Dr Laurie Croft, a professor from the Belin Blank Center for Gifted Education, US, honours advisor and a research guide, believes that India's growth story with gifted children (she hates to refer to them as disabled) will be more successful than China's. She was in India to attend the annual general meeting of Mensa, an NGO working towards the cause of educating gifted children, and was visiting special schools in Delhi, Mumbai, Pune and Nasik.
"I can applaud the way India has worked towards this cause. It is better than what China has done. In 2008 Dr Nayaran Desai, an executive council member from Mensa, an NGO, had come to the University of Iowa for a scholarship on campus. From then onwards the University of Iowa has formed a partnership with Mensa to support them with ideas and techniques to make life less complicated for gifted children. I contribute with scholarly articles and improvised plans. Our association with Mensa guarantees a scholarship for these students to study an honours programme in several subjects from the University of Iowa," Dr Croft told The Sunday Guardian.
According to her, different Indian states have different needs: "We have started stressing on local communities so that we can plan study material and teaching methods according to their needs as talent development is immense in India."
Dr Croft herself is the mother of two gifted children who inspired her to learn more about special children: "It wasn't easy for me to consider this option until my elder daughter turned eleven. At such a young age she was learning a new language — Russian, which amazed me because she was faster than others. At 15 she left school and started college. She is a linguist and is now pursuing her PhD. Later we got to know that our younger one has brain tumour. I decided to pursue a PhD in educational leadership specialising in gifted education from the University of Tulsa, Oklahoma." "My job profile includes working with gifted children in classrooms and teaching teachers how to train them. I am also an honours advisor and help develop ideas at the University of Iowa. I have been in touch with different educators across the world trying to brainstorm and get new ideas to train these special children. I have been working for almost 13 years now," she said.
Dr Croft believes that in many ways she has the easiest job. "Many of these special children in the 4th grade in America are performing better than an average 8th grader. But they have been repeatedly told that they are gifted, which implies that things come easily to them. Unfortunately, at some point they will realise that life is tough," she explained.
She says she had a dream fulfilled during this India visit. "I saw and touched an elephant. I have always wanted to see one. And I get to see monkeys every now and then," she said with utmost excitement, almost jumping out of the sofa.
"I would recommend teachers to get appropriate training to teach gifted children. I see a lot of potential in India as the IQ level is much higher than students from other parts of the world," she concluded.
2 October in The Sunday Guardian.
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