Many ways to be gifted

Recently my father in law passed away. Max was a rare man of many talents. He grew up and was educated in a small country school. His hand writing was pretty difficult to read, his spelling wasn’t great and I am pretty sure his school reports weren’t glowing with regards to his academic aptitude. Max left High school at 16 and being good with his hands, started a carpentry apprenticeship.

Max was inquisitive and went on to be highly successful, developing a wide array of skills, earning a long list of awards and accolades and making discoveries that changed our history books. By any measure he was a very smart and successful man.

But how was this if he didn’t shine at school?

Smart comes in many guises.

By practical application of his ability to look afresh at things and see the connections between ideas, Max was a discoverer and one who earned public recognition. At one point I recent times his business card declared him to be an ‘adventurer’.

He was the first man to dive on the ship wreck of the Batavia which had lain for 334 years below the sea off the Western Australian coast. By setting aside assumptions and looking with fresh eyes at the information available and then applying the information in a practical way to the world he realised that others were looking in the wrong place. (see Islands of Angry Ghosts by Hugh Edwards for more of that story).

With the same sort of thinking he co-led a small expedition to Dirk Hartog Island in January 1998 which located the French coin left by the French in 1772 along with the proclamation of possession of WA by the French. He found the information he needed to pinpoint the search location in a child’s book in the local library and the team had picked up the artifact containing the coin within 20 minutes of beginning their search. (The Museum with much greater resources had made a number of unsuccessful expeditions prior to his search).

The fresh and creative way he looked at every day problems and nutted out solutions was a real talent. Perseverance and the willingness to research thoroughly was a skill he cultivated especially when some projects extended over many years. The wisdom to know when to ignore expectations was perhaps also a valuable skill. Max was still working on some projects, in one case pursuing a theory he felt strongly convinced of, although it was contrary to popular opinion. Time will tell on that project.

Robert Sternberg’s view is that giftedness requires more than just high IQ. That Wisdom, Intelligence, Creativity and the synthesis of these traits (he refers to it as WICS) are needed. He refers to this as Applied Intelligence and his research has shown that students with this range of characteristics do far better in College than those who gain entry on IQ alone.

I would be guessing but it is quite likely that they also fare better in real life.

If you would like to find out more about the adventures of Max, you might enjoy his biography Treasures, Tragedies and Triumphs of the Batavia Coast by Max Cramer (available in some libraries and various places in and around Geraldton)