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I went to school with his grandson - incredibly, ridiculously, intelligent guy, who was the only person three years ahead at the school - I and one other were t

I went to school with his grandson - incredibly, ridiculously, intelligent guy, who was the only person three years ahead at the school - I and one other were two ahead, and a dozen or so were a year ahead. That said, I always felt for the chap, as socially inept didn't begin to cover it (as someone who graduated school two years early I can say with surety that it wasn't solely the temporal displacement that fettered his sociality - it was definitely a factor for us all, but he couldn't/wouldn't communicate even with other maths geeks), and I could only see him pursuing a career in academia - which he is. I also felt for him as as a mathematically brilliant Shannon expectations couldn't have been higher - I was going to cap this off by saying I'm sure he'll do great things, but instead, I'll say I hope he has a happy life.

omot 9y ago
Wow... what school is this, where everyone is years ahead?
- madaxe_again 9y ago
  King's Canterbury. Out of 700 pupils, there were about 20 one or more years ahead - I was skipped a few years when I was six, at a previous school, so just continued from there - similar for him, I believe. No idea how it is there now, I left 15 years ago. I had the advantage of having always been tall for my age, so mostly hid the fact that I was young - Alex, however, was a fairly small chap and I think suffered for it. Fond memories of celebrating my 18th at university, and the college bar being like "lol what, we've been serving you for a year".
  - arethuza 9y ago
    Hasn't that school been running for over 1400 years?
  - omot 9y ago
    Are the gifted students all in the same class?
    - madaxe_again 9y ago
      No, and oddly, kids who were years ahead weren't necessarily viewed as being gifted - just ahead. The scholars were the gifted (grafters, bluntly, rather than gifted) ones, and wore special gowns and got discounted fees. Rather than having a number of classes for each year, they operated a set system for each subject, so if you were great at maths and sucked at Latin, you could be in the top set for maths and bottom set for Latin.
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  - ksec 9y ago
    So the Shannon family moved to UK?

omot 9y ago

Wow... what school is this, where everyone is years ahead?

madaxe_again 9y ago
King's Canterbury. Out of 700 pupils, there were about 20 one or more years ahead - I was skipped a few years when I was six, at a previous school, so just continued from there - similar for him, I believe. No idea how it is there now, I left 15 years ago. I had the advantage of having always been tall for my age, so mostly hid the fact that I was young - Alex, however, was a fairly small chap and I think suffered for it. Fond memories of celebrating my 18th at university, and the college bar being like "lol what, we've been serving you for a year".
- arethuza 9y ago
  Hasn't that school been running for over 1400 years?
- omot 9y ago
  Are the gifted students all in the same class?
  - madaxe_again 9y ago
    No, and oddly, kids who were years ahead weren't necessarily viewed as being gifted - just ahead. The scholars were the gifted (grafters, bluntly, rather than gifted) ones, and wore special gowns and got discounted fees. Rather than having a number of classes for each year, they operated a set system for each subject, so if you were great at maths and sucked at Latin, you could be in the top set for maths and bottom set for Latin.
- deleted 9y ago
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- ksec 9y ago
  So the Shannon family moved to UK?