That's just one of a host of products being touted in the name of "gifted students" or implying it. There's an Electronic English-Chinese Dictionary for Gifted Students, there's IQ Powdered Milk and there are shelfloads of books with titles like The Secrets of Educating Your Baby, How to Foster a Child Prodigy and so forth. There are even "prenatal educational tapes."

All parents hope their children will be successful at school, and what mother or father doesn't think their child is bright and clever? Given today's affluent, stimulating environment and the "cracktroop policies" of parents, the latest generation of kids is likely to be higher in intelligence than those of the past, and many of them show precocious abilities in speaking, reading or other talents.

But it's not until your child has made it into the ranks of the exceptionally gifted that you really have something to swagger about! It's as though having a gifted child in the family made you a gifted parent--and gave you one more "designer-brand product" to flaunt.

So prudent parents ship their kid off early to one of the numerous cram schools around the city, to a "supplemental class for the exceptionally gifted," "children's potential enhancement center" or "simultaneous development course for the left and right sides of the brain." The quality of these courses varies a great deal. Some of them claim to raise a child's IQ by 70 points or boast of children "reading the newspaper at the age of three and speaking four languages by the age of five . . ." The youngest students in some are actually eight-month-old infants.

Some more pragmatically oriented parents, keeping in mind the big hurdle at school for admission to classes for gifted students--IQ tests -- send their children to cram schools designed solely for the purpose of going over questions from past IQ tests.

Chen Lung-an, an associate professor at National Taiwan Normal University in charge of determining gifted students in elementary schools in Taipei, says, "If the teacher feels something's not quite right during the test and quietly asks the child 'Have you seen these questions before?' most of them will ingenuously say yes."

The Kumon Cultural and Educational Foundation once looked into a true case like this: a child that was bright enough to begin was admitted to a class for gifted students through intensive cramming but found he couldn't keep up and had to transfer out. His classmates made fun of him and called him "a phony who was kicked out of the brainy kids' class" -- a heavy trial for a child at his tender age.

"Exceptionally gifted," snazzy-sounding designation that it is--how many people have gone astray or been victimized in its name? Is it innate and preordained? Or can it be acquired and cultivated? Most research indicates that around 70 percent of IQ is due to heredity and 30 percent to the environment, so appropriate stimulation does indeed help to enhance potential. A study in the U.S. of Chinese-American winners of Westinghouse science awards found the influence of the parents was 30 percent, nothing to be scoffed at.

Cheng Kui-chih, a teacher at the First Girls' High School in Taipei, believes that "most gifted students are simply children with above-average learning ability, not what you'd call geniuses or child prodigies, so parents and children alike shouldn't be too smug about it."

Her daughter, a sixth-grader in a special enrichment program at an elementary school in Taipei, started to read in nursery school, loves to ask questions, has a phenomenal memory, is fascinated with difficult scientific books and has an IQ estimated at about 140.

She couldn't help being thrilled when her daughter was chosen for the program, she recalls, but when she found she had written "IQ 180--genius" in big letters at the end of her autobiography, she scolded her sharply.

In fact, children with an IQ of 130 or higher are commonly called gifted, comprising just two or three percent of children their same age, which does make them rather exceptional. The cutoff score was established as an important criterion for determining academically gifted children in a law for special education passed in 1984.

Some people object to using IQ scores to determine whether students are gifted and allocating educational resources accordingly.

Ulric Neisser, the father of cognitive psychology in the U.S., believes that IQ tests don't measure a person's true intellectual depth but simply a set of special abilities recognized by society. An important reason that the average IQ of black people the U.S. is less than that of whites, for instance, is that the grammar and vocabulary of the tests is structured around the norms of the middle class.

Says Chen Hsing-chiu, a third-year geology student at National Taiwan University who was herself a gifted child: "I feel that the education of gifted children in Taiwan is a game designed for the development of science and technology. We just happened to conform to specifications and play by the rules."

Some people have criticized the education of gifted children as elitist, as a "gilded lily" taking up valuable educational resources, but Tzeng Su-jung, a doctor of education, disagrees.

"If gifted students are put in ordinary classes and wind up with blank expressions all the time because they've mastered the material, isn't that a form of learning disadvantage, too?"

