An Interview with Giuseppe Corrente on Interest in Gifted Children and Gifted Education, and the Needs of the Gifted, Highly Gifted, Exceptionally Gifted, and Profoundly Gifted (Part Two)
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/03/22
Abstract
Dr. Giuseppe Corrente is a Computer Science teacher at Torino University. He earned a Ph.D. in Science and High Technology – Computer Science in 2013 at Torino University. He has contributed to the World Intelligence Network’s publication Phenomenon. He discusses: interest in giftedness and the developmental trajectory of the gifted child compared to the non-gifted child; traumatic upbringing as an influence on the personal perspective of the needs of the gifted; recognized levels and labels of gifted children; differential needs of gifted children of different levels;
Keywords: exceptionally gifted, giftedness, Giuseppe Corrente, highly gifted, profoundly gifted.
An Interview with Giuseppe Corrente on Interest in Gifted Children and Gifted Education, and the Needs of the Gifted, Highly Gifted, Exceptionally Gifted, and Profoundly Gifted (Part Two)[1],[2]*
*Please see the footnotes, bibliography, and citation style listing after the interview.*
1. Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Thank you for the Part One to provide an insight into the developments of the personal story. As you have an interest in gifted education, how does the developmental trajectory of a gifted child differ from a non-gifted child?
Dr. Giuseppe Corrente: This is not my field properly, but from a couple of years, being a teacher and a temporary university professor, I have an interest in all education theories. In particular, I have since 2017 been a member of a High IQ Society, and since that time I understand better, also rewinding my personal history from this point of view, that high IQ people need particular attention in a psychological and educational way. One commonplace is that if one is clever than others he is stronger, this is not true! He has some stronger points but he also may present some critical points. Indeed, the interaction between him and the surrounding environment can cause different contrasts and misunderstandings to both.
2. Jacobsen: How does the traumatic upbringing, for you, influence the personal perspective on the needs of the gifted?
Corrente: My personal history is full of psychological violence in the family and in the company, above all the first company for which I worked. The situation, in that case, was not clear because the fact that I was contrasted it was because the education style of my father was excessively strong and people around him did not know the real reason for that. There were two main reasons; first of all, as recently proved, he was not my natural father; secondary he was invidious of my intelligence. Some people thought that he was not confident about me for something about me of wrong; and so, this abstract supposition originated also as an environmental and job mobbing.
However very clever people very often have problems like this; not ever in the same manner, or not ever for the same reasons, or not with the same path, but there are different possibilities that a high IQ person can empower some contrast or difficulty already existent, without awareness of the whole situation.
3. Jacobsen: What are the recognized labels and levels (with standard deviations and IQ scores) for gifted children?
Corrente: The good tests for measuring high IQ do not give only a final index, IQ, but also different components, for example verbal, numeric, spatial, etc. It is also the difference between a component and another and not only the total IQ, that can give an idea of if this can be also heavy and not only a vantage.
One of the most recognized high IQ tests for gifted educational purpose is WISC IV, as I have said before, it takes into account the different components of intelligence, for example: full-scale IQ (it is the final total result), verbal comprehension, perceptual reasoning, working memory, and processing speed.
I think a good classification may be: 125-129 superior intelligence, 130-144 gifted, 145-159 highly gifted, 160-174 exceptionally gifted, more than 175 profoundly gifted; all in standard deviation 15.
Take into account that while 1 over about 100 persons is gifted, only 1 over about 25,000 is exceptionally gifted, and almost none is profoundly gifted.
4. Jacobsen: What are the differential needs of children at each level?
Corrente: For superior intelligent and gifted, I think it is possible using few special didactic methods in the class if it is not too numerous, without the need of special classes for gifted; for example, using cooperative learning stimulating socialization but also giving the gifted more difficult objectives and encouraging him to expose his results to others.
For exceptionally and profoundly gifted the question is fully different in my opinion, and would be necessary special classes for them, or simply to admit that a great part of them has no need for schools.
