Product reviews for Young, Gifted and Bored

Our brightest children deserve the best chances' declares the headline in the Daily Mail. But who are our brightest children? How bright are they? In what ways does their brightness show itself? How do we ascertain their different levels of brightness? What can we do to ensure that their brightness does not evaporate in the face of current linear and modular approaches to schooling?

In Young, Gifted and Bored David George tackles these issues with intellectual directness, practical effectiveness and a thoughtful passion for the plight of our many under-achieving bright children in contemporary education. The success of David's approach is based on reflection about his broad experience over many years in thinking about, observing and speaking with bright children and their teachers. This expertise can only come from an educationist steeped in the daily realities of being an able child in the conventional, 21st century, classroom.

Through many examples, anecdotes, practical check-lists and quotations David manages to capture the essence of his highly successful courses that have had such a profound influence on so many teachers and able child-co-ordinators. His analytical approach under-pinned by humour and practicality set down in ways that exemplify how able children should be taught quick, lively and challenging ideas expressed succinctly through stimulating ideas, cartoons, bullet points, quick-fire lists and the unexpected and unusual. Who would know, for example, that some of our most influential high-achievers were described by their schools as -˜indolent and illiterate' or -˜lacking in staying power' if David did not tell them? How would teachers encounter Goethe's notion that education is about helping able children -˜become what there are capable of being' if advocates like David did not draw it to their attention.

As well as being a powerful advocate of bright minds committed to boredom through current instructional practices that are largely out of phase with the ways able and highly able children learn, David is equally strong in his presentation of well- tried and tested techniques that really work in schools and classroom. He includes some of his course classics Bright child/Gifted Learner and What is achievement? together with new ideas about the relationship between ability, attainment and achievement and the importance of self-esteem in high-level learning

David is a champion of our most able children, many of whom are trapped in conventions of schooling rather than a system that liberates their thinking through education. Young, Gifted and Bored makes an important contribution to discussion, reflection and practice about making the most of ability no matter where in if found or through which dimensions of file and it expresses itself. Young, Gifted and Bored has quickly established itself as and important contribution to the -˜able child movement' and will much to motivate debate and improve the educational lives of some of the nation's brightest children.