6 ms·

Good article. A few minor points: [prodigies] are not given a lot of opportunities in schools that are designed for typically developing kids ... nor should

Good article. A few minor points: [prodigies] are not given a lot of opportunities in schools that are designed for typically developing kids ... nor should they be. I was learning calculus in elementary school and writing the Putnam in high school. No matter how hard they tried, there's no way the schools I was enrolled in could have given me those opportunities. What prodigies need it not opportunities in school, but rather schools which are flexible enough to let them access opportunities outside of school -- in my case, starting my days at Simon Fraser University and packing my high school courses into the afternoon. Those of us who managed sky-high SAT scores at 13 were 20 times as likely as the average American to get a doctorate; let's say, being charitable, that we're 100 times as likely to make a significant scientific advance. Since we're only 1 in 10,000 of the U.S. population, that still leaves 99% of scientific advances to be made by all those other kids who didn't get an early ticket to the genius club. We geniuses aren't going to solve all the riddles. Most child prodigies are highly successful — but most highly successful people weren't child prodigies. This is probably the most important paragraph in the article. The numbers are unsupported, but I don't think they're so far off as to invalidate the point. It isn't exactly wrong to say that Terry Tao and other former prodigies like him are geniuses. But it is more accurate to say that what they accomplished was genius. Genius is a thing that happens, not a kind of person. Genius is both a noun and an adjective describing some people. It's a shame that Dr. Ellenberg felt it necessary to end an otherwise good article with such a piece of pithy nonsense.

