Posted on 03/12/2015 5:09:25 AM PDT by grundle
At 10 years old... Esther Okade... is more interested in writing an algebra workbook for kids and studying for college exams.
Esther, a British-Nigerian home-schooled student, started in January as a freshman at the distance learning college Open University, making her one of the youngest college students in England. “I actually wanted to start when I was seven,” she told CNN. “But my mum was like, ‘you’re too young, calm down.’”
Math is Esther’s strong suit and according to her mother Efe Okade, she’s had an unusual grasp of numbers since she was barely old enough to read. “At four, I started teaching her numbers and the alphabet, then I taught her addition and then she learned subtraction and then she learned multiplication,” Efe tells Yahoo Parenting. “Then one day, as a joke, I said ‘I know what to teach you next, I’ll teach you algebra.’ I wrote my engineering thesis on how to make engineering math easy, so based on those principles I sat Esther down and taught her the basics. And she absolutely got it. She didn’t just get it, she loved it. She asked for more and more. She kept saying, ‘can I have more yummy yummy algebra?’"
By 6, Esther took her first high school qualification exam, which is usually reserved for 16-year-olds... Esther passed with a C, but didn’t think that was satisfactory, Efe says. One year later, she aced the test.
Now Esther’s taking college-level math, and recently scored 100% on a test
Isaiah, Esther’s six-year-old brother, plans to take his first college qualifying exam in May. However, Efe doesn’t think her children are doing anything other kids can’t do, too. “There is no child that can’t study math."
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
Honestly, college has gotten so dumbed down that a lot of college courses these daze could be taken (and passed) by 10 year olds.
Amazing. Is it nature or nurture?
We're given a hint: Mommy wrote a thesis in mathematics. I'll go with nature for 100, Alex.
For me one of the most interesting elements of child prodigies is how very few of them ever grow up to be extraordinary adults. Its like they quickly develop impressive skills and then the rest of the world catches up. They end up intelligent but not extraordinarily so, with a few exceptions.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3266426/posts
Cornell University Entrance Exam (1891)
Cornell Alumnus Magazine ^ | 1891 | Cornell University
“See the linked site, pages 15-17.”
>>Amazing. Is it nature or nurture?<<
Yes.
Yup. And they've had their childhoods stolen from them by pushy adults.
I feel sorry for this kid.
I know a girl who scored the second highest SAT score in the state at 12. She waited till normal age to go to college.
Another kid I know earned a full ride to John’s Hopkins Med School at 12.
He’s 15 or 16 now. I think he has two high school diploma’s and maybe an associates. He’s waiting on the med school too.
Every bit as black as any US ghetto rat. But the libs will still believe the nonsense that blacks are mentally inferior.
I am of the opinion that success is defined by three legs: education (high intelligence helps), wisdom and motivation. Those that acquire and develop only one of the three legs are often ordinary adults. Those that acquire all three are the most successful.
And mommy worked constantly with Ester. I'll go with both for 1000, Alex.
You can work a good piece of clay into a pot. You cannot work a bad piece of clay into a pot. A good piece of clay ,without any work, will never be more than a good piece of clay.
“But Esther isn’t all schoolwork all the time. “She is a normal 10-year-old girl,” Efe says. “She loves going to the park and playing with her friends. And she absolutely loves Frozen.”
This isn’t in the U.S.
I would be surprised if it was.
I would put it differently, but on the same theme.
Intelligence (which cannot be learned), knowledge (which must be learned), and motivation (which I think is a mixture of natural tendency and environment).
People who have only one of these are of little use to anyone.
People who have motivation and one of the other two are generally very helpful.
People who have all three are generally lighting the world on fire.
If by wisdom you include emotional maturity, I'll agree with you.
I think the problem a lot of these child prodigies have is that they are robbed of the opportunity to develop emotionally. Thrusting a child into the adult world without giving him the opportunity to grow up is cruel.
This kid can still take lots of college level math classes while being homeschooled. Why not let her worry about getting college degrees when she's older? What's the rush?
That’s not enough. She needs not to be worrying about PHD’s or what she’s ultimately going to do with her math gift. She should be dreaming. She’s homeschooled - she can still hone her math abilities without focusing it so early. Let her be a kid all the time. A kid who happens to take really advanced math classes.
That was my first thought. What happened to Sesame Street and Barbie and Legos and stuffed toys and the time to progress through the stages of childhood. College is brutal and so is the world and you need the intervening years to learn how to adjust mentally and emotionally.
This mother is awfully smug in thinking that any child can do this, too. That is no more true than saying every adult is capable of writing a thesis in engineering. She has no grasp on reality.
I’d say it’s nature and nurture.
Maybe they just peak early.
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