It's just a kid's opinion. No need to truly get worked up about. Some kids have different interests, and there's no need to criticize them about it. After all, it's not like his words are the absolute truth in the entire planet. Let him believe what he wants to believe in and move on.
Wrong, the average 11 year old can't grasp a complex math problem, let alone get a degree in astrophysics. You realize that schools are aware of this and start subjects at the appropriate age. You didn't think they do this to cut you a break or something do you? Don't be silly, the kid is obviously a genius by most standards, his mind is extreeeeemely developed for his age.
The difference is between understanding math and learning math. Many kids in China are just good learners. They do many exercices and repeat it. I know because I've taught some kids there. In Europe, especially in France, Math has to be understood. This is a big difference. So I guess it's possible for every kids, or almost every kids, to just learn math like a poem but much harder to understand it.
From a developmental perspective kids simply can't grasp complex problems until around the age 12, this has been reinforced by countless of studies. I'm not sure what you're disputing here, are you suggesting that this kid does not grasp the things he learned? While I agree that there are people who are incredibly good at remembering things through cognitive strategies, that's definately not the case here. Look at the article, this kid tutored people in college.
You can tutor things without understanding it, I would say that at least 99% of the college students do not understand the maths they are working with and instead are mainly working with formulas and not a small amount of the tutors do so too. I even taught my TA in linear algebra a thing that he had missunderstood and linear algebra is one of the easiest things to understand.
On June 09 2009 12:43 Frits wrote: And kids want to know how things work, this starts at a young age, if you simply make kids study material without them being able to grasp it, they would quickly lose interest, this is not a stimulating environment at all for children.
Um, if they are driven by their parent's they wouldn't lose interest. See it like this, if he never went to daycare and instead spent all of his time at home allowing his parents to teach him from the start without spoiling his minds with things such as games or basic toys he wouldn't have anything to compare it to so he would not lose interest.
Look at his room even, he just got a piano, books and all of his prizes there...
On June 09 2009 12:43 Frits wrote: This kid has received a lot of attention while growing up, his environment is basically talored to his needs. This is standard procedure with prodegies.
No it isn't, I am for every intent and purpose gifted. But my parents never cared about me, I got put in a normal school, I never did my homework and such from the start but I was still ahead of the classmates. Anyway, I am still far ahead of all of my classmates in terms of understanding and how fast I learn even though I am on my last year as an undergrad and I still do not study at my free time and I haven't done a problem set in maths or so since I was 10 years old. How involved the parents are does a huge amount, if they don't do anything at all even the smartest person will not be found till he is something like 12-15 and even then he wont be seen as anything special since his peers who are driven by their parents to work hard are still outscoring him.
Anyhow, I still think that it would be possible for the average 2 standard deviations kid to do calculus at the age of 10 as long as he was raised properly, most parents aren't that ambitious though and instead sends their kid to daycare, let them watch TV a lot etc instead of teaching the kid themselves. And even though 2 sd is seen as a "genius" I would hardly call a 2 sd person that, your psychology book however does. But I dunno, I tend to overestimate what people are capable of, myself I learned calculus when I was 15 by just reading straight through the books and then I didn't touch maths again till I started college, I never saw the deal with it. But people still whine a bit about it...
Anyhow, I would hardly say that something 1% of the kids can do would be all that remarkable, but I guess that most kids just don't get the chance so the figure of the amount of kids who graduates at really young ages is really low.
Of course though he might be uber smart, impossible to judge just with the information we got, I am just saying. Also, have any of the big scientists in history been child prodigies? Not to my knowledge at least, I think the deal is that you stunt something if you do not let their mind fly freely when they are young.
I'd rather be jealous of people 2SD on the hot or not scale than someone whose intelligence is at that level. Intelligence suffers from diminishing returns in terms of life outcome quickly, while warren harding shows the world just how useful good looks is. If one only combines moderate intelligence, okay background with very good looks, society is but a tool to be manipulated even without drawing on the works of consciousness.
Far better than the isolating features of "excessive intelligence" which often come at a loss of other mental functions leading all the way to aspergers and autism which makes the gain not worth it.
On June 10 2009 00:47 Klockan3 wrote: Also, have any of the big scientists in history been child prodigies? Not to my knowledge at least, I think the deal is that you stunt something if you do not let their mind fly freely when they are young.
For someone that gifted in math I dunno how you missed Gauss.
On June 10 2009 01:09 SWPIGWANG wrote: I'd rather be jealous of people 2SD on the hot or not scale than someone whose intelligence is at that level. Intelligence suffers from diminishing returns in terms of life outcome quickly, while warren harding shows the world just how useful good looks is. If one only combines moderate intelligence, okay background with very good looks, society is but a tool to be manipulated even without drawing on the works of consciousness.
Far better than the isolating features of "excessive intelligence" which often come at a loss of other mental functions leading all the way to aspergers and autism which makes the gain not worth it.
