10-year-old college sophomore credits ‘willpower’

csleslie51 · 06-05-2008, 11:05 AM

Moshe Kai Cavalin likes to tell about the time his father took him to take his college entrance test. The administrators told his dad he couldn’t bring an 8-year-old with him into the test room. His father told them the boy was going in alone — because he was the one taking the test.
“They were smiling ... thought he was telling a joke,” Moshe told TODAY’s Ann Curry Wednesday in New York. But when Moshe’s scores came back, the administrators were suddenly telling his dad something else — that Moshe needed to be taking advanced mathematics.
And so, on a day when other kids his age are in the final week or two of fifth grade, 10-year-old Moshe was visiting New York and off for the summer, having just completed his second year at East Los Angeles College, a community college.
Moshe aced all his courses, in such subjects as statistics, advanced mathematics, foreign languages and music. Now he says he’s hoping for a scholarship to a prestigious four-year college.
To say Moshe is a prodigy is like saying Michelangelo could paint a little. His parents, Shu Chen Chien and Yosef Cavalin, have known that ever since they tried to enroll him in a private elementary school and discovered that the boy knew more than his teachers. So they home-schooled him for two years before realizing he was already beyond elementary and high school level and ready for college. College sophomore, 10, credits ?hard work? - TODAY: People - MSNBC.com

prefect · 06-05-2008, 11:18 AM

He says "Mostly I just study. Very tiny tiny breaks." Seems a little scary to me. If he graduates from a 4 year school at 12 and gets his Ph.D at about 17, then what?

Hunt · 06-05-2008, 11:20 AM

"His parents, Shu Chen Chien and Yosef Cavalin, have known that ever since they tried to enroll him in a private elementary school and discovered that the boy knew more than his teachers. So they home-schooled him for two years before realizing he was already beyond elementary and high school level and ready for college."

I can't say anything about this kid without getting involved in multiple stereotyping. The line about Michelangelo is dopey, though.

chuy · 06-05-2008, 12:08 PM

Quote:

He says "Mostly I just study. Very tiny tiny breaks." Seems a little scary to me. If he graduates from a 4 year school at 12 and gets his Ph.D at about 17, then what?

Discovering hard drugs, usually.

I kid, I kid. Kids like this do crack sometimes but I suppose for every ten that do theres one that handles it "correctly" (if there is such a thing.)

MidwestMom2Kids_ · 06-05-2008, 01:20 PM

You know, some kids just really like to study. They have an insatiable intellectual curiosity and want to learn more and more. I think this might well be the case for this young man.

clam_chowder · 06-05-2008, 01:26 PM

im just curious about his social life.. does he hv friends in that college?

alipes07 · 06-05-2008, 02:06 PM

Quote:

You know, some kids just really like to study.

Or they have parents that force them to study and read 10 hrs a day. Not saying this is the case with this kid, but it sometimes is when I hear about these really young college students.

garland · 06-05-2008, 02:45 PM

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

Put him to study?

ExplorerCY · 06-05-2008, 02:45 PM

that poor, poor child. why would you do that to a kid.

rodney · 06-05-2008, 03:07 PM

so funny..... so he was on the Today show the other morning....Ann Curry asks, "So what do you do in your spare time,, you know, for fun".....The kid, very eloquently, responds, "just studying and more studying...."....He really was adorable, and if it makes him happy, so be it......as long as this wasn't orchestrated by his parents.....

jsmall · 06-05-2008, 03:26 PM

I don't think that kid gets out much. Most kids who are born to immagrant parents and raised in the U.S. speak with American accents, this kid sounds like he's picked up much of his mothers accent leading me to believe that he doesn't socialize much outside of the home. Unless of course he is an immagrant as well. IDK.

jym626 · 06-06-2008, 09:11 AM

I can't decide how I feel about this 10-year-old scholar takes Calif. college by storm This kiddo is finishing his sophomore year and plans to transfer to a "prestigious" 4 yr college to study astrophysics. In this day and age of homeschooling, exploring the best academic environment for a child is a good thing. And the article mentions that the youngest student (now 24) graduated college at 10. Still, is the best social environment for such a child? I can argue both sides of this issue quite easily. What are your thoughts?

kaosgrace · 06-06-2008, 09:29 AM

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; if he wants to take college coursework and can keep up with it, more power to him!

(I say this as someone who started college at sixteen and flunked out because I was too immature. I couldn't handle it. (though I did actually take intermediate algebra at a community college when I was 9 and got an A; maybe I really would have done better as a preteen!) Anyway, people are different, and some are truly exceptional. Maybe this kid's one of them.

gadad · 06-06-2008, 09:30 AM

I don't feel good about it, but this is such an extreme case that I'm not sure what would be a better alternative. I have a good bit of experience with accelerating kids who are ahead. As a child, I was allowed to start school a year early, then skipped past first grade. As a result, I was two years younger than my classmates throughout my entire life. Though I've been able overcome most of them, the negatives of my relative immaturity outweighed the positives. Being competitive at sports, driving, dating, going off to college at 16 - they were all greatly complicated by being two years younger than my peers.

My son is also advanced and after he was put ahead one year, we chose to concentrate his advanced challenge in Math, since it's easier to ramp up the challenge in other courses. He's now 13 and just finished eighth grade. At the same time, he completed all of the available math curriculum at the local high school, so he'll start HS in the fall but take Math at the local university. That way he'll have a normal peer experience most of the day and get a more limited exposure to college.

If you have a 10-year-old who needs the challenge of a college curriculum, I guess the best approach might be to get him deeply involved and invested in an out-of-class passion that he shares with kids the same age.

xiggi · 06-06-2008, 09:32 AM

He was also on the Today Show.

On the one hand, he sounds like a great and well-adjusted kid. He obviously loves to study and has a great academic talent. Who is there to decide he cannot move up to the next level (in this case a Communiy College) after he clearly has surpassed what is available in high school ot via homeschooling.

On the ther hand, seeing a kid who still rides in a ... booster chair in the back of the mom-mobile on his way to school makes you wonder about his possibilities to integrate socially with his future peers. Unfortunately, even his choices of EC are again individual accomplishments (martial arts and piano.) Then there is the issue of having been ... pushed. While the article was not that direct, during the TV interview he said several times that my MOM made me study and there was a telling scene about the Chinese MOM hovering over his shoulder when completing a Calculus assignment.

While I really thing that the kid will be fine, I would hope to see his family coming to their sense and allow the child to slow done a bit and experience more of the typical activities a 10 years old should do. After all, his amazing abilities will not erode if he were to "drop out" after completing his two years at the CC and take the time to participate in GROUP activities, be a member of a TEAM, and contrubute to society in a totally altruistic manner.

Do this for a few years, and then apply to the prestigious university. The Black Holes will still be there, the schools will be there, and I am quite certain that his experience and developemnt will be so much better when he will be a few inches taller, a few years wiser, and have earned a few precious momemts of complete independence from his parents.