Teo, Chua Tee

This study hypothesizes that intellectually gifted adolescents in the Gifted Education Programme (GEP) in Singapore who had greater preference for perception would tend to perform less well academically owing to an inability to focus and a tendency to be easily distracted by elements in the classroom environment. Subjects were all secondary one GEP pupils in three independent schools (N=239). Academic performance was captured in terms of overall end-of-year examination results. Results of linear regression indicate a significant but negative correlation between academic achievement and perception scores. Implications of the study, together with contributions from teachers of the subjects, are discussed with respect to the perceptive trait of the gifted pupils.

This study seeks to identify personality characteristics including intellectual inclination, personality and creative-thinking ability of a group of graduate student teachers who, on their own volition, opted to take an initialization course in Gifted Education as one of the electives leading to a Postgraduate Diploma in Education-Secondary (PGDE-S) at the National Institute of Education, Singapore. The control group consisted of PGDE-S student teachers who chose another elective. Personality attributes of the subjects, like extraversion-introversion, sensing-thinking, thinking-feeling and judgment-perception, were captured using the "Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (Form G)", while the degree of creative thinking was assessed using the "How Do You Think?" inventory. Results of two independent tests indicated that the mean creative thinking score and the mean overall results for the experimental group were significantly higher than the controls. Also, more subjects in the experimental group were extraverted, intuitive and thinking. This study serves as a prototype for the systematic identification of graduate student teachers to teach the academically gifted in Singapore.

With the advent of a new millennium, new forms of education are needed to meet the exigencies of the times. This paper proposes to include human education, specifically the education on self-knowledge, in the school curriculum as a catalyst to speed up the development of gifts and talents and hence the realisation of human potential. The entire series of self- knowledge lessons include knowledge of the gifted pupil’s character composition, brain functioning preferences and intellectual attributes, moral and volitional attributes, social abilities, and other personal and interpersonal skills. A total of 497 Primary 5 pupils in nine schools hosting the Gifted Education Programme (GEP) in Singapore were taught a series of self-knowledge lessons over a one-year period. This paper will discuss the profiles of the gifted pupils in terms of their preferred hemispheric functioning and how such awareness could enhance their academic performance.

Since time immemorial, education has facilitated the development of civilisation and progress with the teaching of scientific and literary knowledge in schools. As the human race becomes more and more globalised, new forms of education are needed to meet the exigencies of the times. This paper proposes to include human education, specifically the education on self-knowledge, in the school curriculum as a catalyst to speed up the development of gifts and talents and hence the realisation of human potential. A total of 497 Primary 5 pupils in the Gifted Education Programme (GEP) in Singapore were taught a series of self-knowledge lessons. These lessons included instruction on the character make-up, intellectual functioning, volitional attributes, social abilities, and other personal skills.

True loss is for one whose days have been spent in utter ignorance of the self. The acquisition of self-knowledge is pertinent to the development of inner and ideal virtues of all cognitive beings. It is only when empowered with such conscious knowledge that the human race could be fully developed and civilization brought to greater heights. The role of self-knowledge for youths in building a knowledge-based society like Singapore cannot be denied. This study serves as a prelude to the education of children on self-knowledge, beginning with gifted pupils. Gifted pupils in nine GEP schools were taught to develop self-knowledge. A checklist of 124 items on a 9-point Likert scale was devised and pilot-tested with 1145 Primary 4 to Primary 6 pupils in the Gifted Education Programme (GEP) in Singapore. Preliminary results of factor analyses present interesting findings for statisticians, teachers, gifted pupils and their parents.