It is easy to list what poor, underprivileged children need. But what of competent privileged children? What more do smart and talented kids need?
‘Giftedness’ is generally defined as having an Intelligence Quotient (IQ) higher than 130 and indicates the potential for high achievement throughout life. Such people make up about 5% of the population.
However, there is more to giftedness than simply increased intelligence. There is also the general heightening of all the senses, bringing an acute awareness of touch, hearing, sight, smell and taste, making such children particularly sensitive to all forms of stimulation.
There is also a more complex process when dealing with information. All the different options and ramifications must be carefully thought through before decisive action can be taken. And the perfect outcome is desired – nothing less.
The gifted child will have an “atypical development throughout the lifespan in terms of awareness, perceptions, emotional responses and life experiences”. That is, the gifted person will always experience life differently and so they will have a different interpretation of life. So they are likely to do things differently as well.
According to the experts, gifted children may be characterised by these indications: unusual alertness, long attention span, high activity level, less need for sleep, keen sense of observation, extreme curiosity, excellent memory, advanced progression through developmental milestones, early onset of language, intense interest in books, rapid learning ability, sensitivity, both emotional and physical, intensity, preference for older companions, abstract reasoning and so on.
These characteristics of smart and talented children may lead to unhappiness in the child because it is a sad fact that other children tend to dislike the smart and talented child, who in turn is bored and frustrated by being grouped with his/her age cohort.
That may lead to ostracism and bullying. Such behaviour may even be reinforced by teachers, who in general are not gifted. The gifted child may become threatening in return, or may withdraw emotionally and fail in school because in truth it fails him/her. Such a child must be assisted to discover his/her own value and significance.
Therefore what such children need is recognition at an early age, sufficient stimulation and challenge to engage their faculties, opportunities to excel, acceptance, support and encouragement together with parental security to allow the development of a healthy self-esteem and a sense of personal significance.
Parents of gifted children usually have a real struggle to have their children appropriately tested and identified, then more years of struggle to get them appropriate schooling, and always the personal struggle of trying to help someone ‘fit in’ to a generally non-intellectual society that worships sports but who simply never will. In the country with the Tall Poppy Syndrome the gifted suffer even more than in cultures where intelligence is lauded.
Ironically the gifted child’s needs are much the same as a child with impairment (hearing, sight) and learning disability such as dyslexia. This is true also of children from a deprived background.
In my first inner Melbourne ministry, I had many young criminals on probation. They had broken into homes, stolen property, gone joy riding, wrecked other people’s cars, and smashed up public property. Most came from a large housing estate, with poor education, inadequate family support, and low self image. Yet they wanted other people to notice them.
So they committed very obvious crimes to draw attention to themselves. This meant they were always caught, giving them even greater public exposure, and when the local papers wrote horrifying stories of their vandalism and destruction, they were delighted!
Joe stopped at the public phone boxes outside the post office, and with his bare fist, smashed every pane of glass. Reg stole cars, stripped their parts and sold them to panel beaters. Leigh took the mufflers from his car and drove it past the police station making the loudest of noises. Barry, at fourteen, knifed a man in the stomach and ripped open his whole ribcage leaving him dead on the floor. They would do anything to attract attention, even if they had to pay for it in jail. For seven years they were among my first parish.
As part of my rehabilitation of these young men, I produced dramas. It was difficult. Once I said to Trevor, “I want you to play the part of a crippled boy in this drama. He has a twisted leg. It is a very important part. In fact he is the key character.” “You really mean that?” “Sure, you will be the leading actor.” He turned to his mates and shouted across the church hall; “Hey everybody, I’m going to be somebody!”
Trevor never realised the implications of what he was saying. The part he played was that of a boy who was physically crippled and who let his disability twist his whole outlook upon life and destroy all his relationships. Punishment would only make his behaviour worse. When his disability was healed, he had a new self image and a new sense of personal significance. Then he made a contribution to society. When he was right inside, he became right with the world. For now he was not a nobody, but a somebody.
The parallel was close to the boys. Gradually they began to see that through faith in Jesus Christ, their twisted lives could be healed, and they could find a new self image and sense of personal significance. Trevor was the first of all of those boys to commit his life to Jesus Christ, and to be baptised. They were no longer nobodies. They were somebodies! They were sons of God, right with God, and so right with the world.
Many advocate tackling the problem of destructive people with more punishment, greater restriction and increased intimidation. To the person with low self-esteem these condemnations and threats only reinforce their own opinion of themselves and make them worse. Ultimately we never improve society by stressing better standards of outward behaviour until we improve the person within. All social improvement comes from moral commitment.
That is why the two tables of the Ten Commandments are in order we are to put God first, worship Him alone, not take the name of the Lord in vain, worship Him weekly then honour our parents, respect human life, fulfil sexual relationships, and not steal, lie or envy others. If we are right inside, we behave correctly. If our motivation is right, our actions are right. Jesus put them in the right order: “The most important commandment is: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second most important commandment is this: ‘Love your neighbour as you love yourself.’” (Mark 12:29 30)
Attempts to put social behaviour right without first changing the heart are doomed to failure. Atheistic communism tries to build a society without first renewing people spiritually, so it will always be a failure. Better people before a better world!
