I don't know how often this happens but she's so cute! Meet the 10-year-old maths genius who's just enrolled at college - CNN.com
This reminds me of the thread earlier this week about the smart people (IQ) in the world and how many of them didn't realize their potential in later years. The oldest of my (7) kids is brilliant. I have a PhD and have no problem acknowledging his special abilities surpass mine (and his siblings for that matter). We've talked about enrolling him early (he's homeschooled) and we likely will (perhaps college class starting mid-way through high school) but have resisted because of the concerns about other-than-intellectual development.
I don't mind saying that if I had a kid like the one in the article I'd be conflicted as to the best course of action. I guess I'd try to split the difference - let her be a kid and at the same time give her the chance to exercise her math skills at her best level. A little bit like that movie about the kids who was the chess prodigy.
I had a pretty rough time in high school, socially speaking. I excelled academically but I found that I really didn't fit in among my peers. My first two years of HS were pure hell (someone once shoved me down a flight of stairs and laughed hysterically). So had I the opportunity to go to college a year or two early, there would have been very little love lost. But pre-HS, it would have been a very different story and I can only imagine how weird it would feel being 10 or 11 and taking courses alongside with individuals who would range in age from 17 to senior citizen. Are there many only schools that would offer dual-enrollment to kids? That strikes me as a best of both worlds type of scenario. College coursework, school socialization. Kids get a leg up (and are given more challenging coursework to engage their interest) without sacrificing the non-academic aspects of school. I hope my daughter far surpasses me intellectually. But I also hope she surpasses 18 year old me in emotional maturity by the time she hits 18. I knew I needed college when I graduated from HS but I was itching to go out and "strike out on my own." Don't get me wrong, I think I landed well. I make a good living. But I think I might have taken a few more career/academic chances if I didn't approach college while working full-time. Anyway, her being happy and healthy is more important to me than knocking out college before puberty.
So what happens once the kid graduates from college with a 4 year degree at 14/15 ? Go work !?!? Sometimes, just because you can doesn't mean you should.
While we are all having some fun with these Doogie Howser scenarios, I think we need to also really look at some of the individuals who are doing this. If you are able to master calculus by age 9, a traditional school environment is not likely to provide you the level of mental stimulation you need to thrive. I would also venture an even more speculative guess that the calculus by 9 kid might not prefer to be outside playing football. There are advanced and gifted programs that don't accelerate you through grades. If you are skipping nearly a decade worth of schooling, you are incredibly exceptional and it is a bit unfair to look and treat you as an "average kid." I would also posit that such individuals might also be less likely than the "average kid" to go out, get a bachelors and hit the job market. But it really depends. You'll notice that the girl in the article that started this conversation is pulling 100% scores on exams at the Open University in Finance (or "Finance Maths"). We're talking some heavy duty mathematical lifting for a child. You can argue that maybe her parents shouldn't push her so hard. But in certain cases, it isn't a matter of being pushed into anything. If her young brain is capable of doing math at the college level, forcing her to sit in a room learning multiplication tables (do they still do those?) is going to be mind numbing. The result is going to be that she isn't going to get good grades despite having a mental capacity far above her classmates. But on paper, she would look like a dunce. If we were talking about middle class families forcing their children to earn a B.A. in Liberal Arts from TESC because they really wanted to live vicariously, I could see there might be a problem. But, as noted above, kids are not robots or puppies. Yet, like robots, we expect that they should all be programmed the same way regardless of how their individual gifts might surpass the accepted programming. There are more and more programs that aim to help kids earn an associates degree during their last two years of high school. These programs, I would argue, are probably more detrimental to kids than the few exceptions we've been discussing.
