Not that common

It is interesting to follow the discussion about ability with ‘Stable Genius’ Trump and ‘Low IQ’ people, which is anyone that opposes him but what is the reality?

After 30+ years of teaching probably 5000+ students, I have taught many students with far more ability than me although very few that had more knowledge as they hadn’t yet had the opportunity to learn it but how many gifted or genius students?

Many parents have the flawed idea that about ten percent of students are ‘gifted’ even if ‘gifted’ is hard to define, I have only taught three students whom I thought were clearly gifted. I saw ‘gifted’ as being exceptional in a number of quite different fields of achievement.

We should be the best we can be, no matter where we started from. Maybe Donald Trump is like my friend who did an aptitude test when he applied for a job and found he was on the left side of the Bell curve, a result he didn’t quite understand.

Dennis Fitzgerald
Melbourne, Australia