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?"

Comments

You don't.

[Errol backfiring]

You could possibly fit the entire American school system into him.

Sounds a little like me

[raph]

I took college classes from 9 to 13, then my parents pulled me out entirely. There were good and bad aspects to my path. At 13, actual graduate math classes were a bit over my head, and I felt a lot of pressure and feelings of failure because I couldn't quite hack them. Also, being isolated was hard, and it wasn't until I came back to grad school at 22 that I felt I developed my social skills properly. But being allowed to focus on intellectual pursuits was really nice in a way, and I actually look back on that fondly. Now I have my PhD and work for Google, and I do geeky things for fun. As one example, I'm noodling on keyboards, and, being me, I'm writing a DX7 synthesizer emulator. Most people consider the math of it to be impenetrably difficult, but, I'm like, "oh, _Bessel_ functions, I can dig that shit!"

I hope he does well and finds a path that makes him happy. One thing my parents did was keep me out of the newspapers (and off the front page of Slashdot, although we didn't have that then). I'm not sure whether that was entirely good or bad - publicity is valuable coin in today's society :)

Some Anecdotes That Don't Make the News

[eldavojohn]

I have met and known two 'child prodigies' that were clearly not as intelligent as Gabriel. But before you advocate removing him from the school system, let me relate to you the story of one of my good friend's brothers, Jay. Jay was identified very early on as being very intelligent and as a result, by third grade his mother was homeschooling him to try to make the most of his time. And she did, he graduated from the local college at age 15. And she constantly pushed him and prodded him relentlessly to do better.

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. He's never been unhappy with his life but outside of his mother's reach, he's really just kicked back and played video games. I think the greatest work of the last five years of his life has been editing TVTropes -- a site that he became obsessed with after he discovered he could spend all day watching television with no consequence. Jay has never had peers really aside from his brothers. I'm no child psychologist but I think it has had a devastating effect on his understanding on society and also his work ethic.

The other person was a coworker, Tom, who was a very talented software developer. I met him when he was 40 and one time he told me at lunchtime about his childhood. Tom had burned out as well but in a more problematic way. Tom also completed college (Physics) at a very young age but upon having difficulty his senior year, he became depressed and had suicidal thoughts. So his parents flipped out and brought him to a psychologist who diagnosed him with Asperger's Syndrome (which he clearly did not have when I met him) and gave him a bunch of drugs. He discovered he was great at programming software and decided to make a career out of it. He still said his mother's disappointment that he didn't "cure cancer" or discover a universal filed theory was probably the most regrettable thing in his life and it was ever present in their interactions.

"He'll probably find a cure for cancer," Sleight said. "Or something bigger."

I think a more positive statement would be something along the lines of "He has accomplished so much and already done such great research that even if he stopped studying now he would be an accomplished academic." Not to suggest that he should stop studying but to relieve a bit of the pressure. What if he doesn't cure cancer or something bigger? What will this news do to Gabriel the person then? Haunt him?

I would advocate trying to keep him involved in school as much as he desires with external stimulation to help his specialties. Why must geniuses be removed from society? Was Einstein removed from interacting with children his age? What exactly is the hurry? Is Gabriel asking for more time to study -- time that regular schooling is interfering with? Does he have a network of friends to rely on? Is he expected to live a short life like Ramanujan?

My opinion is to let him excel at school and take a more normal path than complete removal and its unavoidable isolation.

Re:Some Anecdotes That Don't Make the News

[jellomizer]

I think there is the real problem when the child has a genius level talent, people put him on this high horse to succeed at everything. But because he expects everything to be easy in life he doesn't learn about working hard, or even putting in any effort. So when they grow up they will not keep a job because they either expect place of employment to treat him like a god (not realizing once you reach 18 you are no longer a child prodigy), or perhaps due to his intelligence get very board with the job and causes more problems then what he is worth.

A real life Dr. House wouldn't have so many people begging him back to stay after all the crap he deals out. They would fire him, and not let him back, even if he can save those extra 20 people a year. Because the cost of the legal suites against the hospital probably creating a situation where hundreds of people probably died because the correct departments didn't get the full funding they could have gotten.

Being a genius doesn't make you a good person, or a useful person. A person with above average intelligence but a strong work ethic can probably be more useful then a genius who never was taught to work hard, and tough it out threw the boring parts.

Re:It'd be the same as anyone else.

[IANAAC]

You don't learn in school. School is about socialization and indoctrination.

I see this parroted often, and I think it's misguided.

School can and does teach - there are lots of teachers out there that are passionate about teaching and really want their students to learn. Yes, there are also those teachers that don't care.

Of course no kid is ever going to get to prodigy level in the US school system, but if a teacher's done his/her job, the seed will have been planted for that potential prodigy to continue learning through his/her life.

If anything, it's the "school only indoctrinates you" mantra that holds kids back.

Re:You Did It to Yourself

[jizziknight]

I don't think it's entitlement so much as a lack of curiosity and drive. I'm in no way a prodigy (intelligent, sure, but not beyond normal levels), but went through much of the same in high school. In grade school and middle school, most things were new and interesting, so I was almost always engaged in what I was doing and did very well. In high school, I attempted to push myself by taking honors classes or higher level classes. I quickly found out that for history and literature, I just flat out didn't care, and my grades in those classes suffered as a result. It wasn't because the material was tough, because it wasn't; I was just more inclined to actually do the work for my math and science classes. When I dropped back down to the normal level of history and literature, I was still bored, but could largely ignore the classes and still get decent grades. In my senior year of high school, I simply became bored with everything, and just skated by. It was never because the work was too difficult; it was always because it was boring and I just didn't want to do it. Fast forward to college, and things were new and interesting again. I excelled at the classes because I was learning new things, and things I wanted to learn.

The point is, someone can be the most intelligent person in the world, but if they have no drive or don't want to achieve greatness, no amount of pushing and prodding is going make them do so.

Re:Why fit in?

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

Boy Scouts is good for the socialization, the outdoor experiences, and the service. For someone like this, social development is key. The badges are a joke for anyone remotely intelligent, but the experiences can be excellent. Try to get him involved in the Order of the Arrow through Boy Scouts--one of the largest youth-led organizations in the world, its emphasis on service is helpful to develop in someone.

Also, there are no race-based limitations on membership.