swampthing 12y ago
... nor should they be. I was learning calculus in elementary school and writing the Putnam in high school. No matter how hard they tried, there's no way the schools I was enrolled in could have given me those opportunities. What prodigies need it not opportunities in school, but rather schools which are flexible enough to let them access opportunities outside of school -- in my case, starting my days at Simon Fraser University and packing my high school courses into the afternoon. Not to derail from the article's point too much, but there are schools / programs specifically for talented youth - although they are not everywhere (sounds like there were none wherever you grew up). I know of one high school where a large number of students write the Putnam. I think it is important to have these schools / programs because pursuing opportunities outside of school is not always possible / easy for disadvantaged youth.
- cperciva 12y ago
  there are schools / programs specifically for talented youth Yes and no. There are schools and programs specifically for kids in the 99th percentile, sure. In a large city, there will be enough kids for that to be feasible (as long as the kids have parents who will drive them across town). But I'm pretty sure there are no schools dedicated to students in the 99.99th percentile. Even in New York City there are only 10 students per year at that level.
  - swampthing 12y ago
    https://robinsoncenter.uw.edu/programs/early-entrance-program/ https://robinsoncenter.uw.edu/programs/early-entrance-progra... If you're at a higher level than that, you might as well just go to college.
    - cperciva 12y ago
      I don't consider that to be part of the school system, though -- rather, that's a scheme to allow students to escape from the school system, just like the one I used.
      - swampthing 12y ago
        Well, you're right that it's not part of any school that is designed to handle the general population. But I was making the point that prodigies don't need to look outside of their schools if they attend schools designed for them.
        cperciva 12y ago
        But apart from a short transition program, they're not attending an institution designed for them -- they're being mixed in with the general UW population.
        swampthing 12y ago
wpietri 12y ago
Regarding that last bit, I think you discard it too quickly. What I read him as saying is that putting people in the category "genius" is a shallow understanding, and that he's arguing for a deeper one. I do think that paragraph should have been substantially longer, and I suspect it got trimmed for print. But what he's trying to do with it is to summarize the rest of the article.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
Retric 12y ago
Genius is poorly defined. Take all the different ways someone can qualify and you end up with something far more common than people assume. EX: Apparently, Einstein was an ok chess player and Oppenheimer sucked. Yet, chess prodigy's are often called geniuses even if that's the only thing there particularity good at. Businesses, Language, Math, Music, Go, Chess, IQ tests, Poetry, Physics, Early development, and Sculpture don't really have all that much in common. In the end it's much more meaningful to say someone is a _ genius than simply calling them a genius because g is closer to a myth than reality.
- bane 12y ago
  Don't forget "mile-wide inch-deep" generalist geniuses. They aren't particularly gifted in one area, but are able to achieve simultaneous competency in a very large number of discrete disciplines. We used to call these folks "Renaissance Men", but the recognition of excessive achievement in specialties has virtually eliminated recognition for that kind of intellect.
  - judk 12y ago
    Those people tend to become business multimillionaires.
    - michaelochurch 12y ago
      Not so. Renaissance people (there are a few, even today) tend to end up underemployed. If you want to be a "business multimillionaire", you go the opposite way. You focus, you narrow yourself, but you have to focus on something that can actually make you money (i.e. not medieval history). Why are most of the true Renaissance people underemployed, obscure, and financially mediocre? It's because the only thing that can tell a polymath from a dabbler is time.
    - galfarragem 12y ago
      Success in life is more correlated with ambition than with knowledge: an average educated but very ambitious person have more probabilities of being successful than a super smart individual that is ambitious but about knowledge and ideals, not money. If you link this lack of focus in taking profit from your actions in life with a master in a struggling field, you are on your way to an underachiever life. That's me.
schematix 12y ago
Good response. One minor point: >Genius is both a noun and an adjective describing some people. It's a shame that Dr. Ellenberg felt it necessary to end an otherwise good article with such a piece of pithy nonsense. It's a shame that you felt it necessary to end an otherwise good comment on Dr. Ellenberg's essay with such a literal reading of his last sentence. It reeks of unearned arrogance.
kirse 12y ago
What prodigies need it not opportunities in school, but rather schools which are flexible enough to let them access opportunities outside of school Interesting point, it reminds me of the 60 Minutes story of this kid [1] who showed signs of autism and was starting to become very inward-focused and withdrawn until his parents decided to trash the therapy and encourage his own exploration... Seems to have really changed his disposition to be far more communicative and most certainly affected the direction of his life. (Whole video is decent, but ~7:00 on is his parents) [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g91IQsS2spA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g91IQsS2spA [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Barnett http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Barnett
Iftheshoefits 12y ago
These kids also need schools with staff who are capable of interceding, and are able to provide the means to do so when parents aren't educated well enough to recognize an especially gifted child or financially capable of nurturing the talent, so that the opportunities you note are less likely to be passed by.
enord 12y ago
Relax, you're probably a genius. The article built the point that worshiping individual genius was counterproductive for the majority (non-genius) practitioners of math and science. The last sentence was would not pass as a dictionary entry on "genius" for sure, but that was not the point either. It was a rethorical device. Too bad i chose to start this post with such a piece of pithy nonsense.

swampthing 12y ago

... nor should they be. I was learning calculus in elementary school and writing the Putnam in high school. No matter how hard they tried, there's no way the schools I was enrolled in could have given me those opportunities. What prodigies need it not opportunities in school, but rather schools which are flexible enough to let them access opportunities outside of school -- in my case, starting my days at Simon Fraser University and packing my high school courses into the afternoon. Not to derail from the article's point too much, but there are schools / programs specifically for talented youth - although they are not everywhere (sounds like there were none wherever you grew up). I know of one high school where a large number of students write the Putnam. I think it is important to have these schools / programs because pursuing opportunities outside of school is not always possible / easy for disadvantaged youth.