Chen Hsing-chiu feels that being called a gifted child is a label that some people can see through and get past but that others get caught up on.

"A schoolmate of mine who was put in a class for gifted students and then ranked low on several tests began to doubt her abilities, which she had always been praised for. She lost all her self- esteem, tested poorly into high school and later even dropped out. She changed completely for the worse. She became antisocial and terribly defensive," she relates sadly.

"Since they receive so much attention, gifted children usually have high expectations of themselves and are also extremely sensitive," says Kuo Ching-tzu, a teacher at the Special Education Center of National Taiwan Normal University. "Adults have to skillfully dissolve their inflated sense of self so they can take success and failures in stride."

She once counseled an outstanding middle school student who had called the distress hotline because she had scored a few points lower on a test once and was afraid her "image" had been destroyed.

A study of the behavioral problems of gifted children in elementary schools in Taipei found that 50 percent of them had had psychological difficulties such as "I'd like to do a lot of things but I don't have the courage," "I'm afraid of being put in a poor class in middle school" and "I have a lot of bad habits."

Why should youngsters so blessed with talent have such troublesome worries and cares? The actions and attitudes of adults are often the place to look.

Chang Shih-tzung, an advocate of creative education, once asked a group of teachers about to teach classes for gifted children that he was giving a speech to whether they liked teaching students with lots of creativity. They all raised their hands. Then he asked them whether they could stand it if a student went one way when everyone else went the other. Many of them hesitated.

"Creativity can't be taught," he says. "All you can do is remove obstacles and let them give play to their innate potential. But the biggest obstacle is often the thoughtlessness of adults."

In addition, with the joint entrance exams seen as the be-all and end-all, and the old concept of study means success still in vogue, intentionally or not most people tend to draw an equal sign between being a gifted child and being a good student.

Looking at the facts, many gifted children do indeed perform splendidly as students--if they aren't allowed to skip a grade or be sent on to high school or college without having to take the joint entrance exams, then they often rank at the top of their class. According to statistics compiled by Wu Wu-tien, director of the NTNU Special Education Center, in the sample year of 1989 there were 2,432 gifted children in middle schools and high schools around Taiwan, of whom 113 were allowed to skip a grade, 184 were allowed to go on to high school without taking the entrance exams and 62 were allowed to go on to college without doing so.

How did they manage to do it? The experience of one who has been there is, "most gifted children have no difficulty handling the course work because they're strong at absorbing and grasping information or have good memories." But, she adds, "you're wrong if you think gifted children necessarily get good grades."

The problem is, the idea that "gifted kids do well on tests" has been deeply ingrained for a long time.

A gifted elementary student who likes to play chess and read books outside of class is considered "incorrigible" by his parents because his grades have suffered as a result. And an elementary school teacher passing back test papers to her class actually threw one on the floor and said contemptuously, "You're a gifted student and you got a score like this!"

In middle school, classes for gifted children are often seen as synonymous with "super prep classes." Many parents use every means at their disposal to see that their children get in, considering them a surefire guarantee for greater things ahead.

A Mr. Wu, who teaches at the special education center of Changhua Teachers College, says that there's a big fuss every time the list of students assigned to classes for gifted children comes out. "Just a few points' difference and all the lines are tied up with complaints from parents."

"The joint entrance exams are the chief nemesis of education for the gifted," says Wang Chen-teh, a professor at the special education department at Taipei Teachers College, putting the problem in a nutshell. Because of the exams, the enhancement of creativity has been sacrificed in favor of passive absorption and rote memorization.

Chen Wen-lung, who teaches a math class for gifted children at Hoping Middle School, complains that there are still some extracurricular activities like field trips and science fairs in eighth grade but by ninth grade almost all they do is review materials for the exams.

"What the tests look for is being correct," he says. "It's easy enough for kids to get a good score if they master the formulas and the format of the questions. But it's tough producing any real mathematicians."

Reforms are in store for the current system of education for the gifted. According to a five-year plan drawn up recently under the Special Education Law, the Ministry of Education plans to in crease the number of programs for gifted children, set up a six-year experimental science high school and permit increased flexibility in skipping ninth and eleventh grades. In addition, special education centers at teachers colleges around the island will hold guidance conferences and carry out a follow-up survey of gifted children, an important part of a plan that was begun in 1973 but has always been neglected.

