Nurturing the gifted

Gifted children can feel isolated and lonely but parents and teachers are meeting the needs of some of the Waikato's most talented students

Waikato Times

The first thing you notice are the dark intelligent eyes, behind round-framed glasses.

Then there are the hands, and those precious fingers.

Thirteen-year-old Santiago `Santi' Canon Valencia has long elegant fingers which fly across the strings of his cello. The left hand is distinctly bigger than the right, evolved through years of stretching across the neck of the instrument, while the right hand gently cradles the bow.

Afternoon sunlight streams into the Hillcrest home of his music teacher James Tennant, as the lively staccato notes wrap a spell around the room. Santi, from Bogota, Columbia, is being tutored by Tennant, a senior lecturer at Waikato University and is living with Tennant and his wife, concert pianist Katherine Austin and their daughter Elani, 10.

Santi moves the bow and his fingers frenetically, playing Dance of the Elves, a light, sprightly piece.

Dressed like any other teenager, in loosely laced Vans and denim jeans, you wouldn't know, to look at him, that Santi, with his mop of shoulder-length dark hair, is a child prodigy, until he begins to play.

Music insiders say he could become one of the top five or six cello players in the world.

Since he was four-and-a-half, the Columbian teenager has been playing the cello, encouraged by his musical parents. Like many gifted children, his talent was spotted young, and has been nurtured by his family and teachers.

But kids who excel beyond their peers, whether in music, maths, science, art or any other field, often have a burden to bear along with their brilliance. It can be an isolating, frustrating position. Some get bored at school and play up, while others find it hard to make friends with children their own age. Streaks ahead of their peers, gifted children have special needs.

But should they be pushed? How do parents and teachers best nurture their talent, but still let kids be kids, even if they are junior geniuses?

IT WAS ALMOST fate that Santiago would become a musical talent.

His father Ricardo Canon plays clarinet with the Bogata Philharmonic Orchestra in Colombia while Santi's older sister Natalia, 18, is a violinist on scholarship at a United States university.

"Before Santi was born, I told my husband, I want our child to play the cello," says his mother, Rocio Valencia Quijan, who is with her son in New Zealand.

Rocio, an accomplished cellist, first introduced her son to the cello at four and a half. "The cello was a bit big for him," recalls Rocio. "I gave him a bow and said, `okay Santi, hold the bow' and he did it so naturally. It's difficult to do that, even for kids six or eight. When I saw that, I said to myself, `he's different'."

At five he played his first public concert. At six he entered his first competition, against kids more than twice his age, and came second.

Santi's playing is now seen as quite extraordinary, especially given his age. He plays with the kind of beauty that stops you dead in your tracks in a stranger's kitchen, transfixed by the aching nuances of the music, and the fluttering joy of the fingerwork.

The jug is on, bread is on the bench, the pool outside is murky green and in need of a clean. But the music, light and energetic, transforms the house into Carnegie Hall. And one day he could be performing there.

Tennant says Santi's talent is phenomenal and his potential boundless.

"He's very special. To be able to play some of this music so easily is exceptionally rare. They are talking about him like Yo-Yo Ma (the acclaimed French-born American cellist), but he's only 13. He can play anything. A cello teacher friend of mine from Canterbury University said she has never seen anyone who can play as fast."

Santi studies online and does his homework in the evening. During the day, he will practice the cello about four hours.

But there is still time to play, and to be a kid. He'll race outside and kick around a soccer ball. He likes to skateboard, to play computer games.

Tennant is more like an older brother than a teacher, as they throw a ball back and forth across the kitchen. Rocio says they are like family to her and Santi.

Finding a balance is important for the young prodigy. Although he had offers of scholarships from US and London universities, Rocio thought New Zealand offered the best environment for her son. "We prefer that his talent doesn't mean we sacrifice his stability," says Rocio.

"A lot of very talented South American musicians go to the US on scholarships, then go off the rails, get into drugs, it's sad," says Tennant. Rocio has always been aware of managing her son's gift, and his emotional needs.

Before his first live performance, at five, she helped prepare Santi for his debut. "I organised all the dolls around the table," says Rocio. "I didn't know how he would react with an audience, so we lined all the stuffed toys and dolls up, a silent audience. Then he would go, walk out with his cello, bow, and many times he did that." With success comes sacrifice. The family is scattered around the world, pursuing musical dreams. "I am here and my poor husband is alone (in Bogota)," says Rocio."We talk everyday via Skype online, but it's not the same. It's a very good opportunity for Santi."

ABOUT 5 PER CENT of the population are considered gifted, although the top two per cent are "profoundly gifted," says Louise Rogers, president of the Waikato Association for Gifted Children (WAGC), an organisation which supports parents and families.

It's not always easy to be gifted, says Rogers. "(Gifted kids) are more likely to struggle at school. They can find it hard to socialise. If you are in a class with 30 children, the likelihood of finding someone in the class like you is about zero. In a school of 100, it's two kids."

Consequently, naturally gifted children can feel isolated or lonely. There can be bullying from other children, if the child stands out.

For years Rogers thought her eldest son Sam, who is gifted, was just "being naughty" and acting up in class. "We'd had six years of struggling to get him to school, and he was crying himself to sleep because school was the next day," says Rogers. "It was hard to make friends, and he was so distressed, that we finally took him out of school and home-schooled him." Sam, now 23, is doing his PhD in bio-chemical engineering in Australia.

There is no universally accepted definition of giftedness, says Waikato University education professor Roger Moltzen.