cperciva 12y ago
there are schools / programs specifically for talented youth Yes and no. There are schools and programs specifically for kids in the 99th percentile, sure. In a large city, there will be enough kids for that to be feasible (as long as the kids have parents who will drive them across town). But I'm pretty sure there are no schools dedicated to students in the 99.99th percentile. Even in New York City there are only 10 students per year at that level.
- swampthing 12y ago
  https://robinsoncenter.uw.edu/programs/early-entrance-program/ https://robinsoncenter.uw.edu/programs/early-entrance-progra... If you're at a higher level than that, you might as well just go to college.
  - cperciva 12y ago
    I don't consider that to be part of the school system, though -- rather, that's a scheme to allow students to escape from the school system, just like the one I used.
    - swampthing 12y ago
      Well, you're right that it's not part of any school that is designed to handle the general population. But I was making the point that prodigies don't need to look outside of their schools if they attend schools designed for them.
      - cperciva 12y ago
        But apart from a short transition program, they're not attending an institution designed for them -- they're being mixed in with the general UW population.
        swampthing 12y ago

wpietri 12y ago

Regarding that last bit, I think you discard it too quickly. What I read him as saying is that putting people in the category "genius" is a shallow understanding, and that he's arguing for a deeper one. I do think that paragraph should have been substantially longer, and I suspect it got trimmed for print. But what he's trying to do with it is to summarize the rest of the article.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

Retric 12y ago

Genius is poorly defined. Take all the different ways someone can qualify and you end up with something far more common than people assume. EX: Apparently, Einstein was an ok chess player and Oppenheimer sucked. Yet, chess prodigy's are often called geniuses even if that's the only thing there particularity good at. Businesses, Language, Math, Music, Go, Chess, IQ tests, Poetry, Physics, Early development, and Sculpture don't really have all that much in common. In the end it's much more meaningful to say someone is a _ genius than simply calling them a genius because g is closer to a myth than reality.

bane 12y ago
Don't forget "mile-wide inch-deep" generalist geniuses. They aren't particularly gifted in one area, but are able to achieve simultaneous competency in a very large number of discrete disciplines. We used to call these folks "Renaissance Men", but the recognition of excessive achievement in specialties has virtually eliminated recognition for that kind of intellect.
- judk 12y ago
  Those people tend to become business multimillionaires.
  - michaelochurch 12y ago
    Not so. Renaissance people (there are a few, even today) tend to end up underemployed. If you want to be a "business multimillionaire", you go the opposite way. You focus, you narrow yourself, but you have to focus on something that can actually make you money (i.e. not medieval history). Why are most of the true Renaissance people underemployed, obscure, and financially mediocre? It's because the only thing that can tell a polymath from a dabbler is time.
  - galfarragem 12y ago
    Success in life is more correlated with ambition than with knowledge: an average educated but very ambitious person have more probabilities of being successful than a super smart individual that is ambitious but about knowledge and ideals, not money. If you link this lack of focus in taking profit from your actions in life with a master in a struggling field, you are on your way to an underachiever life. That's me.

schematix 12y ago

Good response. One minor point: >Genius is both a noun and an adjective describing some people. It's a shame that Dr. Ellenberg felt it necessary to end an otherwise good article with such a piece of pithy nonsense. It's a shame that you felt it necessary to end an otherwise good comment on Dr. Ellenberg's essay with such a literal reading of his last sentence. It reeks of unearned arrogance.

kirse 12y ago

What prodigies need it not opportunities in school, but rather schools which are flexible enough to let them access opportunities outside of school Interesting point, it reminds me of the 60 Minutes story of this kid [1] who showed signs of autism and was starting to become very inward-focused and withdrawn until his parents decided to trash the therapy and encourage his own exploration... Seems to have really changed his disposition to be far more communicative and most certainly affected the direction of his life. (Whole video is decent, but ~7:00 on is his parents) [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g91IQsS2spA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g91IQsS2spA [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Barnett http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Barnett

Iftheshoefits 12y ago

These kids also need schools with staff who are capable of interceding, and are able to provide the means to do so when parents aren't educated well enough to recognize an especially gifted child or financially capable of nurturing the talent, so that the opportunities you note are less likely to be passed by.

enord 12y ago

Relax, you're probably a genius. The article built the point that worshiping individual genius was counterproductive for the majority (non-genius) practitioners of math and science. The last sentence was would not pass as a dictionary entry on "genius" for sure, but that was not the point either. It was a rethorical device. Too bad i chose to start this post with such a piece of pithy nonsense.