When we help people become new in Christ, we build a new self image and new relationship with others. This is fundamental to the future of our society. That is why evangelism accompanying social welfare is correct. Huge amounts of Government money is wasted improving social environments without changing the inside of the same people who go back into their new world and wreck it. I saw a generation of slum dwellers removed from their dreadful accommodation, and then later put back into the new high-rise concrete blocks of flats the Government built. The same people, unchanged, soon turned their new accommodation into high-rise slums. (We will look more closely at this in a later study.)
No indigenous race of people on earth suffer from such low self esteem as our Koori people. Their national sense of significance will never rise high until they have rights to education, employment, income, pensions, opportunity, land ownership as the rest of the Australian community. But none of these, including land rights, will of themselves, change their lot.
There must be spiritual renewal within the people to give them a sense of pride and identity which then will be seen in the use of their education, employment opportunities, income, pensions and land. Individual Aborigines have demonstrated that a sense of their own significance had enabled them to make a positive contribution to their own people and the rest of us.
Without inner significance every other benefit is squandered. So Family First supports the teaching of Aboriginal languages, culture, and skills, and encourages Christian Aborigines in showing the black community they no longer need be nobodies, but can become somebodies. Until a national recovery of spirit occurs possessions of every kind will be wasted. This isn’t an Aboriginal problem, but a human characteristic. Everyone needs to feel significant. Every nobody must become a somebody.
1. Everybody needs to feel they are significant
People do not have equal opportunities or abilities, but they have an equal need to feel significant. When children play, each one of them wants to be the captain, and to boast of their father’s importance. In my wartime childhood, just about every other child’s father was a general! My father was not in the Army, so I made up the tale that he was the boss of the police! So much more status than a pastry cook and baker!
Adults surround themselves with status symbols to create the image of significance through the abundance of their possessions. Older people seek reassurance of their continuing significance from their adult children, by saying, “Never mind me, I’m only your poor old mother. Go ahead and enjoy yourselves. Don’t care for me”. That is a desperate cry for reassurance of personal significance.
People suffering personal inferiority overcompensate by grasping for power and authority. The short, failed paperhanger who never rose above an army lieutenant, organised huge rallies where he could shout to the masses; “Look at me. I’m somebody!” and the crowds shouted back; “Heil Hitler! Hail Hitler!” Professor Alfred Adler said personal significance is a basic need in all of us.
2. Everybody tries somehow to be significant
Our need is simple but our methods of meeting it are complex. My street lads felt significant when, like a child lying on the floor kicking his heels in rage, they indulged in attention getting behaviour.
So is the woman who goes to a party in an absurdly low cut dress. Parties are the environment where many exaggerate their behaviour, lie about their achievements, and compete with one another over their significance. One woman, tired by the strain of people constantly trying to make impressions on others, sank wearily next to a little man who looked uncomfortable as he mopped his brow: “Thank heavens I’ve found somebody who’s a nobody!”
T.S. Eliot in “The Cocktail Party” writes:
“Half the harm that is done in this world
Is due to people who want to feel important.
They do not mean to do harm
for harm does not interest them,
Or they do not see it, or they justify it
Because they are absorbed with the endless struggle
To think well of themselves.”
Others feel significant when they surround themselves with social props, trying to find significance through status symbols. Others build up their sense of personal significance by magnifying difficulties they have overcome, or minimising resources they had at their disposal, both tactics designed to magnify their own contribution. Whatever the method, we each need to feel we are a somebody rather than a nobody.
3. Everybody can discover their true significance
It is possible to realise your own true significance. It does not come by your efforts to pump yourself up. That makes you look ridiculous: a frog in danger of exploding. Significance is discovered when we realise our own inadequacy and our utter dependence upon others and especially God.
Lorene was a young teenager in school who was very withdrawn from other students. She was completely isolated. She had bad eczema and acne on her face, and her kind English teacher took an interest in her.
He found out she was drinking alcohol alone in her bedroom. The teacher, Morris Morrison, spent time with her, helping her to understand poetry. She began to respond and co operate with Mr Morrison when she read two lines from Emily Dickinson: “I’m Nobody! Who are you? Are you Nobody too?” In discovering that others were lonely and feeling insignificant, she found solace, and the start of recovery.
When we realise that we are nobodies, we leave enough room inside of ourselves for God to do His work. He made us. He loves us. And He wants us to be His very own.
Our importance lies not in our possessions, our achievements or our status. Kick away all of our props, our home, our job, our stimulants, our friendships, our status, our degrees and honours, accomplishments and awards and what is there left? Only what you are! Only the significance that God places upon you counts.
