BBC Four: I had a sense in this programme that you were looking at the cultural impact of gifted children rather than gasping at their abilities, was this a conscious decision?
John Das: The terms "gifted children" or "child prodigy" are quite catch-all terms and broadly we were looking at exceptional children in a variety of ways you see in the programme. The preoccupation in past BBC documentaries seems to have been either gawping at children saying "Isn't this amazing", or a slightly scientific way of looking at how thinking evolved and so on. I suppose I was interested in what culturally they seemed to represent to people. We seem to have this dual attitude: there's an element of admiration for what they do but we are also made uneasy by them. Why can't we embrace these children as wonderful examples of what human beings can do? In fact there is both a freak show fascination and also a jealousy and resentment as well.
BBC Four: The interview with the adult James Harries, now Lauren Harries, suggested that he suffered quite harsh treatment from the media.
JD: That interview from Friday Night with Wogan where James is there with Frank Skinner and Terry Wogan, makes for quite uncomfortable viewing. The gloves are off. Just two or three years earlier when James was this golden haired little child appearing on Wogan, Terry was quite knowing, but also quite gentle. By the time of that later show it's clear that because James is precocious they think he is fair game for quite a rough and tumble argument, even though he's still quite young.
BBC Four: How would you describe the British attitude to gifted children?
JD: I think maybe in Britain there's a middle class idea where it seems almost impolite to be pushing your children too much. And the negative feelings towards gifted children seem ultimately to be more about feelings towards their parents. If we remember when Ruth Lawrence was on the scene doing very well with her maths, (and it's interesting to note that Ruth is a successful professor in Jerusalem and she didn't just burn out in her early 20s) I remember there was a lot of discussion about her dad, and was he doing the right thing by pushing her through? There was a lot of negativity directed towards him. In America I suspect it's not seen as shameful to be ambitious for your child, and also in India. I'm partly Asian myself and one of the reasons Asian kids do so well at school is because they have pushy parents.
BBC Four: Another idea that seems very culturally problematic in Britain is selection - even if gifted children need special tuition is it fair to the others to move them on?
JD: It's an interesting parallel with the whole private and state education issue raised most recently by the Diane Abbott affair. If parents take their children out of a system where other parents have no choice but to send their children, is everyone losing out? Selection through the 11+ seemed to run against the egalitarian streak, certainly from previous Labour governments. The Conservatives talked a lot about choice, but even they didn't seem so keen on selection in the state sector. The current thinking seems to be that rather than taking the brightest children out of mixed-ability state schools you just give them the opportunity to take some of their exams early. It is a difficult one to resolve though.
BBC Four: And running through the documentary there's a question about what develops children's intelligence and what is simply encouraging them to get more exams and certificates.
JD: If one was doing GCSEs from the age of eight upwards would there be a danger that other things, like extra curricular activities, would suffer? Children would continually be preparing for one exam or another. We do have end-of-year exams and things like that, but there is a structure that has evolved. The question is that if you're too good for that and can move ahead of the structure are you just being tied down as a result?
BBC Four: Professor Tony Gardiner says in the programme that we have to consider depth of knowledge. He asks what is the point of an 11 year old doing a maths A-Level? What do they do after that? Wouldn't it be better to look at other challenging areas in the subject that are rarely taught now and allow more advanced children to study these rather than to say "You've got your certificate and now it's time for university"?
JD: If one looks at the way English is taught in schools, children read all kinds of books that they're not going to be examined on and that's not seen as a waste of time. There seem to be some subjects where we accept that breadth and depth of knowledge for its own sake is part of making you better at that subject but others where it's tied to the exam.
BBC Four: Perhaps we can also find enrichment in Euclidian geometry.
What do you think of the government initiative to set up summer schools for gifted children?
JD: As I understand it the uptake has not been brilliant so far, but these are things that take place outside the standard school hours. Is there a danger that bright children have to give up more of their childhood to education? It seems a shame that if you're good academically you're forced down an even more academic line.
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