<p>Starbright, see several posts upthread - they already have, hence the comment about “CC denizens” on the site, and the posting by Strawman.</p>
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<p>It depends on how the team is structured. There is no reason to believe it will be made up of people of the same age. In fact, the accent on being part of the same age cohort is peculiarly American.
This reminds me of the visit my S took when he was in 9th grade, One of his teachers (yay for a wonderful teacher) took him to a start-up where a relative was working on some hush-hush project. The nephew was a guy in his twenties, occupying an office by himself. He looked like he could not be bothered to comb his hair; he wearing something just a notch above pjs. On his desk, besides a computer was his lunch box and a row of empty coke cans. Clearly, he did not intend to use his lunch time, or any other time, for socializing. He did not spend much time welcoming his relative or my S.
The hi-tech world is full of people like that.</p>
<p>Imagine what Beethoven could have accomplished with better teamwork skills.</p>
<p>I just don’t like the snarkiness of some of the posts. I mean, I’m not a pianist, but his playing sounded pretty darned good to me. Ditto the integrals… pretty impressive, and I AM a math person.</p>
<p>Assuming that his abilities are truly this exceptional, I seriously doubt that he’d have a lot in common with other “regular” 8 year olds. He may also have a real idea of what mature friendship is (i.e., someone you can rely on, share your hopes and dreams with, etc., as opposed to someone you play monopoly with) and understand that the folks who fit that description are indeed his parents.</p>
<p>All I can say is that this is a very tough room, and I’m glad you guys aren’t judging all the MANY mistakes I made over the last 21 years.</p>
<p>Mom2three, that’s because you kept your minor children’s business to yourself instead of putting it out for public consumption.</p>
<p>I haven’t been called a denizen in a long time.</p>
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<p>I would hope they take away the idea that they are not alone; there are a lot of parents raising very bright kids. There are courses, help, resources on which they can draw. There are people who’ve been through it. An important lesson for a kid (one that many CTYers/TIPsters/etc. learn at camp!) is that just because a kid is the brightest bulb in the chandelier in his sphere (home or neighborhood or school), it doesn’t mean he is the brightest bulb in all the world – there are other really smart kids out there. In fact, that’s an important lesson for parents, too.</p>
<p>My school district asked, when we first met with them when S was four years old, whether we wanted the kid in college when he was 12. (We were horrified, and the answer to that was, “No.” Of course this meant that when the kid was 12, he was granted a scholarship for a college course at flagship state U, this because of his SAT scores. Life sometimes has its own amusements in store for us!) The school district also told us, several times over the years, not to look for an intellectual peer for our kid – we wouldn’t find one. I found that very very depressing. It took some years to learn that simply wasn’t true! We had to seek out courses, help, resources on our own, and did, and found a whole world of really gifted kids out there, and what a relief that was!!</p>
<p>mom2three, I’d be surprised if there are any perfect parents here, or parents who think they are!</p>
<p>lol. catbird and ellemenope!</p>
<p>I was betting that Lazybum would sooner or later join this thread.</p>
<p>Interestingly no statistical correlation has ever been found between precociousness and future success. Nobel Laureates have not been known to have been child prodigies. Most child prodigies are found to have mostly pedestrian talents in adulthood. The few that succeed owe it more to extraordinary perseverance and intense practice, not to what their IQ was at age 8.</p>
<p>Malcolm Gladwell, himself an athlete prodigy summarizes it best:</p>
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<p>[APS</a> Observer - The Myth of Prodigy and Why it Matters](<a href=“http://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/getArticle.cfm?id=2026]APS”>http://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/getArticle.cfm?id=2026)</p>