Some people will want to achieve personal worth and significance by leaving God out of the picture. But that just re-starts the cycle of using things to achieve significance. We have become a Somebody, not by what we possess, but by Who possesses us. We become a Somebody not because of our birth, but because of our re birth. We become a Somebody, not because of what we hold, but because of Who holds us.
We are creatures of God, made by Him. But through redemption we are recreated, born anew, as Jesus described it, so that we were no longer creatures of God but His children. We have been adopted into the family of God and made heirs of God, and joint heirs with the Son. We have been bought with a price, the life of Jesus. We have been redeemed not with corruptible things such as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Jesus.
Centuries ago, a derelict, ill man, found in the streets, was taken before some surgeons who decided to experiment upon him. They spoke in their cultured Latin to each other: “What shall we do with this worthless fellow?” The frail man looked up at them, and said in equally cultured tones, “Call no man worthless for whom Christ died.” No one is insignificant whom the Son of God loves. He loved me, and gave Himself for me”, gasped an amazed Paul.
You are no longer a nobody! You are Somebody! Jesus loves you.
What does God require of us? People make up their own lists. Centuries ago Micah faced the same issue. What did the Lord require of Him? Sacrificial offerings, atonement for his sins, gifts to appease the Lord or bribes to win His favour? (Mic 6:6 
“What the Lord requires is this: to do what is just, to show constant love, and to live in humble fellowship with our God.”
Nothing more is needed. We do not need a sacrifice, for Jesus is our sacrifice. We do not need an atonement for our sins, ‘for Christ has for sin atonement made’ as the old hymn says. What is required of us is that we practise justice, show love, and live in fellowship with God. That is required of each of us.
Even from those among us who are smart and talented. You may boast of your possessions, flaunt your talent, and shame the rest of us because you are so smart – and still be a nobody! Hear the good news: through your faith in Christ you can be changed from “Nobody” into “Somebody”!
The modern adaptation of Miguel Cervantes’ classic novel Don Quixote, in the musical The Man of La Mancha, beautifully illustrates the gospel of Jesus Christ. The author Dale Wasserman portrayed the ideal One as Don Quixote. The Man of La Mancha sees this harlot, this whore, this Mary Magdalene. Aldonza is her name. She’s a waitress by day and a prostitute by night. She serves the drunken camel drivers. The Man of La Mancha says to this whore, “My Lady.” She looks at him and exclaims, “Lady?” Some camel driver makes a pass at her and she squeals … laughs. The Man of La Mancha says, “Yes, you are My Lady, and I shall give you a new name. I shall call you Dulcinea. You are My Lady, My Lady, Dulcinea.”
Once, in distress, not comprehending him, when they are alone, she says, “Why do you do and say these things? Why do you treat me the way you do? What do you want from me? I know men. I’ve seen them all. I’ve had them all. They’re all the same. They all want something from me. Why do you call me Dulcinea? Why do you call me your Lady? What do you want?” He says, “I just want to call you what you are. .. You are My Lady, Dulcinea.”
Later there is a horrible scene backstage. You hear screams and she runs onto the stage. She has been cruelly raped. She is crying, hysterical, dirty and dishevelled.
Her blouse has been torn off and her skirt is ripped. He sees her and says compassionately, “My Lady, Dulcinea. Oh, My Lady, My Lady.” She cries. “Don’t call me a Lady. Oh God, don’t call me a Lady. Can’t you see me for what I am? I was born in a ditch by a mother who left me there naked and cold, too hungry to cry. I never blamed her. She left me there hoping I’d have the good sense to die. Don’t call me a Lady. I’m only a kitchen slut, reeking with sweat. I’m only a whore men use and forget. Don’t call me your Lady. I’m only Aldonza. I am nothing at all.” She runs into the night as he calls, “But you are My lady.” The curtain drops.
The curtain rises on the last act. The Man of La Mancha is dying, like our Lord, from a broken heart, despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
To his deathbed comes a Spanish noble-lady with a mantilla of lace. She kneels, makes the sign of the cross, and prays. He opens his eyes and says. “Who are you?” She replies, “My Lord, don’t you remember? You sang your song to me, don’t you remember?
“To dream the impossible dream,
to fight the unbeatable foe,
to bear the unbearable sorrow,
to run where the brave dare not go.
To right the unrightable wrong,
to love pure and chaste from afar,
To try when your arms are too weary,
to reach the unreachable star!..’ My Lord, don’t you remember? You gave me a new name, you called me Dulcinea. I am your Lady.”
She stands proudly. His faith in her made her a brand new person. She became what he said she was. She had discovered her own self-worth and significance.
So Jesus Christ has loved you, has faith in you, has called you to leave your old ways. He believes in you, and has died upon a cross to forgive you of your sins.
What is required of you is more than your talent and intellect. We are to demonstrate justice, show love, and live in fellowship with God. Hear the good news: you can be changed from “Nobody” into “Somebody”!
You must respond to Him in humble faith and become the person He intends you to be, a child of God.
Rev the Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes AC MLC