I didn't have any clue about giftedness. It was not until my elder daughter assessed by Dr. Martha Morelock, a renowned scholar in profoundly gifted children. She is famous of her work with Dr. John Feldman in Tuft University. At that time, my daughter was six years old. My husband and I were doing our graduate school at the University of Melbourne. After the assessment, We were eager to look for resources from internet, books, research papers, expert articles, just from everywhere.
I was disappointed that there was not much except trade books, theories and popular models of thinking. There was almost nothing I could rely on for continuous support to optimize the development of my child as a gifted individual in Hong Kong.
Then I had to count on myself. Since then, I took several courses taught by Dr. Morelock in 1996. Later, I met Dr. Linda Silverman and did a summer school program learning from Linda about gifted development, assessment and counseling in 1997.
Gradually, I noticed something strange. In retrospect, my greatest passion had been learning. But this time, I found my study on the gifted development different from any learning experience I had before. It was not learning, it was a profoundly psychological experience consuming not simply my mental energy but also my heart and soul. A new level of consciousness unfolded and a different view about myself and the world emerged. The most amazing thing was seeing how my spirituality, psychological knowledge, personal growth and professional developments merge closer and closer. While I was reading the literature about exceptionally gifted, I was not reading. I was joining these gifted individuals. I was in them and they were in me. I had never been that close to my family, especially my grandpa and parents, because I could better understand the meaning of their life events and appreciate how unique their life journey turned out to be.
The whole experience of entering into the realm of gifted development is not simply eye-openning. It is life changing. I always give special thanks to Dr. Linda Silverman. She made me understand who I am and what I am aspired to be. She has been a significant life changing agent in my life.
When my family was about to leave Melbourne and relocate Hong Kong before the 1997 takeover, I made up my mind that I should be the ultimate advocate to my gifted daughter. I would be as resourceful as possible to make the support she needed access to her. In 1997, I started working with gifted children in Hong Kong and doing the groundwork for providing psychological and educational support to gifted children and their families. In 1998, Dr. Silverman accepted my request for her supervision and internship at her Gifted Development Center at Denver. She intruduced me to the summer program conducted by Professor Michael Piechowski on the emotional development of the gifted. The course was run at the Denver University. The course materials covered psychosynthesis and the longitudinal research on over-excitabilities of the gifted. Since then, I discovered how advanced emotional development was part of the gifted 'package' and that integrated with the spiritual growth lifting up to a new horizon of human development. At that level, the connection between human and universe would be experienced. Whereas the paradoxical thoughts resolved when humans experienced a complete connection with the universe that there was no such thing distinguishing 'id' from 'alter'. In one, conflicting views were not necessary because the utlimate truth is 'WE ARE ONE'.
The profound awareness of the gifted is the manifestation of the extraordinary developmental potentials within the gifted individuals. Therefore, the impact of giftedness should never be narrowed down into the intellectual ralm or reduced to behavioral level or measured performance. I believe that the impact of giftedness is by nature a 'big bang' taking place in a much much microscope level of the universe, within the humans. Its impact is meant to be affecting the whole world and lasting forever.
The psychospiritual dimensions of giftedness, that I learnt from the teaching of Dr. Piechowski, helped me see with my inner eye of love. That any work with the gifted, regardless how old they are, where they came from, what they did, and how they led their lives, is by nature a service of the heart and soul.
Whatsoever the gifted individuals came to us for, educational placement or any other support services they might want to know or get, their real need was hardly satisfied with the 'things'. 'targets', 'programs' or 'services'. Their real need is echoing, longing and quest for the true meaning of life. Such longing can't be fulfilled until there is a true encounter when spirit talks to spirit, soul touches soul.
I was disappointed that there was not much except trade books, theories and popular models of thinking. There was almost nothing I could rely on for continuous support to optimize the development of my child as a gifted individual in Hong Kong.
Then I had to count on myself. Since then, I took several courses taught by Dr. Morelock in 1996. Later, I met Dr. Linda Silverman and did a summer school program learning from Linda about gifted development, assessment and counseling in 1997.
Gradually, I noticed something strange. In retrospect, my greatest passion had been learning. But this time, I found my study on the gifted development different from any learning experience I had before. It was not learning, it was a profoundly psychological experience consuming not simply my mental energy but also my heart and soul. A new level of consciousness unfolded and a different view about myself and the world emerged. The most amazing thing was seeing how my spirituality, psychological knowledge, personal growth and professional developments merge closer and closer. While I was reading the literature about exceptionally gifted, I was not reading. I was joining these gifted individuals. I was in them and they were in me. I had never been that close to my family, especially my grandpa and parents, because I could better understand the meaning of their life events and appreciate how unique their life journey turned out to be.
The whole experience of entering into the realm of gifted development is not simply eye-openning. It is life changing. I always give special thanks to Dr. Linda Silverman. She made me understand who I am and what I am aspired to be. She has been a significant life changing agent in my life.
When my family was about to leave Melbourne and relocate Hong Kong before the 1997 takeover, I made up my mind that I should be the ultimate advocate to my gifted daughter. I would be as resourceful as possible to make the support she needed access to her. In 1997, I started working with gifted children in Hong Kong and doing the groundwork for providing psychological and educational support to gifted children and their families. In 1998, Dr. Silverman accepted my request for her supervision and internship at her Gifted Development Center at Denver. She intruduced me to the summer program conducted by Professor Michael Piechowski on the emotional development of the gifted. The course was run at the Denver University. The course materials covered psychosynthesis and the longitudinal research on over-excitabilities of the gifted. Since then, I discovered how advanced emotional development was part of the gifted 'package' and that integrated with the spiritual growth lifting up to a new horizon of human development. At that level, the connection between human and universe would be experienced. Whereas the paradoxical thoughts resolved when humans experienced a complete connection with the universe that there was no such thing distinguishing 'id' from 'alter'. In one, conflicting views were not necessary because the utlimate truth is 'WE ARE ONE'.
The profound awareness of the gifted is the manifestation of the extraordinary developmental potentials within the gifted individuals. Therefore, the impact of giftedness should never be narrowed down into the intellectual ralm or reduced to behavioral level or measured performance. I believe that the impact of giftedness is by nature a 'big bang' taking place in a much much microscope level of the universe, within the humans. Its impact is meant to be affecting the whole world and lasting forever.
The psychospiritual dimensions of giftedness, that I learnt from the teaching of Dr. Piechowski, helped me see with my inner eye of love. That any work with the gifted, regardless how old they are, where they came from, what they did, and how they led their lives, is by nature a service of the heart and soul.
Whatsoever the gifted individuals came to us for, educational placement or any other support services they might want to know or get, their real need was hardly satisfied with the 'things'. 'targets', 'programs' or 'services'. Their real need is echoing, longing and quest for the true meaning of life. Such longing can't be fulfilled until there is a true encounter when spirit talks to spirit, soul touches soul.
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