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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?"
He seems to learn enough on his own.
You do not 'fit' a kid like that, but rather do your best to understand what his needs are, even if these are unconventional. In terms of learning, he will do well on his own, you just need to support him with the appropriate resources. What he will likely need help with is with developing healthy social interactions and integrating to society. It you focus just on his intellect, he will suffer later on.
You could possibly fit the entire American school system into him.
Except that he's highly focused on sciences. How about some history, art, music, or languages for a few years? Heaven forbid the kid learn something besides science.
Speaking as someone who works with a lot of very smart people focused in very narrow fields: the kid's going to be a lot happier if he has at least some general background.
Didn't any of you read Ender's Game? Remember how, among other things, Ender often longs to just be a kid?
Please help metamoderate.
This kid is a prime candidate for home schooling. In many communities, the public school system, or other social organizations for kids are available to the home schooled to keep them engaged in activities with their peers.
The biggest problem with integrating kids like this into "The School System" is that the system doesn't deal very well with those whose performance lies outside the social norms (particularly on the high side). You have to have the option of putting him into activities where he will fit and pulling him out if he's a mismatch for their culture.
Have gnu, will travel.
Whatever he does, make sure there are plenty of girls around. A kid like this needs to have some experience being around them, before hormones hit and he realizes he has no idea how to talk to them.
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You don't learn in school. School is about socialization and indoctrination.
There are 50 states, each with their own rules, not to mention Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, and other territories and possessions.
Within most states there are dozens to hundreds of local school systems with varying degrees of autonomy. Then there are private schools.
In some school systems education quality varies widely from school to school. Even within schools you can get wide teacher-to-teacher variation and even class-to-class variation with the same teacher, same course, and same grade-level.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Here's another anecdote for you. I was what many considered to be a child prodigy and genius. My parents living in a small farming community there was nowhere for me to go and nothing for me to do. My parents intentionally avoided teaching me to read before starting pre-school because they didn't want me to be "different" from the other kids. I didn't know anybody who could get me into prestigious colleges and programs at an early age, although I could have understood it. Instead I was put in public schools and learned to despise everyone there. I became cynical, anti-social, and lazy.There was no reason to try when there wasn't anything on the next level.
Now here I am a decade later, widely accepted by almost all my friends, coworkers, and supervisors to be one of the most intelligent persons they have ever met, but I have nothing to show for it. I graduated from the local community college at 17, but because I was lazy my grades sucked and I couldn't transfer anywhere. I have over 200 credits from that school now, but few 4-year schools will look at me. Not that I could afford those that do. As a single white male with two AA degrees, I'm not eligible for any financial aid.
tl;dr version. I was a prodigy ruined by forcing me into public schools. I've gotten past it and am quite happy with my life now, but for this kid I say let him run as far and as fast as he can so what happened to me doesn't happen to him.
There was no reason to try when there wasn't anything on the next level.
Obviously you weren't a prodigy at logic.
"Because I was lazy" appears more often than it should in your condemnation of the public school system. That's a pretty big sense of entitlement ya had yourself there, what is stopping you now from discovering everything now? Lemme guess: lethargy?
I'm sure we all could have gone further if Richard Feynman had given us hand guided tours.
Is that just because you are smarter than everyone else, doesn't mean you are better. That is an important lesson I learned at public school. I was no prodigy, not even a genius, but I was a bright child, smarter than most of my peers (about 98% of them if the standardized tests were to be believed). Well part of the problem with that is it lead me to be, well, a smartass. Much like a bigger kids feels he can push others around because he's bigger, I felt that being smart made me better. I got picked on a lot in no small part because of that attitude.
In time, I learned that just because I was smart, didn't mean I was better, and that just because someone isn't as smart doesn't mean they don't have plenty to offer. I learned, well, to be a functioning member of society.
That was pretty valuable, and is a large part of why I have my job, which I love, today. It requires interaction with people all the time. If I was a self-superior asshole, there's no way I would have got it.
Also as you note, everyone will hit a wall with their abilities. Everyone hits a point where things aren't easy anymore. It is important to develop some skills for how to deal with that, including working with others, or you are in a world of hurt when it happens.
And he kind of burned out. He lives with his brother (my good friend) now and hasn't ever really had a real job. After he completed college, he decided to independently pursue his own interests and sort of realized that the whole educational path he had taken was really him just quickly absorbing other people's works. Striking out on new ground was far too uncomfortable for him. What was worse was that this totally destroyed his confidence.
As someone in a similar situation (You don't have to consider me a prodigy; I don't. But I got through school and college with minimal studying, by listening and learning), with similar problems (low confidence, burned out, etc), let me offer this for consideration: I have a lot of projects in the back of my mind--many, from tabletop games to video games to other software to computer hardware, fountains, architecture, writing, animation, and probably others I can't immediately think of. However, I don't know how to get anywhere, and critically, nobody is interested in helping me get where I want to go.
Education is a path to becoming an academic. The school system is NOT set up to help you with any particular project you may have in mind; it is set up to give you a solid foundation. For a great, great many people, education replaces inspiration, which is to say that you don't need to say, "You know what I want to learn? Arithmetic. That would help me solve this problem!" You don't have to go out of your way to learn math like a farm boy of the first century, who quite reasonably may never have needed it. You don't have to gain these skills by grit and willpower. However, when these skills are no longer an accomplishment, you DO need grit and willpower to take the next step.
More importantly, what you need to take the next step are people who know what you're capable of, know what you'd like to do, and are willing to help. Imagine if someone took one of my projects and said, "You know what? Let's run with this. I bet if you took classes to learn this, and I went over here to talk to these people, and I know some people over here that can help... maybe within a couple years we might have something to show to investors, and we can make a business out of it." That sort of confidence can't come from me. I'll work, I'll offer inspiration, I'll do all sorts of things, but everything I want to do is a project, and all of those projects are going to NEED other people. Before I can even ask for their help, I have to believe others will want the end result; I can't just look at them and say, "Yup. They'll want this. Come on everyone, trust me, we'll do it." That seems sleazy to me, or corrupt, or... I don't even know what.
How do you educate a prodigy? Find out where their sights are set, and help them along that road. If they have their sights on many things, help with that. Don't ever, ever tell them that when they reach maturity (ie leave college) and are on their own, their job is done. That's a stalling point, and I would imagine that a lot of people get stuck there.