<p>Precociousness is often confused with talent. Now, it is impressive to have a 10 year old study calculus with 16 year olds. But it is not that the ten year old is outperforming the sixteen year olds. Actually, the whole premise is that just being among the older students is enough of an achievement by itself. Their claim to fame is their age, not their talent. While it sounds impressive to have a 12 year old sit in a room with college age students, the reality is that the 12 year olds don’t win the academic awards. They are simply not expected to be competitive. The extreme examples of accelerated education, nearly always involve these precocious students attending community colleges or third tier universities. We are not talking 13 year old Putnam Fellows beating the crap out of 18 year olds at Harvard or MIT! </p>
<p>The best study of achievements of precocious children involves the tracking of graduates of Hunter College in New York, which admits only children with an IQ of 155 of greater. None of the students ended up as superstars as adults, even though all them qualified as child prodigies. </p>
<p>Examples of extremely precocious students at Harvard, MIT, Oxford or Cambridge are generally remembered as tragedies not successes. </p>
<p>[Math</a> prodigy now a £130 hooker claim](<a href=“http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/3/31/nation/20798773&sec=nation]Math”>http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/3/31/nation/20798773&sec=nation)</p>
<p>As we are finally starting to understand the biology of child brain development, it is becoming increasingly clear that the age at which a child first starts reading tells you nothing about its future abilities. </p>
<p>[Rush</a>, Little Baby - The Boston Globe](<a href=“http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/articles/2007/10/28/rush_little_baby/?page=1]Rush”>http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/articles/2007/10/28/rush_little_baby/?page=1)</p>
<p>The fact that Magnus can get at 5 on AP Calculus BC at age ten is no indicator that he will grow up to be Medal Fields material. If anything adjusting to the harsh reality in adulthood that he is not that special anymore may be the toughest challenge. Not to take a personal swipe at Lazybum’s child, who is I am sure is a smart kid, I seriously doubt that his talents in mathematics are anywhere near on par with the best undergrad math majors at MIT or Harvard, hardly older than he is. Having never participated at a national or international level, he never had the opportunity to train and compete with the elite. Being average at MIT is not bad! I certainly adjusted to the idea!</p>
<p>but why no english or science or history!!! To not teach those areas would seem to me to be wrong, but what to I know, I guess.</p>
<p>Seems his parents think he shouldn’t be bothered to learn those subjects. But my guess is that he won’t “shine” and be a “genius” or whatever, so they don’t bother.</p>
<p>Just reading that should be enough for someone to take a look at the “homeschooling” er marketing program this kid is in</p>
<p>"Examples of extremely precocious students at Harvard, MIT, Oxford or Cambridge are generally remembered as tragedies not successes. "</p>
<p>Not all of them. Harvard admitted a small group of precocious students (~12 years old) in the early 1900’s. The psychologist Piaget and the mathematician Norber Wiener (founder of the idea of feedback mechanisms) were two of the 5 or 6 in that group. Another one of the group was portrayed as a failure and a horrible misanthrope, but those who knew him contested that he wasn’t that at all. Though he wasn’t an academic, he produced several history books on his own that were thought of as university-level, enjoyed life (and a regular accounting job,) and had a nice group of friends. I forget his name. Anyway, many people have a biased view of prodigies. Even if they don’t become failures people want to view them that way.</p>
<p>Terrence Tao and Gauss are other examples of prodigies.</p>
<p>As for the Nobel Prize, it doesn’t always go to the smartest people. There is some luck involved in discovery. A Nobel laureate physicist said this, and he should know considering he went to grad school at U. Chicago at a time where it was rife with future Nobel Laureates. Presumably some of the smartest graduate students didn’t win the Nobel Prize (yet I’m sure they were outstanding physicists.)</p>
