Advice for my math prodigy son

neatoburrito
Mon, 01 Feb 2010 11:25:00 +0000

There is something in what you say, exsrch, about giftedness versus facility of calculation.

I read a very interesting study about verbal / mathematical abilites, as indicated by 12 y/o 's taking the SAT. There are roughly ten times the number of mathematically advanced kids as there are verbal kids. Furthermore, the word whizzes are very likely to reach advanced mathematical standing with training, whereas the math whizzes aren’t any more likely to show remarkable verbal skills than non high achieving kids.

Apparently, math is much easier to teach than philosophy! :)

Also, there are kids who have that “math mind” but are terrible at calculations or find math horribly boring. My daughter came home in 1st grade with a paper that asked her to write the number of sides under various shapes. Under the circle, she had written a sideways 8 (infinity). The teacher marked it wrong. The “correct” answer was 1. She has escher prints in her room now. I doubt she could break 450 on the SAT math, however. Maybe one day she will get to take non-Euclidean geometry and have fun. But she has to get through algebra first! More than likely, she won’t realize she’s good at math until she studies formal logic.

Some kids struggle when a teacher tells them that a circle has one side. Other kids struggle when asked a yes or no question and are incapable of answering simply because there are so many possibilities.

At any rate, when a child is only really happy when learning, and that’s not happening, a parent has to do what they can to help them. Some public schools understand kids like this, and others provide “enrichment” and pat themselves on the back for offering something.