Yesterday morning my Indian friend told me about his choice to keep her daughter in the 'normal' class in school, despite being chosen to be in the 'gifted' programme. He wanted her daughter to mingle with 'normal' students, study normally and enjoy the little things in life. So there were no late nights studying for school and she went to bed at 9pm every night. Unlike most other kids in Singapore, there was also no home tuition after school.
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Incidentally, later in the evening, my South African friend told me a very similar story. In her case, when they first came to Singapore, the school principal didn't think that this new African student (her daughter) will make any difference to the school overall grades, and she was put in a 'normal' class. So, when my friend's daughter did famously well in her exams, the principal and the teachers were stunned. They then offered her daughter a place in the 'gifted' programme, but she rejected it, as she too wanted her daughter to live a normally and enjoy school.
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As the school went on, in both cases, the girls excelled and topped their cohort. Both the principals wondered how a 'non-gifted' child could do better academically than the 'gifted' children in the 'gifted' classes.
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These two cases taught me that no matter how school, family or society categorises someone, e are who we want to be, and if one essentially has the belief, one would achieve that belief.
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