<p>Another point: how do you know that some prodigies didn’t burn out because of all the negativity and doubt heaped upon them (like in this thread, for instance)? Also, some people that could have been prodigies may have encountered resistance in the school district, slowing them down such that they were advanced and still brilliant but didn’t stand out as much. When they finally win professional awards later, they may look like they were just above average as kids.</p>
<p>“The fact that Magnus can get at 5 on AP Calculus BC at age ten is no indicator that he will grow up to be Medal Fields material.”</p>
<p>I’m sure his parents, who are mathematicians, know this well. (BTW, he was 8, but that was besides the point.)</p>
<p>A few points:</p>
<p>Giftedness is a style of learning; it is not an indicator that someone will become a Fields medalist or a Nobel-prize winner. Indeed, one of the joys of being in college is the feeling of being among intellectual peers, not being more advanced than other students. To them, being average at MIT or Caltech or some other college means no longer being considered a freak by fellow students. </p>
<p>Some students love taking part in competitions, others do not. My S was one who did not. The math enrichment program he joined deliberately fostered cooperation rather than preparation for competitions. A lot of homeschooled kids who are good at math do enter competitions because this is one way of learning more math, especially one that is not curriculum based. But winning medals is secondary to learning math. And then, there are some who are competitive. Just like non-gifted kids.</p>
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<p>As for me, I’m concerned about what HE will think if he ever reads this thread. If he googles his name right now, this thread will come up on the first page of search results. </p>
<p>Even if his parents do not allow him to access the Internet unsupervised now, it seems quite possible that he’ll encounter this thread long before he is an adult.</p>
<p>Whatever one may think of his parents’ decisions about publicity or their website, I do not think it’s very kind to an 8-year-old child for cc posters to use the child’s real first name on a searchable and high-profile cc thread with the title “math whiz but … no friends” in which adults are making off-the-cuff speculations about psychiatric conditions, degree of musical talent or lack thereof, competence of his parents or lack thereof, and even making fun of his name! </p>
<p>Although I believe that some posters have offered some constructive suggestions which might be helpful to parents of children in similar situations, I think a moderator should edit the posts on this thread to delete all references to the child’s real name and hometown, as well as some of the gratuitously disparaging remarks. It’s simply not fair or kind to the young child in question.</p>
<p>Second. Thanks, wisteria.</p>
<p>While I completely agree with wisteria’s comment , can’t help to notice that it was the parents publicity campaign that put this boy on cc radar.</p>
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<p>That’s precisely the point isn’t it? The same could be said about any prize for that matter: Pulitzer, Putnam, Intel…If smart is being defined as high IQ which be definition is only measurable in children, achievement does not correlate with giftedness as a child. That was exactly what the Hunter College study showed. </p>
<p>I am not arguing that child prodigies never achieve greatness later in life, simply that there is no correlation between the two. We can all name some child prodigy who was extraordinarily successful ranging from Mozart to Gauss, but this shows nothing about how giftedness had anything to do with their later success. Mozart had already logged over 3,500 hours of piano lessons by the age of seven under the tutelage of a domineering father. His true genius as a composer didn’t emerge until the age of 21. Gauss’ first breakthrough was at the age of 19 while attending the University of Goettingen. Many of the stories about his early genius are also open to doubt.</p>
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<p>There can only be one Mozart. But your post raises a couple of points. Mozart did have a huge amount of practice before the age of 7. But isn’t a focus on math the reason why Magnus’s parents are being criticized?</p>
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<li>Mozart did compose a number of works that continue to be a staple of the repertory before he reached the age of 21. His Exultate, jubilate was composed in 1773 when he was 17. Between 17 and 21, he composed a number of other works that are still performed also.
