<p>[Can</a> the child prodigy work out if he should go to university aged 7? - Times Online](<a href=“http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article2844677.ece]Can”>http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article2844677.ece)</p>
<p>One of the comments to the article stated he only got a C on his O-level exam. Sounds like he is possibly ready for high school but not university! Do the parents thinks professors will give him a break because he’s only 7?</p>
<p>I agree that it sounds like the kid is ready for high school level work. If there’s a K-12 school near him, he can take some classes at the high school level and some classes with peers. Even if he just has lunch, recess, reading time, health, or art with his peers, I think it’s better than keeping him home and thrusting him into college level work. I’m sure he’s a smart kid, but I doubt he’s brilliant, and I doubt he’s ready for college, and I really doubt that college is the best place for him.</p>
<p>Some of the parents’ quotes sound a little off to me, too. This sounds like a case of parental pressure. He’s a very smart seven year old, but he’s still a seven year old. It’s a difficult situation, but they need to try to find a balance. Someone in the article is quoted saying that he still has the attention span of a little boy; could he really handle 2 hour classes and 4-5 hour labs? I highly doubt it–not to mention the issues with bench height and muscles too immature to safely handle the beakers or chemicals or other tools. </p>
<p>It is possible that he will level out somewhat in a couple years. Other very smart students may rise to meet him, and his initial progress may slow. The fact that he could read early and was supported in educational endeavors from early on put him miles beyond other smart seven year olds, but this gap will likely shrink in the next few years when other very smart kids are given the chance to flourish. </p>
<p>If I were the parents, I would send him to day school, get him taken out of classes as appropriate for private tutoring, reading, or a class at the high school level in those subjects, and get him involved in non-academic activities, such as art and sports. Stimulate him intellectually by going to museums, giving him puzzles, looking into community education classes or lectures on history or some other topic, and middle school/high school languages, maybe Latin. At the same time, keep him involved in other activities that involve his peers, that challenge him in different ways, and that keep him active and engaged.</p>
<p>corranged, I agree completely.</p>
<p>I don’t know why posters think the kid is ready for high school only. He took O levels which are exams aimed at 16 years old and is studying for A-levels, which are the next level. If he were to pass those, he would qualify for Advanced Standing at HYPSM.
Another thing. Grading in the UK is much more rigorous than in the US. So I would not denigrate his achievement on the O levels because he got Cs on the O levels.</p>
<p>Oh and another thing. He excels in chemistry. If he were to attend a British university, he would do chemistry–not Latin, not history, not the Chicago Core. He could probably outshine 18 years old in chemistry.</p>
<p>Finally, who are his supposed peers? Do other seven year olds every discuss chemistry or physics or math? Sure he needs physical exercise and play. And he may not be able to be the 7 year old he is in college. But would he be able to do any more comfortable among 15 year olds?</p>
<p>Some years ago, my S’s enrichment class welcomed an 8 year old. She was so excited she was practically hyper. After a while, she settled down to being merely enthusiastic to be doing math for 3 hours with kids 12 to 18. Two years later, she was studying for her A levels. Of course, she was home schooled. I assume that the following year, she would be 11 attending college with sophomore standing.</p>
<p>This story illustrates the dilemma of the highly advanced student. The student will be asynchronous and will not have true peers. One has to choose between being with intellectual or developmental peers. But the latter is not necessarily better than the former.</p>
<p>I am sure that he is not functioning as a young adult. He is 7. I am sure that his brain will continue to develop for many years to come. I would think that socially, emotionally, motor skills, judgement is not that of a young adult. I think that he requires a special program, and physical as well as emotional safety should come first.</p>
<p>I thought that he’s more ready for high school level work than college level for a variety of reasons. Mainly, it doesn’t sound as if he can handle college education at this age. I don’t think he could go to class three days a week and take notes, do the reading and work on problem sets for hours, go to study sessions if needed, complete labs, and grasp the highly complex material to a full extent in a college setting. He could probably learn college chemistry, but could he learn it in a college class? Could he complete the required labs? Could he sit down and study for midterms and exams? It sounds like he learned high school level chemistry by reading on the internet and maybe by reading a high school textbook. A professor quoted in the article says that he could learn very quickly. That way of learning is dramatically different than learning in a college class, where immediate knowledge and understanding is not possible, and I do not think he is ready for that (not to mention the fact that I don’t think that’s the best place for him even if he could learn well in a college class). College level lab sciences should be challenging for every student. On the other hand, high school level sciences may not be all that rigorous for students good in science. There is a large gap between the two, and it doesn’t sound as if he’s ready to take that step. </p>