Agreed. Being at a nice 120-140 is probably the best.
By the way, I do not really understand why they are using that scale, at least to me a person with 140 IQ is way smarter than twice as smart as someone with 70, even though the only reason to translate the SD to that is to tell you that 140 actually is twice as smart as 70.
In other words I do not believe that intelligence really follow a bell curve, the only reason they use that is because a bell curve is usually a good approximation of anything you take.
On June 10 2009 00:47 Klockan3 wrote: Also, have any of the big scientists in history been child prodigies? Not to my knowledge at least, I think the deal is that you stunt something if you do not let their mind fly freely when they are young.
For someone that gifted in math I dunno how you missed Gauss.
Gauss did follow roughly a normal school curriculum and didn't start college till he was 15, and he is seen as one of the best mathematician in history. In terms of child prodigyness he is leagues behind the guy in this thread.
Doesn't it strike anyone as odd that everyone here mentions that they could perform similar feats if only they invested the time and effort? As if being smart (here: being able to grasp complex ideas at a younger age than others) is the only thing that matters. Let's assume that what some of you say is true (which goes against Piaget's and just about all the important child development theories, and the countless amounts of research), what the hell is so comforting about being a self proclaimed genius if you didn't do shit with it?
Even if you could perform feats similar the the ones this kid is capable of (which wouldn't make sense because kids enjoy learning, you're all assuming children are naturally lazy and all kids like playing video games), why don't you? The thing that seperates you isn't the time invested, because you never made a conscious choice to actually do so, it's the motivation to actually invest the time. Part of the reason prodigies have this motivation is that they enjoy learning things on a level they can grasp. Like I said before, imagine having to do simple adding problems when your mind can comprehend complex theories, you would be bored. Similarly, if you handle problems too complex for your mind, you get bored, because you cannot comprehend them, you simply are not physically developed enough.
@Klockan3, no, you're not a genius. Stop blaming your parents for your own shortcomings.
Note the difference between unremarkable self proclaimed genius and genius. And I never said that a genius has to be a child prodigy or that genius is necessarily connected with achievement, although it definately correlates.
My point about the time invested: You seem to take pride in being smart while not doing anything with it, why are you taking for granted that you could invest the time? Why are you denying this important part. You could say that someone who tries really hard could be a genius if he were smarter, what's the difference with motivation? How do you create intrinsic motivation?
And I never denied influence of environment, that's just you turning around the argument. You're denying the stages children progress through at certain age. I point this out and suddenly I'm denying the opposite? I think your logic is flawed here, since you're denying the antecedent.
On June 10 2009 01:20 Frits wrote: @Klockan3, no, you're not a genius. Stop blaming your parents for your own shortcomings.
Wut? So, now you are in denial? Just because I didn't graduate at the age of 11 I can't be smart? As I mentioned in an above post most of the greatest scientists were not graduating prematurely...
On June 10 2009 01:20 Frits wrote: what the hell is so comforting about being a self proclaimed genius if you didn't do shit with it?
So, it isn't worth anything if you aren't doing it when you are under aged?
Your logic is really strange, according to you the average kid can get their hands on maths book by the age of 3, it is just that most kids do not like said maths and ignores it and only a few gifted kids takes their time to learn it? I mean, if the parents aren't able to speak multiple languages or they don't do it with their kid the kid wont learn multiple languages, if the kid haven't gotten any experience with numbers he will never show any special affinity for maths etc.
If the parents aren't actively searching for it then it wont see the daylight.
Edit: But I guess that you are one of those 100% nature guys, who do not believe that the way someone was raised have any significant impact on who they become...
On June 10 2009 01:20 Frits wrote: My point about the time invested: You seem to take pride in being smart while not doing anything with it, why are you taking for granted that you could invest the time? Why are you denying this important part. You could say that someone who tries really hard could be a genius if he were smarter, what's the difference with motivation? How do you create intrinsic motivation?
I am doing something with it, I am taking twice the normal course load the the toughest college programme you can take here. Just because I don't spend any free time on it do not mean that I am not successful.
I am not self proclaimed, most says that I am, even the professors.
On June 10 2009 01:20 Frits wrote: And I never denied influence of environment, that's just you turning around the argument. You're denying the stages children progress through at certain age. I point this out and suddenly I'm denying the opposite? I think your logic is flawed here, since you're denying the antecedent.
No, you were saying that I weren't smart from what you had read, because I weren't as into learning as these "prodigies".
Anyway, the reason I said that you were in denial is because you instantly denied that I could be smart and started to build up this image of me as someone who didn't accomplish anything special just because I said that I never worked. Please, stop with the prejudice.