You are a hard task master if you think that this is not sufficiently a mark of genius. Salieri would have been happy.</li>
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<p>But finally, prodigies are children. Giftedness is not about producing a unified theory of everything at whatever age or musical compositions that rank with those of the most famous composers but a style of learning. It’s not a matter of being “smart” in the sense of becoming a Field Medalist or getting the Nobel prize.</p>
<p>“Imagine what Beethoven could have accomplished with better teamwork skills.” catbird Beethoven created art he didn’t solve problems. Maybe a difference?</p>
<p>marite The high tech world is also full of people who work in teams. I got to meet the team at Intel who designed the 86X64 processor code named Yamhill and I regularly played golf with one of their server motherboard design teams.</p>
<p>collegealum314 the best part of team sports is I still have friends from my college teams 30 years later. </p>
<p>An interesting debate. How do you raise a child who is talented in math? I’m following four about the bear’s age. Funny thing is none are pulling away from the bear. The sorority girl is holding her own.</p>
<p>Cellardweller - Huh … “high IQ which be definition is only measurable in children” … I would like to learn more about this.</p>
<p>This has been my gut feeling that IQ tests begin to include more and more skills learned in school as kids get older…</p>
<p>Personal story …
My kid tested at 155 at age 5. Three years later he was 20 points lower. It seemed to me the original score was a more pure indicator. The psychologist said, it always happens that way and the original test was notorious for over estimating. hmmmmm … consistent eh…? </p>
<p>It seemed to me the second test probably underestimated because he was struggling with the mechanics of school at the time… poor handwriting, attention issues etc etc. (aspie issues)</p>
<p>The only reason i am thinking about this is not for bragging rights but I as a parent must fully understand the person I am trying to raise. A 20 point difference makes a huge difference in understanding motivation etc etc …</p>
<p>Am I nutz and over thinking this …? My family would say … you are having an OCD moment!</p>
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<p>Not really, as most people have no desire to do a study on the topic. Have you found any <em>research</em> concluding there is no statistical correlation? Let me know when you have.</p>
<p>I know of rather few people who started college early, and while the majority indeed don’t become eminent, the <em>percent</em> in that group that does seems to me to be way higher than in the general college graduate group. Terence Tao started college PT at 9, had his bachelor’s and master’s in hand at 17, and his Ph.D. at 20 and went on to win both a Field’s Medal and the $500K MacArthur. Erik Demaine started college at 12, had his bachelor’s at 14 and his master’s a year later in 1995 and his Ph.D. in 2001 (age 20), and became an associate professor at MIT at age 20 and won the MacArthur at age 22. Charles Fefferman started college at age 12 and earned his bachelor’s at age 17 and his Ph.D. at age 20 (from Princeton) and went on to win a Field’s Medal (he is a Princeton prof). There really aren’t all that many people who have graduated from college early during the years these three have been living so to know of even three eminent among the small group (and there are more, I am sure) seems to point to their having an edge to me. Some others have yet to make their mark that I can tell in academia, but have won serious money, like Michael Kearney (youngest college graduate to date) who won a million (plus a hundred thousand perhaps) in a game show in his early 20’s.</p>
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<p>Actually, I think you are wrong there, too. Most didn’t go to college early, but if you read their bios, a significant percentage appear to have been labeled prodigies just the same due to their abilities as youngsters.</p>
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<p>I don’t agree that they have been found to have mostly pedestrian <em>talents</em> in adulthood so much as that they lack the drive/motivation to “perform eminently” - I suspect over half (i.e. most) do fall into that category, including my own father, who was a child prodigy on the violin but when he was admitted to Juilliard with a teacher whom he felt was second best there rather than best, he felt he would never been a <em>top</em> violinist and so went to any Ivy college to become a physicist instead. He lost the drive to be a big name violinist, but he continued to have remarkable talent right up till he gave playing up at age 80 (he played first chair in an orchestra for fun for over 50 years and never practiced other than during the weekly practices with the orchestra and few people without great talent could stay in an orchestra without practicing some at home on their own).</p>
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<p>There we finally agree. :)</p>
