Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
[...] Or your 2 year old child has a fluent speech
Or at 3 your child begins to ask you words that you were completely unaware of
Don't worry about it whatsoever, because they are just gifted children
And you will wonder "well, okay, and now I have a child with those features, and what do I do?"
After seeing the program you will know exactly what you have to do
and moreover how it is living together, how are gifted children
how do themselves live it, how do their families live it
and in first place I would like to introduce you Carlos Blanco, who comes with his mother
With an age of 13, Carlos Blanco is the youngest egyptologist of Europe
He deciphers the hieroglyphs and Ancient Egypt writing wich consists of 700 symbols
Not content with that, Carlos combines his 7th grade classes with learning 7 different languages, and astrophysics and informatics classes on weekends
Those ones on weekends, right? Those are your hobbies
Well, it's a scholarship of a special program and is astrophysics one hour and two hours of informatics, and it's on weekends morning
What level of astrophysics?
I can't specify that, I don't know, Hubble's law, universe's expansion law... Normal, it's not very...
You could even explain me the black holes thing
Well, I'm not... I'm not an expert
Well, Carlos, how old are you?
I have recently be 13, the seventh day of this month
And what do you study?
Me, 8th grade, but, moreov... Simultaneously I study... Well, english, german, french
arabic, hebrew, egyptian, I also study a bit of cretan and minoian, and, well, some other oriental languages at a lower level
You have not begun yet with sanscrit
No, not yet. But well, I would be interested in it.
What happens is that sanscrit and that other kind of languages of the indoeuropean family are more difficult... Are less accesible for their study
Carlos, when do you realize, or do your family realize and tells you that you are a gifted boy?
"Gifted" precisely recently, until I have finished the last test wich was the last days of february, so not long ago
But... I have never considered me to have any, well, "special" skills
Others have always considered that
And well, what does this consideration lies in?
I believe, since I was little, above all in your tastes, the ways you mix with people, who you mix with, the way you think
The majority of boys are thinking of football, that for example, I don't like at all
Or in sports, or what has happened to... I don't know, famous football players, for example
But well, I, however, have always liked... I have always been talking about Plato
I talked about... I don't know, about biology, wich I liked a lot, or about history
Or about other topics, about politics... I always watched the news
What has happened on US, what has happened now on the fall of the Soviet Union, I have always liked it
And nobody wanted to talk to me about that
Nobody with your age, obviously
Yes, yes, obviously
How are your parents like?
My parents are completely normal, now you will talk to my mother
There isn't any detection of higher intellectual skills among them
Or at least one that has been authentically detected
As I say, my father is a salary earner, a worker
What does your father work in?
My father is an administrative in a company here in Coslada
He has an ordinary salary, we are an ordinary family that lives in an ordinary flat, and we don't have any...
Do you have any brothers or sisters, Carlos?
Yes, I have a brother, I have a brother... He is 9 years old, and well, he also has an intelligence quite...
What IQ do you have?
Quotient, yes, we may be talking around 148 more or less
That borders on genius, because gifted is 130 or more and a genius will get to 155 (¿?), Einstein would have an IQ of 155 (¿?)
Yes, but what happens is that for example IQ is something that I have never considered important
I don't like to consider myself as a number and say "I am a 148 and you are a 150"
I always value before the person
That this boy, or any adult or whatever, acts like a person, and knows how to live with others
That is a lot of maturity, for example, who you go out with?
(laughter) Well, "going out", "going out"... I don't...
Do you go out with your classmates, do you go to the cinema?
No, no, I don't like it, I have never liked it
You don't mix with kids of your age
No, I have some friends, but we don't go... We go to our house and we may debate about politics, so...
We never... I have never liked that
So the kids that go to your house to debate about Socrates and Plato I suppose they are kids...
Yes, well, I don't know if they are very intelligent, but at least they are very educated, and moreover they are interested in topics I'm interested in
And well... I am a bit select, maybe it's a fault, I'm a bit select when choosing friends
And if I see a person that for example is only thinking about football, it's not interested in culture or looks down on educated people, no...
I'm sorry but no
[...] science, even he has not discovered a city like Atlantis or whatever, I value and put the other thing before
And concerning hobbies, you don't like sports, you like reading and you like philosophy, I guess you like essay
Yes, yes
Who is your favourite philosopher?
Well, I like Socrates, Socrates is a person...
I delight in reading the dialogues between Socrates and Alcibiades because simply the answers
have a maturity for a man who was a quarryman, his father was a quarryman and he was born in a humble family
and, take look of it, on the IV century b.C. the revolution of logic and maturity that it represents
What do you think of Socrates' end?
Well, Socrates' end I think is the most honest thing that can be, because he
himself said to them "athenians, I know that with my speeches I will impress you so much that you will even release me
but to show you that I am honest I am going to accept taking the poison and I am going to die"
I don't know if he told it literally but he meant that
That he, with that huge ability of speaking, that superior intelligence
he could have "talk them into it" we can say, impact them with a speech and get free from the condemn
you attend a school
[...] Because if I was just getting bored, and...
spoiling the class to the teacher with questions that sometimes slip out and I always apologize
There I have a maturity and a reason that I have to use
Because if I started to ask, to upset the others, to say "you don't know it, I do"
I would be spoiling the class and because of one, the other 29 can't be losing class
[...] I can't specify the causes, ir feels represented, I think
And the pleasure is instantaneous, it's like... Its necess... I need it, personally I need it
And when was the first time you deciphered...?
