Eleven Plus Brains

Many parents would be delighted to hear that their eleven plus child wanted to be a scientist. A few, however, would prefer their child to become a scientist who made money!

“Mum, why do Uncle William and Auntie Kat have more money than us?”

“Auntie Kat invented a new way of plucking eyebrows. She then expanded the idea into preparing the heads of injured people for emergency surgery. She goes all over the world to demonstrate her products.”

“What does Uncle William do?”

“He thought of a different way of packaging Auntie Kat’s work – so it could be used in war zones.”

Some scientists may be able to understand and appreciate music in a manner that is not available to the rest of the general public. (I do not know why, but that is one branch of a theory.)

“Auntie Kat does not like Justin Bieber, she prefers Def Leppard.”

A second strand is that some scientists see themselves `at one with nature’. It is almost as if the boundary between fact and fiction becomes merged.

“Uncle William is always off on his treks in the Lake District. He does enjoy the trees, the birds and the scenery.”

Some partners – be it mothers or fathers – may be able to offer an opinion on the next statement. “Some scientists are happy to live in the world of witches, gnomes, fairies and ogres.”

“Uncle William still reads books about witches and ogres. I can’t stand them. He says that he finds them fulfilling.”

Some parents of budding scientists may need to be aware that a number of true scientists can be creative in ways that allow them to see the world in abstract terms.

The parents of some eleven plus children may wish that they did not have look into the future and think of rising university tuition fees and a seemingly apparent inability to be able to save enough. “If we use our hard earned savings, will our child repay us?”

Who would want to pay the university fees back fastest? A chemist who looks at atoms and molecules as his or her friends or an artist willing to starve in the garrets of Paris?

“Will Uncle William and Auntie Kat lend us the money for university if I pass my eleven plus? How soon will I have to pay it back? How much interest will they charge? What a life we live as ten year olds with all this pressure on us. Woe is me!”