I also think people here the word gifted and think genius as in Einstein. You read articles "Is your child gifted? Probably not. Einsteins' only happen 1 in a XYZ." I find those articles aren't talking about MG or even HG, maybe more like PG/EG.
Einstein was not the most gifted of his generation. He contributed in a narrow area at a time where there were basic questions being asked. One could take most mathematically gifted HS kids today, put the basic questions in front of them, give them the Lorenz transformation, and many can derive much of his work.
What I am driving at is that very rarely will history offer a generation a chance to come up with basic insights. Most of the time the things that can be done are more mundane, but just as important, and these require highly gifted minds to execute. Its just as hard to run Exxon or GE as it is to derive basic insights. There are challenges and interesting problems everywhere.
We need to provide kids with a range of examples to look up to, not just someone (Einstein) whose impact is mostly unobtainable due to where we are in our understanding of things. Its kind of like those parents who think little johnny will play pro ball. Except in this case, the pro ball team is only formed once every hundred years.