<p>The other professor quoted said he could talk about radioactivity, balance equations, and all the rest. These abilities sound like the most basic levels of high school chemistry. I think he could go further at the high school level with AP or IB level work before moving to the college level. </p>
<p>I’m also wondering how he is in other subjects. How well can he write? How advanced is he in math? Young “prodigies” tend to be great in some areas, but they almost never have the emotional maturity or level of experience to grasp and excel in studies in literature or the social sciences. If he goes to college, what is he going to do about those areas? There are just so many problems, I can’t see how this is their best option.</p>
<p>EDIT: This was posted before Marite edited her above post. It only responds to the first paragraph.</p>
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<p>S just had a science mid-term. Entirely made up of multiple choice questions. No writing involved.</p>
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<p>I agree entirely with corranged. There are other factors to be considered that the boy’s parents are seemingly ignoring.</p>
<p>There is also the maturity level of doing the hard work - the studying. Kids this age don’t have the concept of time. Pull and all-nighter to study? Or is Mom planning on rooming with him to help keep him on task? 7 year olds don’t have the attention span of adults. And what happened with letting a child be a child? Maybe a few gap years so he can mature and have SOME fun??? Prodigy or not, this is still a child. He needs a childhood.</p>
<p>I wasn’t sure whether Singapore followed a strict British educational model or not. </p>
<p>That’s not really my main concern, though. By jumping straight to college level chemistry and skipping all of elementary, middle, and high school in other subjects, this kid would be 18 and a chemistry genius but may be at the “zero” level in everything else. When most students go to college, they have at least a base level of knowledge in history, literature, math, and science–enough to get around, at least. This kid would completely skip everything except chemistry. Maybe, if given the opportunity, he would discover a love of literature in school, or art, or engineering, or something else. Or, gasp, maybe it’s important for citizens of the world to have well-rounded knowledge, even if they don’t fall passionately in love with every subject. You just completely dismissed writing because he may have multiple choice tests! On a practical level, writing is a vital skill that he will need for writing lab reports, a thesis, a dissertation, or any kind of report in the professional world. Beyond that, though, it’s just one of those things that people should be able to do proficiently. I mean, Marite, I just can’t get over the fact that you just disregarded writing… It’s so ridiculous that I don’t know how to respond.</p>
<p>He excels in Chemistry now, at the age of 7. Who knows what he could discover? What else he could learn? I wasn’t saying he should be a Latin scholar, Marite, I was saying that there are ways to keep him intellectually stimulated besides sending him to college to continue learning only chemistry. He can continue studying sciences and also study a number of other subjects, have fun playing outside, learn an instrument, and any number of other things for a few years or more. </p>
<p>What about the practical side? Can he pay attention during class? Can he put in disciplined hours of study when things don’t come to him right away? Can he complete labs? Can he deal with low grades on an emotional level</p>
<p>“Finally, who are his supposed peers? Do other seven year olds every discuss chemistry or physics or math? […] One has to choose between being with intellectual or developmental peers.” Friends can interact on any number of levels. I have friends who never went to college–we are not intellectual peers in the least, but we can relate in many other ways. We are the same age, from the same area, and know some of the same people. I also have intellectual peers (some of whom talk about areas that I’m interested in, and others who talk about things that I know almost nothing about). This is not the either/or situation that you are making it into. He can have people he can talk to about Chemistry or whatever else, and he can also have seven year old boy friends with whom he can explore the woods and dig up worms. He can get involved in non-academic activities and relate to developmental/age peers on a different plane, through sports or art or video games. </p>
<p>Do you really think that college is the best choice for this kid?</p>
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<p>I don’t know. Nor did I say so. We do not know enough about this child or whether he has studied anything else besides chemistry. One has to assume he knows some math and physics. How much is needed to pass O-level chemistry I do not know.</p>
