I think the best thing I ever created at Pacific University is the gifted education book club meetings. These book discussions take place three times per year, and we usually have a group of six to a twelve participants. This afternoon, nine of us gathered to discuss Josh Waitzkin’s book, The Art of Learning. This book was the topic of a previous blog.
During this afternoon’s discussion, I was able to experience, once again, the notion that the reader tells the story. We each had insights about The Art of Learning that were related to our own personal experiences and/or background knowledge. The sharing of those insights helped push my understanding even further, and I hope I can continue to push my adult students to the edge of their zone of proximal development, or what Josh calls “the outer reaches of our abilities.”
Parents of gifted children should read this book! Here was a chess prodigy “who was scared of the dark and loved Scooby-Doo,” and in this book he calls his father his “best friend” and his mother “the greatest person I have ever known…She has always encouraged me to follow my heart.” Not only is this book an important read for educators, but it is a wonderful model of how to raise and encourage a gifted child.
Here are some ideas and quotes from Josh’s book that can serve as inspiration for any learner:
* “The game (chess) was exhilarating and also spiritually calming….Then, suddenly, the game became alien and disquieting.”
* “I had won eight national championships an had more fans, public support and recognition than I could dream of, but none of this was helping my search of excellence, let alone for happiness.”
* “I recognized that being at the pinnacle in other people’s eyes had nothing to do with quality of life, and I was drawn to the potential for inner tranquility.”
* “Someone stuck in an entity theory of intelligence is like an anorexic hermit crab, starving itself so it doesn’t grow to have to find a new shell.”
Josh Waitzkin is going to be the keynote speaker for the National Association for Gifted Children’s 2009 annual conference, and he will have an important message for those who live with or educate gifted children.
