will always find their way to success. False again! Recently, psychologists discovered a phenomenon called “a gifted underachiever”, children with high potential but who are for some reason "refusers", characterized by learning blocks and behavioral problems in the school context. They may express their feelings in a way described by Gail Post, Ph.D. as “passive rebellion, risk aversion, conflict avoidance, or attempts to entertain them self in negative ways.”?

Psychologists note that gifted kids benefit from learning that

“incorporates depth, complexity, and an accelerated pace, where they feel free to express their creativity, where they are not embarrassed to be themselves, and where they are grouped with like-minded peers.”?

My observation is that such kids need another learning format, more individualized and possibly very different from a regular standardized school. Homeschooling, or any progressive school, will let such a child unleash their potential comfortably and naturally. In addition to all the above, multi-gifted children and youths face even more difficulties than the “averagely” gifted, suffering a

“constant bewilderment about how best to use their gifts and talents […] because gifted students generally have diverse interests across numerous domains and may be capable of success in many endeavors or professions, they are confronted with unique decisions as a result of these choices. When encountering multiple opportunities, some students may experience confusion, anxiety, and frustration because they fear missing something or making a wrong decision.”?says Laurie Diane Shute of the University of Connecticut in her doctoral dissertation on multipotentiality.

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Professor Joan Freeman is a distinguished British psychologist working on the development of human abilities to their highest levels. She is also a prolific writer, author of 17 books and hundreds of articles. I was fascinated to read about the results of her 35-year in-depth study Conflicts between high level academic success and creativity, which I recommend as highly insightful for any educator or parent.

Here, among the study results and its thoughtful analysis, Professor Freeman shares the sad story of one of her respondents, Jeremy. As a multi-gifted child, he performed outstandingly well in every school subject, and was also a brilliant violin player. By the end of school, he had to decide: science or music? And the decision, as often in such cases, “was taken with regard to his future economic security” - medicine. With brilliant university results, he was immediately accepted for a further four years training to qualify as a specialist in psychiatry. After years in a hospital being praised as a talented doctor, he realized that he made a terrible mistake by rejecting a musical career, but it was too late to become a professional violinist. He left medicine for good at the age of 35, and started playing and singing in a jazz band, working as a music agent, and living on a low income as a result. The professor concluded:

“What he needed at school was specialist professional guidance, but what he received were opinions. I see him as a victim of that pull between the academic and the creative life.”?

With all respect to Professor Freeman, I see a positive alternative that could have been offered - the polymathic path! What do you think Jeremy’s path would have been if he knew about the possibility of a polymathic career? A way which did not necessitate the exclusion of either? Apart from the numerous stories of medical truants, there are countless examples of multi-faceted people wonderfully merging art and science in their lives - find out more in the chapter on the integration dimension.

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At this point, I would like to introduce you to Robert Root-Bernstein, Professor of Physiology at Michigan State University. An illustrious polymathic personality - artist, humanist, and evolutionary scientist who researches and writes on a range of subjects from the history of science, to AIDS, to the nature of creativity, he is one of the few scholars who placed polymaths under his microscope. Being himself an artist, biologist, science historian and creativity researcher, he wrote a number of exciting articles on imaginative thinking and trans-disciplinary education. In his extremely insightful research paper Multiple Giftedness in Adults: The Case of Polymaths, he noted: “The supposed absence of individuals who have made major contributions to multiple domains supposedly supports the specialization thesis.”?Root-Bernstein repudiated this misconception by citing numerous individuals who have made major contributions in multiple domains. He also reviewed existing literature that demonstrated polymathy among creative adults. Finally, he presented data from ongoing research into Nobel laureates in literature and science that further supports this creativity-polymathy connection.

Our civilization has already been deeply conditioned to the myth of single-domain specialization, despite the fact that it is mostly multidimensional people who shaped it. We do not even dare to believe in alternatives, but I envision a future for humanity where people will embrace their polymathic nature.

Can you also see the fantastic benefit this could bring to humanity?

Discover the power of polymathy in 'Why Polymaths?"