Anyway, it is very important to note that one gifted over three is an underachiever, so the study of gifted education is very useful both for the whole society.
A gifted, comprising highly, exceptional, and profound gifted, has a high probability to become an underachiever if the components of is IQ differ sensibly each other.
I think that for a lot of them it is very important also correct psychological support.
In my experience, it is very difficult to find psychologists specialized in this. If one gifted has also contrasts of different nature, above all some years ago but also now, it is very probable that the psychologist makes many errors if does not understand he is a high IQ person and how this fact interacts with others.
5. Jacobsen: What are the true signs and true proxies of the different labels of gifted children?
Corrente: For gifted children, I do not know, for gifted in general I suppose is as follows.
For a superior intelligent person, he can learn faster than the mean person and this gives him a vantage among others in almost all careers, and also other life affairs. When if he becomes aware of this he will be ambitious or not, second of his character.
For a gifted and highly gifted, it is almost the same as gifted, but if he is a particular passion for a matter, and he has the possibility to dedicate himself to it, he can become a genius in that discipline. Moreover, he does not see the things as absolute or in a dogmatic way, but he thinks critically and he notes before than others if something is wrong above all in the matter subjects of his competence but also in other or more general questions. His critical way of thinking may give him some problems or not depending on the context and society in which he lives, above all if he does not manage his intuitions and criticism well. This interval is simple for me to analyze because it is the mine. Maybe, he is not a genius, but only a very skilled professional. He also can switch from his competence domain to others and become skilled in more disciplines without many difficulties. If in their childhood they have some integration contrast they will become easily underachiever, so it is possible also that his great potential remains unused.
For exceptionally or profoundly gifted we are speaking of persons so much different from mean people that is not correct to do generalizations; in my opinion, we can only study their way of reasoning individually. We are thinking of persons with a unique way of thinking.
6. Jacobsen: Who are some examples of the most gifted young people in the 19th through the early 21st centuries? Some mention John Stuart Mill in centuries past as a forced into extraordinary giftedness child.
Corrente: As already said for extremely gifted people we cannot trace in my opinion easily common traits. Someone of them has a very stable character and someone other has serious psychological or also legal problems.
A very clear example of this fact are two very different as characters, chess world champions: Kasparov and Fisher. Both were profoundly gifted. However, the first is a very squared man, and in spite of his political contestation against Russia’s Putin, can be considered a very equilibrated and successful man. In my opinion, he cannot suffer some things that are wrong in his social context, but he manages his ideas and his contrasts in a very high awareness and mature way. Fisher instead was a semi-asocial person that had a great passion for chess that dominated all his life. Perhaps he was Asperger, surely he had some features of this mental illness, not unusual for gifted or profoundly gifted. He had a lot of contrast with USA government and probably not for important questions, if he had a better character, or, as I suppose, if he would have managed better his criticism, or second someone his paranoid suspicious and suppositions, surely he spent a better life.
If I rethink the question they lived in periods successive to Stuart Mill, anyway thinking to his times I want to cite Gauss and Galois, more near to my interests than Mill. All they were almost surely profoundly gifted. Gauss was the most affirmed and brilliant math genius of his time, well balanced in his life. Galois was not famous, but he was very brilliant, he developed all alone a fully new math branch that also today is the base of many important math theories. All this in a few years because of his premature death. As Gauss was balanced, he was a strongly political revolutionary and at same time was a very deeply women lover. He was killed in a duel for this reason.
Appendix I: Footnotes
[1] Ph.D. (2013), Science and High Technology – Computer Science, Torino University.
[2] Individual Publication Date: March 22, 2020: http://www.in-sightjournal.com/corrente-two; Full Issue Publication Date: May 1, 2020: https://in-sightjournal.com/insight-issues/.
*High range testing (HRT) should be taken with honest skepticism grounded in the limited empirical development of the field at present, even in spite of honest and sincere efforts. If a higher general intelligence score, then the greater the variability in, and margin of error in, the general intelligence scores because of the greater rarity in the population.
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