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<p>This again is often nothing more than complete BS. Sho Yano took the MCAT at age 12 and he creamed the students 10 years his senior, a score in the 40’s when the average at Harvard Med School is around 33 to 34 annually. More often than not, I suspect these kids taking calculus at 10 with 16-year-olds are outperforming their classmates and not merely in the middle of the class (I know our son took calculus at age 9, skipping straight to calculus from algebra I a year earlier into it as he had no interest in doing math till he was allowed to take calculus in college and he somehow tested into calculus on the college placement test with no prep, and we finally gave in and let him take calculus, and he was in with 18+ year old students for the most part rather than 16-year-olds and still was at the top of a class with 160-some students; in pre-med bio that year, at the U that had more freshman in the Harvard Med School class than any other college other than Harvard itself, he was ranked 3rd in a class with over 300 students registered and nobody in the other section that fall with another 200+ students scored higher than he did, so again, despite being less than half their age on average, he was still 99th percentile, and this without ever having taken the year of bio and chem pre-reqs).</p>
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<p>I have no idea who has that premise. Never heard of it till now. Indeed, I have heard the opposite - like at our son’s alma mater, they didn’t want young students who weren’t over the median for the SAT…an 11-year-old had a score in the mid-1100’s and she was told to take the SAT again and apply in a year or two (and she was admitted two years later). Where C’s and SAT scores of 1000 can cut it at that state U for some students, they don’t for <em>young</em> students.</p>
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<p>Needless to say (but I will just the same since you wrote that), I disagree.</p>
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<p>Again, nonsense. Our son won his U’s “Outstanding Achievement in Computer Science” award and would have won the math and statistics award as well had he not left five of his math courses to take all his last semester (he got A’s in all 5, including the graduate level ones, but they needed the grades on his transcript the semester before his last as the awards are given out before the last semester’s grades are in, so he had to be given a mere “honorable mention” there, but he didn’t really care and did feel that even nice to get). He also won a <em>statewide</em> business plan competition for undergraduates <em>and</em> graduates (he went up against a team with a law student, and medical student or resident even, and an MBA program student, for example) and won at age 10 (both first place team and the only individual award given - Most Valuable EE).</p>
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<p>Is this Malcolm or you saying this? Again, ridiculous. They are considered to be all the more competitive. When our son ranked 2nd on an exam in one CS course, the professor didn’t understand how he wasn’t in first as he was clearly the smartest in the class (in her mind) and she didn’t get why he didn’t care about not being first.</p>
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<p>Due to not being near a top school and wanting to move for the education, yes. But our son was in graduate school at MIT at age 14, and so it’s not like attending a low ranking school for undergraduate school seemed to harm him any. Indeed, I think it might have given him a better rounded education.</p>
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<p>Again, cr*p. My mother graduated from Hunter College in New York (and Hunter High) and she was the first female graduate of the National War College, the first female GS 17 at the Pentagon who reported to the presidents of the country (long before we had a bunch of women high up in government), and 10 years after her death, had a lobby exhibit at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab on her titled “Brilliance in Science” - she had cartoons of her done in the press as she was a mathematician who was well known among the mathematicians of her time. No, she wasn’t a household name like Madame Currie, but she was plenty “out there” and successful as an adult.</p>
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<p>Again, there is a mix, just as there is for the <em>general</em> population of graduates at these colleges. If you can find me research to prove otherwise, let me know.</p>
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<p>Again, wrong, but I have a dinner date and can’t go on now about it.</p>
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<p>Yes, but he also never planned to be a mathematician…math has been a hobby of his, not a career plan. He’s planned since age 2 to own his own business and I hardly see where math competition experience is linked to success in that career goal.</p>
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<p>Well, I don’t know how to break it to you, but he doesn’t seem average at MIT. He had his fellow graduate students writing the professor to say he was more helpful to them in class than the official TAs and should be a paid TA the next time the class was taught (and so he was a TA that next time) and people left and right (and in the middle) rave about him. He graduated with a 5.0/5.0 and was the first in <em>his</em> lab <em>ever</em> to get the master’s in as little as two years. He is invited to meet with huge names personally (on campus and in private homes) by other huge names who have had him as a student and I doubt this would happen if he weren’t still “standing out” for more than his age. Indeed, most people at MIT have no clue that he is young for a graduate student, most especially those he teaches.</p>