A tehetség kérdőjelei

FOREWORD

There is no other area in psychology where so much reasoning and contemplation have been built upon so few facts as in the question of talent. Although the secret of geniuses has long troubled people, dealing with perceived or real talents is a relatively new phenomenon. School-based talent development began barely one or two decades ago, mostly on an experimental basis. The European Council for High Ability was founded in 1987. The fact that talent development schools and programs are not yet able to fully meet the demands placed upon them is primarily due to social rather than professional reasons. The recognition of the importance of knowledge, and the guiding principle of talent development in connection with it, has not yet truly taken deep root in public consciousness. The topic of knowledge, cognition, and human abilities has long occupied me due to my profession, but the question of the nature of talent itself came into the focus of my interest two or three years ago, when the idea of establishing talent development schools also arose in Vojvodina. After I was asked to be the psychologist for one of the newly established talent development schools, invited to give several popular science lectures, and commissioned to compile the intellectual profile of a digital talent scouting studio, my interest in this direction deepened further. The intensive engagement with the topic was also contributed to by the great media interest in the question of talent, and the nature and effectiveness of talent development. In this volume, I have collected the intellectual output of the past two years, the period between 2006 and 2008. During the editing of the book, I tried to reduce the thematic overlaps of the lectures, studies, articles, and interviews, but I did not strive for their complete elimination. These analyses were prepared for different reasons, are "sharpened" for different purposes, and the emphasis falls on different aspects in them, so I hope they will allow for the repeated exploration of knowledge and talent, their approach and discussion from different perspectives, and thereby presumably a better understanding of the connections.

Ada, October 2008 The Author