<p>Nor do we know whether he has the self-discipline to do intensive work. In my experience, kids who are passionate about something are able to spend huge amounts of time working on that something. I witnessed it every week for sis years. How many students of whatever age are willing to spend 3 hours every Sunday doing math? Those I observed ranged from the 10 year old doing O-levels to 18 years old. </p>
<p>Intellectual peers. You are talking apples and oranges when discussing your friends who never went to college. You speak to them occasionally; they are not your exclusive circle of friends. I assume, you do not discuss Thucydides or Kierkegaard with them. You wait until you get back to U Chicago to do so. But a 7 year old among other 7 year olds or even high schoolers would not have the chance to discuss his intellectual passion with anyone except the lone person hired as a tutor. Many highly gifted children have a vocabulary that is so advanced compared to their age peers that it is as if they spoke another language. I doubt many 7 year olds know what a molecule is. This one does.</p>
<p>One thing I observed for six years: the kids were starved for intellectual peers. That’s why the 8 year old was so excited the first few times she attended the classes: as if she was afraid she would not have another chance to do math at that level again, so she had to make the greatest use of those three hours.</p>
<p>I don’t know whether he would be better off at university or not. But I do not a priori assume that he would be better off with other 7 year olds. And I’ll bet that university students would be more welcoming to a 7 year old than 14 or 15 year olds. They would not feel threatened by him the way high schoolers might, the way some high school seniors felt when my S joined them for AP-Physics at 13.</p>
<p>corranged: I’m sure he’s a smart kid, but I doubt he’s brilliant, and I doubt he’s ready for college, and I really doubt that college is the best place for him.</p>
<p>Some of the parents’ quotes sound a little off to me, too. This sounds like a case of parental pressure. He’s a very smart seven year old, but he’s still a seven year old. It’s a difficult situation, but they need to try to find a balance. Someone in the article is quoted saying that he still has the attention span of a little boy; could he really handle 2 hour classes and 4-5 hour labs? I highly doubt it–not to mention the issues with bench height and muscles too immature to safely handle the beakers or chemicals or other tools. </p>
<p>**It is possible that he will level out somewhat in a couple years. **Other very smart students may rise to meet him, and his initial progress may slow. The fact that he could read early and was supported in educational endeavors from early on put him miles beyond other smart seven year olds, but this gap will likely shrink in the next few years when other very smart kids are given the chance to flourish. </p>
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<p>Man, I remember people saying the same things about me when I was a kid. Seems like yesterday. </p>
<p>The parents seem a little excited but it’s an unusual parent that wouldn’t get excited. I don’t think college is necessarily the best thing, and probably being in the newspaper is not a good thing either. Maybe he could take some university classes but not necessarily be an enrolled regular student. We don’t know for sure that the schools around this kid are cooperating at all-- if they’re anything like American schools I wouldn’t be surprised if they were trying to slow the kid down.</p>
<p>“There is also the maturity level of doing the hard work - the studying. Kids this age don’t have the concept of time. Pull and all-nighter to study? Or is Mom planning on rooming with him to help keep him on task? 7 year olds don’t have the attention span of adults. And what happened with letting a child be a child? Maybe a few gap years so he can mature and have SOME fun??? Prodigy or not, this is still a child. He needs a childhood.”</p>
<p>He obviously enjoys chemistry… In 10 years maybe it will be a chore.<br>
If a kid wants to do something, let him do it…</p>
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When I am at home during the summer, I talk to them daily. I don’t talk to them about Thucydides, but I don’t usually talk intensely about these things with my UChicago friends, either (though references come up constantly, given the environment). I’ll talk to my friends about my sister coming to visit, or how my friend’s husband is doing in Iraq, or the new Harry Potter book, or my job. The topics aren’t all that different than what I talk to my other friends about. Anyway, it’s true that it would be difficult for this kid to find any peers he can talk to on all levels. That’s why I suggest a balance. Have him in a class in school with age peers for health class or recess, put him around high school students in math class, let him talk to adults at community lectures, etc. I think that variety is best for this kid, at least for the first few years. Let him be around lots of different people with whom he can relate in different ways, let him be exposed to a variety of subjects, and let him explore chemistry further in an appropriate environment. A college chemistry class may be appropriate, but I doubt it for all of the reasons I’ve stated previously (problem sets, logistics of the lab, etc.). (Notice I said a college chemistry class–I don’t think full enrollment sounds appropriate in this case.)</p>
