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How Do You Educate a Prodigy?
Nethead writes "When he was 8 years old, Gabriel See got a score on the math part of the SAT that would be the envy of most high-school seniors. When he was 10, he worked on T-cell receptor research at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. He's built a Genomic Lab Liquid Handling System out of Legos. He's studied chaos theory, string theory, quantum mechanics and nuclear science. He's 13 now. How do you fit him into the American school system?"
The plural of Lego is 'Lego' damn it!
http://www.acetonestudio.com
I remember graduating with a couple VERY smart individuals, at least according to school measurements. However, once they entered the "real world" they got quite a shock learning that their high IQ and 4.0 GPAs meant almost nothing because they had very little street smarts. They spent all of their time trying to please their parents and teachers but they had not learned what it takes to actually survive.
My point is, we need to make sure kids like this learn how to do things that translate into a means to not only make a good living for themselves, but also contribute to society in general.
giggity
There are actually a few schools in the country that might be a good fit for a math genius, and would give him the critical socialization he'll need to be a normal adult someday. For example, A.R. Johnson Health Sciences and Engineering school in Augusta, GA, is a school that teaches pre-med and engineering classes in high school, omitting other activities such as art and PE (students who want those classes need to go to its rival school, Davidson Fine Arts.) I'm sure they'd love to have him on the Math Decathalon team.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
1. I was a prodigy...not quite of the same level. College classes at 9, but nothing more impressive than that. Went through the normal system.
2. I have taken over the education of a prodigy. Quite Elementary school to homeschool after 4th grade. I was the homeschool tutor (Like Aristotle for Alexander). A year later, he went to college.
3. I've been in education at almost all levels, almost all subjects since.
Fundamentally, there is no system that will handle all the kids. Allow them to escape.
Contact this place, they can probably give you better advice than most anyone on slashdot or anywhere really:
Davidson Institute
They're funded by the Davidson family who after making a mint in education software (enough to buy Blizzard in the 90s) moved onto more directly charitable endeavors. The institute runs a school for the gifted in nevada, provide nationwide help for gifted children and also give out a yearly fellowship. Probably other programs as well.
Basically, they know more about all the options that exist than anyone here and are very friendly people. The last one is key, btw, since some programs are run by bureaucratic cretins who actually consider it a waste of their time to help people. These people aren't like that.
I could try to summarize the options I know of but, frankly, it'd be an incomplete and a waste of time compared to what people who deal with this full time can tell you.
Subjecting a prodigy to school just to teach him interpersonal skills sounds like a real waste. 8 hours a day of having things like fractions explained would be horrible.
Get him a mentor, and someone to ensure he can socialize normally.
Public schools are not a good choice for a bright kid, and a horrible thing to inflict on a prodigy.
Your main challenge will be finding folks close to him in age with home he can interact on a peer level. Not other super-smart kids who may act as sycophants to his uber-super-smartness and not an environment where non-super-smart kids are going to resent him.
Find him a sport, even if it's something obscure like bowling. Or a biking club. Or a boating club. Or the Scouts. Something he can find enjoyable without his smarts either giving him too undue an advantage or engendering hostility in his peers. Specifically, something where he can spend time interacting with other kids his age as peers without his brain getting in the way.
Other than that, he's an obvious candidate for home schooling. Give him the study guides, periodically administer the tests and as long as he aces them let him guide his own education.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
You raise some good points. It is certain that as your own intelligence increases to where you find yourself smarter than all but a fraction of a percent of the population, the ideas you have will be mostly correct but most other people won't be able to understand you. This can be incredibly frustrating.
Other than restrict yourself to using only your mundane ideas, you need some way for people to take you seriously. This means credentials (e.g. doctor, lawyer, engineer, MBA), and/or it means making enough money that you can afford to hire and fire until you find others who will take you seriously. Or living with other similarly smart people who can understand you. Sucks, but that's the way the world works.
Also, be very careful about uncovering the BS that the average Joe believes in. You will find a lot in life that everyday folks believe which won't stand up to scrutiny. However, think long and hard before you argue against it publicly, as you either face breaking taboos or interfering with the interests of powerful people.
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
Bingo. My son isn't quite at the level of this kid, but at 7, he is well into Jr. High school math. His reading is better than most high school graduates, and his other language skills sit well against most Jr. High school students.
Home schooling was the only sane and humane solution for him. As you say, Cub Scouts, 4-H, and other non-"school" activities give him plenty of time to socialize. It is also important to teach him that not everyone else is as smart as him, and that that is OK. It's a little like being Superman. Having super powers is really cool, and sometimes it will save the day. Most of the time you have to convince the public that you are Clark Kent. Mild mannered reporter for the Daily Planet.
When he was 2 and 3, he had not yet learned that he needed a secret identity, and we found that it made other parents uncomfortable when a he would try to play chess with other 3 year olds, invite them to play video games online with them, or would start coaching their 6 or 7 year olds in reading. When we saw this happening, we spent a little bit of time teaching him how to keep from making the other kids parents feel bad without diminishing himself. ( The other kids never seemed offended. Uninterested in what he was wanting to do sometimes, but never offended.)
One of the things that ends up causing problems for Prodigies is that a good many of them are just early bloomers. So, when they complete the bulk of their education at 12 or 13 and settle into the more normal rate of learning that we have as adults, their parents and mentors see it as a let down. The expect the accelerated learning to continue forever instead of just appreciating it as the head start that it is.
At his current rate, I would expect my son to be able to ace the SATs in approx. 3 more years. If he doesn't achieve that, it is OK. He is just bordering on the level of education that most people graduate from HS with, so he will be fine no matter what. Parents break their Prodigy children. They either drive them at a rate that is unsustainable, they dissuaded them from being smart because they don't want them to burn out or they think that being really smart inherently makes you unable to socialize. Rarely do you see the parents of exceptional children let the children be themselves and learn at the rate the child is comfortable with.