Looking further ahead, "in fact, education for the gifted shouldn't be a monopoly of the elite," teacher Lin Chih-chung says. "Everyone has the right to being trained in nonrigid thinking. It's just that the system of big classes and the pressure to pass exams here have stifled most people's potential and made gifted children such conspicuous exceptions."

In Japan, in the interests of equality, education for the gifted is handled completely by the private sector but is run splendidly, a prime example being the Suzuki music schools, which have been outstanding for years.

In the U.S., the regular educational system itself is highly flexible, having been described as offering "the greatest opportunities with the fewest restrictions." Education for the gifted is not the preserve of the government there either, but is managed through studies and programs of universities and foundations.

Viewed from the American psychologist C.W. Taylor's concept of "multiple talents," every person is gifted in some way and talented in some area--what the Chinese mean by the saying, "if Heaven put me here, I must be good for something."

Whether it's studying well, playing a musical instrument, being captain of the football team or fixing car engines, each takes special talents. The ability to understand oneself and one's fellows, to assign responsibilities and to recognize talent in others is also a rare psychological talent.

Considered from a standpoint like this, the designation "gifted child" will no longer seem quite so sweet or so painful.

Yang I-tsu, who graduated as a chemistry major from National Taiwan University, is an example of someone who rose above it and left it behind.

That rare kind of student who is "both bright and hard-working," in the words of her teachers, she skipped a grade each in middle school and in high school. In the eyes of her friends, she was a winning girl "with a rare mixture of innocence and determination." After coming into contact with Buddhism in college, which helped her to solve problems science has no way to deal with, she practiced it diligently and gradually relaxed her single-minded devotion to her books. Her teachers regarded her action with regret, but she thought otherwise: "How is it we seem to have our priorities so mixed up? All we learn is superficial knowledge, and inner wisdom is rarely mentioned."

Instead of treating the words "gifted child" as a name-brand label for a product backed by a quality guarantee, say rather that they're a sign marking a treasure house waiting to be explored.

[Picture Caption]

Everybody envies people with smarts, but does being a "gifted child" mean having an IQ of 180? (photo by Arthur Cheng)

"Collect 16 different things in three minutes, and then begin a skit!" It looks like creativity will be a must here. The scene is a special enrichment class at Mandarin Experimental Elementary School in Taipei.

It takes all kinds. We each have our own unique talents. It just depends on what we make of them.

Being gifted is not limited to intelligence and academics--artistic talents are also included. The picture was taken at the Vienna National Academy of Music. (photo by Arthur Cheng)

Education for gifted children, which should stress creativity and enlightenment, has been stifled by the oppressive weight of the joint entrance exams.

Given the government's promotion of science and technology, the objects of secondary school enrichment programs for the gifted are chiefly math and science students. Shown here is a class for gifted math students at Hoping Middle School.

Appropriate cultural stimulation aids in bringing out potential, but what children need even more is their parents to accompany them in growing up.

With the joint entrance exams seen as the be-all and end-all of study, intentionally or not most people tend to equate being a gifted child and being a good student .

"Collect 16 different things in three minutes, and then begin a skit!" It looks like creativity will be a must here. The scene is a special enrichment class at Mandarin Experimental Elementary School in Taipei.

It takes all kinds. We each have our own unique talents. It just depends on what we make of them.

Being gifted is not limited to intelligence and academics--artistic talents are also included. The picture was taken at the Vienna National Academy of Music. （photo by Arthur Cheng）

Education for gifted children, which should stress creativity and enlightenment, has been stifled by the oppressive weight of the joint entrance exams.

Given the government's promotion of science and technology, the objects of secondary school enrichment programs for the gifted are chiefly math and science students. Shown here is a class for gifted math students at Hoping Middle School.

Appropriate cultural stimulation aids in bringing out potential, but what children need even more is their parents to accompany them in growing up.

With the joint entrance exams seen as the be-all and end-all of study, intentionally or not most people tend to equate being a gifted child and being a good student .