I’m not convinced by the studies Mr. Grant cites in his piece–at least their abstracts.
What in the world does it mean to be “among the 5% most creative” in a school system? http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/j.2162-6057.1989.tb00700.x/abstract You can quantify that? 'Cause I’ll bet you can’t. And do you believe school staff reliably identify the “most creative?” 'Cause I just don’t believe that. And 100 adolescents. Wow. (Small data set, anyone?)
It’s possible the study identified the students being raised by the most unconventional parents.
I would agree that there’s a level of parental appropriate attention to academic matters. I also agree that it’s possible to go too far.
However, there’s this huge logical leap the piece makes. Young prodigies do not naturally develop into creative geniuses. After reaching young adulthood, being a couple of years ahead of age-peers in certain areas means nothing. If it has taught you to coast on your (self-image of) innate superiority, that precociousness is arguably harmful.
It could also be that being ignored by adults allows creative genius to flourish. It doesn’t follow, though, that adults are stifling genius when they tell children to walk the dog, do their homework, and go to bed.
I agree with you, MiamiDAP, that a strong memory is important for medical school and the medical profession. A strong memory is important to get into medical school to begin with, because most courses in organic chemistry still require a lot of memorization–or else so much work with the concepts that they become second nature. However, a colleague of mine who teaches organic chemistry remarked to me that the K-12 schools have removed quite a lot of the work that used to require memorization, and so many students arrive at organic chemistry without really knowing how to memorize anything. This is quite the opposite of Grant’s complaint that the schools are just admitting people who are really good at memorization–maybe in the 1940’s that was true. Maybe in the 1900’s.
With regard to Periwinkle’s latest post–I recall being “brave” as an undergrad, and enrolling in a senior-level math class when I was a sophomore. Most of the students were juniors or seniors. However, to my right was a freshman, who had placed at the top of the state in a math exam in high school, and to my left was a student who was still in high school. Interestingly, the math prof advised me that, “Everyone winds up in the same place,” meaning that everyone who sticks with it winds up at the borders between knowledge and the unknown.
My spouse and I thought that by setting consistent rules for children and enforcing them lovingly, a couple could more or less set a lower bound on the probable accomplishment of a child (in the typical case–surely there are exceptions to that). But we thought that an excessive reliance on rules might well cap the probable accomplishments of the child. We opted for an environment with close to zero rules, mostly focused on not hurting other people. Time will tell how this turns out . . .
How one really fosters creative genius, I don’t pretend to know. But Mozart’s father was quite the opposite of the hands-off parent. According to all reports, he was much more the over-involved parent who was busy showing off the accomplishments of his son, from a very young age (5 at the latest).
QauntMech,
" A strong memory is important to get into medical school to begin with, because most courses in organic chemistry still require a lot of memorization–or else so much work with the concepts that they become second nature. "
I am not sure why you single our Orgo, which is practically not even used in Medical School. While Orgo requires memory, my prior comment about superior memory requirement for the medical profession did not count Orgo in at all. Orgo is just an undergraduate class that is one of the pre-reqs for applying to medical school, not much more than that.
I don’t know. Sometimes you just want the best doctor/surgeon/dentist prodigy to spend his time being tops at fixing what needs to be fixed rather than becoming a renowned and celebrated researcher.
Re #22 by MiamiDAP: Although the MCAT has reduced the organic chemistry content recently, medical schools still require a year of undergraduate organic chemistry, in order to be admitted to medical school (as far as I know). Organic chemistry is the barrier course for pre-meds at many universities. The rest of chemistry, math, and physics require very little memorization. The pre-med biology courses may also require a lot of memorization–I did not bring them up because I am not really familiar with them.
Go into any cathedral in Europe and look at the organ. There about a 50% chance it will have a plaque on it saying “Mozart played a recital on this organ at the age of 6” or similar (see for example Haarlem). Definitely a case of pushy parents!