10-year-old college sophomore credits ‘willpower’

[xiggi]

It doesn't sound like the parents are pushing it on him, so I don't see a problem with it. The article says he does martial arts and piano, so I imagine he gets some interaction with kids his own age.

The Today show clearly showed that this was, unfortunately, NOT the case. The parents are pushing him and the activities take place at home.

“But when we put him to study, he is just able to concentrate — focus,” his mother told NBC.

“Willpower and hard work,” is Moshe’s explanation for his success.

“Even though I have a very high IQ, I don’t consider myself genius-smart,” he told Curry. “There’s 6.5 billion people on this earth, and every one is smart in his or her own way.”

Moshe’s way is his ability to absorb everything he reads and make subjects such as advanced math simple.

“I don’t really goof off that much,” he explained. “Except eating and sleeping, mostly I study. Just very, very tiny breaks.”

His parents encourage his studies and seem to have just one taboo activity for their prodigy son — no video games. “It’s a waste of time,” Moshe said.

While this should not come as a surprise to anyone, the kid does not talk as any 10 years of you'd ever see. He talks like a 40 year old person in a body of a kid. However, despite being a bit ackward, there is no reason he could not adjust completely on his way to adulthood.

I just hope he gets a chance to become a child before he reaches puberty. He has a long life ahead of him where he can collect more individual trophies. Some day, the parents and himself will discover that the best trophy on the mantel might be for "Most improved" or "Best Effort" on a team as in the trophy they give at the Y to the kid who hardly comes of the bench.

[kaosgrace]

Hmm. In that case, I agree with the posters above - I don't like it much. There's not really a huge problem with kids being accelerated if *they* want to be, but if the parents are running the show...well, not only is the kid ill-served by the situation, but the degree doesn't mean what it ought to either. One of the things a college degree generally means to a potential employer or graduate or professional school is that the student in question is able to self-motivate and self-direct and find information and resources on his/her own. If mom's in charge of homework, none of that is happening, and the academics alone have limited value.

[jym626]

When I went to the Today Show website to watch the clip, I was far more impressed with this clip msnbc.com Video Player about a 19 yr old young lady, Alia Sabur, who is the world's youngest college professor (started at 18). She got her Ph.D. at 16, and elected to teach in a small, predominantly African-American college in New Orleans that is still housed largely in trailers. I must agree that the 10 yr old boy sounds like he was pushed-- spends virtually all of his time in his studies (his description is almost painful). In contrast, this young professor sounds happy and down to earth, and from what was shared in the vignette of her history, there was not the same pressured feel that one was left with after watching the 10 yr old. It is certainly possible that she was pushed (who knows) and it is equally possible that Moshe will grow up to be equally as down to earth. He just seems quite stilted at his current age. She seems ever-so-slightly goofy, in a charming sort of way.

[Hanna]

"He just seems quite stilted at his current age."

Many really precocious kids do. Even if you put them in regular school, they don't always have normal social lives.

(Not saying that these parents are doing the right thing...just that unusual kids will often be weirdos no matter what their environment is.)

[jym626]

Often precocious kids use sophisticted vocabulary and may seem like little adults. Perhaps this, combined with his subtle accent and aprosodic speech cadence contributed to this particular young boy as coming across in a stilted fashion.

[kenf1234]

I think it's madness. If a kid is extraordinarily precocious, it might make sense to accelerate him into high school, let him work through high school and enter a good university early. But sending him to community college at 10 has nothing to do with the needs of the child but the needs of the parents. There's no prize for finishing college early, except getting into the newspaper and on the Today show, which, I think, probably correlates NEGATIVELY with long-term success and happiness.

[FLVADAD]

jym626 I too am extremely impressed with Alia Sabur. Not only is she brilliant, but she has a great sense of wanting to contribute her talents to doing good in society.

[xiggi]

Actually, I am impressed by Jym's use of "aprosodic speech cadence."

Quite a word to have to look up that early in the morning.

PS The "Could you use in a sentence please?" is a reference to the Spelling Bee and not to Jym's sentence. By the way, did anyone see the part where the latest champion was asked to spell "numbnut"?

YouTube - Numb-WHAT?!? "Oh, NUMNAH!" National Spelling Bee

[NJ_mother]

Negative vibes here too.
Went to college (competitive one) with a kid who was 13, (I think). Nice kid but too immature to be away from home and at college; he dropped out. Did hear about him a few years back, took him a long time to grow up, finish college, find his niche.
I absolutely agree with posters who said let kids find a non-academic passion and pursue it. Emotional IQ is supposed to correlate better with success than intellectual IQ.
For the record, spouse and I have between us 4 immigrant parents (English was not spoken in my home!). We have very American regional accents. So I imagine Moshe spent much more time with Mom than with peers.

[BunsenBurner]

Most of my D's friends raised in immigrant households speak English without a hint of any accent, even if their parents do not speak English. The only ones who have slight accents are the kids who came to this country at the age of 8-10 and older. This wunderkind's accent tells me that he has not been interacting with his peers regularly.

[momof3sons]

Absolutely agree with Xiggi on this one. I saw the original interview and was assuming that I would be "wowed" by a kid who just wanted to learn as much as he possibly could. That's not the vibe I got from the show. I got the "mom made me do it" vibe, at least for some of what he's been doing.

[nysmile]

I agree with most of the posts here. His accent hints to the fact that he's spending a bit too much time with Mom and not enough time with his social peers. A 10 year old's "out of school time" should not be consumed with hours upon hours of studying. He would be better served learning to deal with his peers and filling in his free time with appropriate spontaneous kid fun. Many kids are intellectually advanced for their age yet it's up to the parents to allow these kids to enjoy the gift of childhood. When "pushed" either consciously or subconsciously by parents, the outcome is seldom a happy one.

[jym626]

Well shucks, xig.. And I was just about to to applaud you on your excellent example of admissions acceptances/yield and WL use in the Duke waitlist thread! (Well done-- excellent explanation)
Just fyi:

Aprosodic speech:
Changes in our “tone of voice” while speaking, or speech prosody, are extremely important for conveying and understanding speaker feelings and intentions. Prosodic features have been described as the melodic and rhythmic components of spoken language, and play a central role in how we signal that we are happy, sad, or perhaps just slightly frustrated.

The prosody is the melodic component of speech, while the cadence is the rhythm-- the spacing between words, etc. (should anyone care). Someone who speaks in a flat tone (monotone) has no prosody. If their cadence is off, the speech can be halting, choppy and dysfluent. (There will be a short quiz on this at the end of this post.)

Did anyone happen to notice the absence of Moshe's Jewish-Italian dad in the Today show video (the one that is on the website) Xig- you saw the full thing when aired, correct? Was daddy on the show or was he conspicuously absent? It might have been entertaining to hear if he had any accent at all, but clearly Moshe's language, his accent, his use of grammar and syntax was well seasoned by mom.

[jym626]

By the way- that spelling bee clip is classic!! (Are we allowed now to post youtube links?? )

[pafather]

I haven't seen any video of this kid, and my first impression would be that he was pushed by his parents, but there is always the possibility that he genuinely just likes to learn. However, I would wholeheartedly agree with all posters who have stated that he is probably too young and immature to be away at college. Why can't he just live at home and go to USC or CalTech in a year or two? These two schools are not that far from the community college he has been attending. And I also think that if he is truly outstanding, then he could likely find a mathematics or science faculty member at one of those schools who would be willing to supervise an independent study project for a year or two, both to allow this boy to learn as rapidly as possible and also to determine if he truly is a uniquely intelligent kid or if he is just significantly above average and pushed.