Well, decipher a hieroglyph I had... Before studying them seriously, in the course
I had already done some attempts that... Well, with books and so, so... Something, I could do something
What happens is that from a grammarian perspective, studying a participle, an infinitive... The last year
Yes, when I began the course seriously
And in your egyptology course who are your classmates?
Yes, well, it's announced by the Spanish Association of Egyptology
And my classmates are obviously adults
I don't know, they may be doctors, or graduated, or people who are interested in it
Or professors
Or professors, for example
And well, I don't know... The youngest will be... 30 or so
Where do you want to get?
I want to get to... I want to write too
But well, I would like to be a professor, and... To make others enjoy my knowledge
That is, don't keep it, don't be an intellectual miser, like what has happened to many other people
But to share it, I think that is the most beautiful
Well, I tell you that you are very close to it. If they ask me, I would give you the PhD now
Yes, but I would not like it, I would not like that to be a gift, I want to earn it
No, nothing about gift, you have earned it publicly and notoriously
Wait a moment, Carlos, because we are going to talk with a person that I guess you know very well
It's Mr. Hamdi Zaki
Mr. Hamdi Zaki, hello, good evening
Hello, good evening
Well, you are the president of... Precisely, the Hispano-Arabic Association?
Yes, of culture and turism, and turism counselor of Egypt
Do you know Carlos?
Yes, of course, pefectly... It's a friend of mine
Moreover we both are lucky to be members of the Spanish Association of Egyptology
And he is the youngest of this association and the youngest egyptologist in the world
The youngest egyptologist in the world
You, that are an egyptologist, and moreover a person who has an official representation
And I suppose that a huge knowledge of all the egyptology in the world
What level may Carlos have?
Let me tell you something, in an interview with Terenci Moix that I was lucky to attend
Carlos told Terenci that he would like to be a Terenci in the future, and Terenci replied
that he at his age know less than Carlos, and moreover he told him that he knows decipher hieroglyphs less than Carlos
Oh, I dind't know that Terenci deciphers hieroglyps
Well, I don't know exactly if he deciphers them, but of course he has knowledge about them
What a beautiful book Terenci wrote
Well, he has written a lot of them, but all that he has written about Egypt is wonderful
Carlos... When he is in the meetings, do you forget he is 13 years old?
Of course, we know it perfectly, When Terenci, him and I speak we feel like we three are from the same generation
So you see him as a colleague
Yes, we see him as a collegue, yes, of course
Well, you think he will be a world authority, for sure, right?
Of course, moreover, as Carlos would like to publish his book
I have talk to him to launch his book in Egypt in front of the sphinx in a world festival
I hope you invite me
Sure, and also we are going to introduce him to our literature Nobel prize winner Naguib Mahfouz
who has a beautiful café, which I know
Well, greetings and many thanks for being with us
We have almost not let Inmaculada speak
but, of course, we're fascinated with your son Immaculada
Thank you
Because... When did you realized he was a special kid?
I, actually... Realize, realize, since he was very little
But not that he was special, but he scared me a little bit the thing that...
For example at 7 months he already started to talk
At age 2 he started to talk... He started to talk but with a very wide vocabulary, very good, very clear, very fluent
At age 4 he already read the newspaper, the small print, and he was interested in foreign news
And did you have those habits at home?
No
And wasn't there anybody in his environment that had them?
No, my husband liked for example Egypt...
[...] [I want him to be] An ordinary boy, who knows how to share things, who know how to mix with all the people
Who in no way shows off if he has more or less intelligence
Who helps everybody, of course, to all his classmates
And, well, who is happy
How does Carlos decipher a hieroglyph?
yes, and moreover my colleagues of the Association are seeing me
Well, first of all, the hieroglyph writing, its direction, it's not a fixed direction
and as was discovered even before than its very deciphering, to follow the reading you have to look at the animals' eyes
That is, if the animated beings look left it means that you begin to read from the left, as it is the case
It also can be read from up to down, not from down to up
So we have always have these three directions, left-right, right-left, or up-down
Well, this hieroglyph, this inscription of the Sennefer's tomb, in Tebas (Luxor, in Upper Egypt)
I'm going to start to tell it, line for line
Well, in the first line we see an eye, wich is a part of the word "usir", wich is Osiris
Then we have "hatia" that is "the nobel prince", so that is "Osiris, the noble prince", a title of nobility
wich tells us that he was a person of considerable importance
In the following line we have a sign that is like a jug pouring water, wich is from the word "haset": "praise", "favor"
"hasep en nit resit", "en" is the preposition "en" that gives it a nature of adverbial sentence
And then "nit resit" is a name of the southern city, which is Tebas
They also called it "Uaset", but it is the greeks' Tebas, Luxor
Well, then, "praises in the southern city", and then we have a participle, which is very interesting, it's a verb, "peg"
wich is a participle in active perfective, "peg la ui en hasut neb taui", those are the following lines
That is, "that who reach", it's a participle in active perfective, "that who reach" "la ui", "old age"
Moreover we see a determinative, a man with a cane, an old man
"that reach old age through (or thanks to) the favors (or the presents) of the lord of the two lands (which is the pharaoh)"
then "sen ne..."
I'm overwhelmed
Carlos, would you allow a slow person in your debates about Socrates and Plato?
No, that would be a mistake
So you would never allow me to join
Of course [I will allow you]
[...] use the gift that you have been given to reach the happiness and the happiness of the others, which in the end is the important thing
And, as your mother says, to share an to do good deeds
There are other guests...