Ok, so I've been browsing around the ELAC website...even though this kid is technically a college graduate, if he really wants to have a successful career in astrophysics, I certainly hope he considers a degree at another university. Browsing through their math department shows that ODE's are the fourth highest level of math you can take. Some high schoolers are taking classes in ODE's :/...Independent study in any subject is cirtually guaranteed to be more useful at, say, a California state school.
Let's compare some course descriptions: Math 105 at East Los Angeles College:
This course is designed to give students understanding and competency in the basic operations of elementary arithmetic. Topics include the standard operations with applications on whole numbers, fractions, decimals, ratio, proportion, and percent. Additional topics may be chosen from geometric figures and introduction to algebra.
Mathematics 105 is a course in vector calculus that uses linear algebra. Topics to be covered include: iterated integrals and partial derivatives, optimization (constrained and unconstrained) in multiple dimensions, the Implicit Function Theorem, cylindrical and spherical coordinate systems, vector fields, divergence and curl, parameterized curves and surfaces, arc length and surface area, and Green's, Stokes's, and Gauss's Theorems.
No, you were saying that I weren't smart from what you had read, because I weren't as into learning as these "prodigies".
The word "I" is not plural.
English probably isn't his first language. Why don't you try writing coherent paragraphs in Swedish :/
That has nothing to do with his point. Klockan3, the self-appointed genius, is a bit too full of himself seeing as how he likes to blame external factors such as parents for his own shortcomings while giving no credit to other people who surpass his own accomplishments. 4iner was making a half-serious joke under the premise, "someone with such a high opinion of himself shouldn't be making grammatical mistakes or any other kind of mistake for the matter."
Anyway, I wouldn't take anything Klockan3 says seriously. He's your typical Internet forum "know-it-all" who views himself as the undisputed expert of all matters even when professional experts disagree. Klockan3 can craft whatever theories he wants, but he provides ZERO facts for his main argument. The only support/example is his own life, which is heavily skewed by his stupidly huge ego.
The common belief accepted by most psychologists today in the endless "Nature versus Nurture" debate is that both play a role. Or in the case of this thread, parents are a strong influence on a child's development and growth, but the child makes the final and ultimate decision on how far he/she wants to go in life. Internal factors such as the child's resilience and own personal motivation are just as crucial as his/her environment. Diminishing the child's accomplishments by saying that "anyone can do the same under the same circumstances" is wrong as shown throughout history.
There are two types of examples that show that parents are not the only defining factors: gifted children who combust because of demanding parents and gifted children who excel without the help/support of their parents.
Here are some examples. "Ruth Slezynska, who made her début in 1929 at the age of 4. In her autobiography she tells how her father made her practise 9 hours every day. He tolerated no mistakes and hit her at the least wrong note. At 15 she suffered a major breakdown that put an end to her career." (Source: La Scena Musicale Volume 6, Number 2)
Marie Curie - Born in a poor family and the youngest of five children, she was on the short end of the stick when it came to attention from her parents. She taught herself to read and ended up tutoring her older siblings in mathematics. I don't think I need to go on about her accomplishments later on in life since she's a relatively well-known figure. AND IM SURE HER LIFE WAS MUCH HARDER THAN YOURS KLOCKAN3 BUT SHE DIDN'T RESIGN HERSELF TO BLAMING HER LIFE ON HER PARENTS.
Here's another example. We don't have to look further than our own lives about the very subject this site is designed for.
Starcraft Progamers. There's numerous talks stating that Koreans are good at Starcraft simply because they practice 10+ hours a day. But the next question that arises is, "How many people here would do that?" It's one thing to say "Oh, I could be just as good as Jaedong if I played 12 hours a day." Then we follow it up with a bunch of excuses why we don't such as "I have better things to do in life."
But we're also overlooking the fact that most of us just can't do it rather than won't do it. I've gone on gaming binges where I've played games at a PC bang for 2 days straight. By the end of the second day, I'm just burnt out and sick of playing games... for a day or two anyway. However, I cannot imagine having to play Starcraft for 12 hours a day, 6 days a week until the end of time. And if I can't play a game for 12 hours a day, then there's no way in hell I'm going to diligently study for 12 hours a day regardless of how much my parents push.
By the way, my parents are hardcore Koreans who pushed me since an early age. I play the violin, piano, and saxophone. I scored a 1520 on the SAT (out of 1600) in my sophomore year. However, I haven't accomplished any feats that warrants the title genius because I simply didn't have the innate drive to push myself to the same degree that my parents did. I lacked the dedication.
Extreme dedication is a deviation from the norm as much as extreme intelligence thus both are equally important in the makings of a genius. And dedication is an innate trait or at the very least, a trait you choose or accept out of your own will not something your parents can beat into you as illustrated in the examples shown above.
Disclaimer I'm not downplaying the role of parents or the environment, I've read "Outliers," an excellent nonfiction book by Malcom Gladwell, which explores the impact of culture on success and talks about the whole nurture aspect in a way never imagined before.