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Of course students passionate about something can spend hours working on it. But this kid is still seven. If he hits a road block, gets a problem wrong, gets sleepy, or hungry, or wants to go outside, will he push through to finish that problem set? In my opinion, a seven year old shouldn’t even have to worry about that. He should have an amount of work that he can get done and still get a good night’s sleep, watch the Discovery channel, practice the piano, play with friends, and do other subjects. Further, as I’ve said, the kid may be passionate about chemistry, but there may be other things he hasn’t discovered yet. When I was in elementary school, I spent as much time on math as my parents and the school would allow. In the second grade we were given a math book for the year for the first time. By Christmas, I had completed the math books for grades 2-7, so an older student came in during math to teach me algebra. I obviously wasn’t as advanced as this kid in a single subject–I wasn’t encouraged to be, either. My math time with this older student was limited to one hour a week. Anyway, I found other subjects I enjoyed. This young kid could find other subjects that engage and challenge and interest him, and he could learn the basics in subjects that don’t engage him. I think both are important.</p>
<p>I think that this little boy has a lot of options that may fit him better than going straight into college to study chemistry. I stand by my original post</p>
<p>Collegealum, I know very few people who are “brilliant” in my book, and I don’t think it’s a label one can really get in elementary school. It’s the development that matters. In the same way, it is true that many students who haven’t had the opportunity to grow yet will flourish in school. He will likely be smarter than them, but not by the degree that he is now. As I said, this kid was encouraged, perhaps even pushed, and he could read and speak early. Age peers who are just learning to read now, who weren’t in academic or intellectual environments before starting school, could very well excel in the next few years when finally given the opportunity to do so.</p>
<p>Chemistry majors spend many hours in the lab–I realize there are hoods and safety precautions, but they are designed with the physiology of young adults in mind, not growing children. </p>
<p>I have to wonder about exposure to so many hours of breathing the fumes from those chemicals for many years at such a young age might do.</p>
<p>Well, we have no idea what level he is at mathematically. However, if he is able to do chemistry problems I assume that he at least knows some algebra already.</p>
<p>People have different standards for the term “brilliant.” However, I disagree with the notion that you can’t tell at that age.</p>
<p>"Chemistry majors spend many hours in the lab–I realize ther are hoods and safety precautions, but they are designed with the physiology of young adults in mind, not growing children. </p>
<p>I have to wonder about exposure to so many hours of breathing those chemicals for many years at such a young age might do."</p>
<p>Is there some reason that he has to take the lab courses? At many universities it is separate from the theory/textbook part.</p>
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Well, since you apparently took that line of my first post as a personal affront, I decided to make clear that in my book smart =/= brilliant. </p>
<p>If he were a full time chemistry student, he would undoubtedly take labs. The intro chemistry sequence at my college has 4 hour labs every week. I was assuming lab was part of the course. It’s certainly part of the study of chemistry.</p>
<p>Collegealum:</p>
<p>I agree with you about brilliance. Anyone who has been around gifted kids has heard the same tune about other kids catching up given half the chance and the same amount of support.
I also think that one can bring a horse to water but one cannot make the horse drink. I doubt that pushy parents could get a recalcitrant 7-year old to do something if he was unwilling. Most of the times, it’s the gifted kids who are pulling their parents and teachers, rather than the parents pushing. The parents are usually pushing schools for accommodations because they realize their kids want and need them. </p>
<p>The reason Nanyang is not accepting the kid seems to be because the labs are not designed for small kids. It seems a bit strange to invoke such a very prosaic reason; it does not have anything to do with his academic preparedness or even his emotional/social development. </p>
<p>Another thing to consider: Not every university has a campus. In a lot of countries, students are expected to live at home (as students who attend community colleges in the US do). Since the kid is not American, let’s not assume that his parents are looking to give him the college experience of an American student. </p>
<p>For a different story:</p>
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[9-year-old</a> boy becomes youngest college student in HK](<a href=“http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-08/24/content_6593892.htm]9-year-old”>http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-08/24/content_6593892.htm)</p></li>
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<p>The Singapore kid still has to take his A-levels.</p>