"In New Zealand we tend to view it as performance or potential for performance that is significantly advanced for their age compared with their same-age peers," says Moltzen, who is an expert in the field of gifted and talented children.

A child can be gifted in any area, whether intellectual, academic, creative, arts, sports or leadership.

A child prodigy is a "special type of giftedness" says Moltzen.

"It is generally seen as a child tending to perform at an expert adult level at a young age, so it is a subgroup of giftedness. Usually the term prodigy is used to describe children up to about 11, and has been identified often in mathematics, music and chess."

Moltzen says in the last 10 years there has been a phenomenal rise in interest in the field of gifted education in New Zealand. "We've gone from very little nationally, to an increasingly supportive system in our schools."

From 2005, the Education Ministry made changes to the National Administration Guidelines (NAGs) making it mandatory for all state and state-integrated schools to show they are meeting needs of gifted and talented learners.

A new organisation, giftEDnz, has just been set up to as a resource and support network for teachers. Roger Moltzen is on the steering committee, along with Hamilton Boys High School headmaster Susan Hassall.

"There is a whole need for gifted children to be treated differently," says Hassall, who is also on the Education Ministry's advisory group on gifted education.

"They need to be motivated to realise their potential. I think gifted children are often hard done by. Often, in schools, they are seen as easy to teach, but they're not. You have to pour more energy into it.

"One of our most highly gifted students was considered to have `learning support needs' in primary school," says Hassall. "He was our dux a few years back, and he was just not performing (in primary school) because he was so bored, but so able."

In some cases, it is about helping the child recognise their gifts, and feel proud of them. In adolescence, some gifted children want to suppress their talents to fit in with peers. "People might think you are being elitist (by accelerating gifted kids), but you are meeting the needs of the child," says Hassall. "Every student needs to be pushed, but we also need to retain their passion."

Hamilton Boys High School, with 1800 boys on the roll, has four advanced classes of 100 boys at Year Nine level, and the very top class is made up of 15 highly gifted boys.

"They are a mix, into everything from art to music to maths," says Hassall. "It is lovely to see them all come together, they bounce off each other like a pin-ball machine, and the teacher is really more of a facilitator."

 

OVER AT the Bastion household in Dinsdale, it's almost time for dinner.

Parents David and Natasha are serving up vegetables and chicken, and sons Christopher, 13, and Matthew, 12, are helping out, while their younger sisters Hannah, six, and Katherine, four, watch cartoons.

It's a typical busy bustling household on a weekday night.

But look closer, and there are signs the Bastion kids are something special.

On the walls are paintings, done by Matthew. There is a moody landscape of the Rangitikei River near Taihape, and a colour abstract piece reminiscent of a Jackson Pollock.

Last year he was selected to represent New Zealand at the International Child Art Foundation's Art Olympiad in Washington, DC. Matthew raised more than $10,000 selling his paintings, and has since been invited to exhibit in Auckland and at three Waikato galleries. He has also received a scholarship to go to St Patrick's College in Silverstream, Wellington, which has a good arts programme.

People as far away as Christchurch and Dunedin have requested commissions, and he's earning $500 to $1200 per painting.

An amazing talent, Matthew is also pretty good when it comes to schoolwork. "I'm good at everything," says Matthew honestly. He's not being cocky, just telling the truth. "Except spelling," he adds. "I suck at spelling." Giftedness seems to run in the Bastion family.

Older brother Chris is a smart cookie. At 11, he got level one NCEA in all subjects.

There were early signs he might be gifted. "He was asking me questions as a five-year-old I didn't know the answer to," says mum Natasha, no intellectual slouch herself, a commerce and accounting teacher at Hamilton Boys High School. "There were science questions about black holes and matter. But we were really lucky, he could read, and he read all the time." There seems to be a link between giftedness and language development.

The Bastions might have another gifted kid on their hands. Their eldest daughter Hannah, six, didn't speak until she was three, preferring to nod or murmur yes and no, soaking it all in. "Then one day, out of the blue, she said to me, `Mummy, do flowers go to sleep at night?'," says Natasha. "She just turned three and that was the first thing she said." The Bastions say they are led by the children, and prefer not to push them. "It's whatever they want to do," says Natasha. If the schools don't offer what the children want, they look to other opportunities. Matthew is being mentored by artist Julie Oliver in Mangaweka, and will go to art workshops with her during school holidays.

Marian Catholic School, where the middle kids attend, is supportive and nurturing of their children, says Natasha.

Chris, at St Peter's School in Cambridge, has chosen to stay with his peer level, and has turned down an opportunity to be mentored in mathematics by a university professor. If he wanted to, Chris could be at university, but he wants to be with his friends. "The social value is more important than academic, and he has lots of friends and does drama and music and all the usual things 13-year-olds do," says Dave.

The Bastions say there are more important things in life than being gifted. "They all come home with good report cards and get As," says Natasha. "But at the end of it, are you a good person? Are you a good friend? It's more important to be kind and thoughtful and humble and a good friend."

Waikato Association for Gifted Children: President Louise Rogers, 07 859 9416.

New Zealand Association of Gifted Children: www.giftedchildren.org.nz.

GiftEDnz, the Professional Association for Gifted Eduction: www.giftednz.org.nz.

Santiago Canon Valencia performs in concert at the Wel Energy Trust Academy of Performing Arts on Thursday November 13, from 7pm. Tickets $30 for adults, $15 for students.