If he doesn't watch it he'll end up like Michael Jackson, spending his adult life trying to recreate his lost childhood.
10-Year-Old Scholar Takes California College By Storm
11–20 of 42 posts
Re: 10-Year-Old Scholar Takes California College By Storm
#12Downey in the hizzle! I'll hire him as an intern at my startup... if he keeps his grades up.
Ouch. Excuse me. I'm just glad to have news stories about Downey that don't involve the house the Carpenters used to live in.
The downmodding is for conflating grades with "deservedness" re: interning at your startup.
First, if someone does the work, they should get the pay/equity, regardless of age.
I say forget grades and jumping through other people's hoops. If he wants to do it, he will do it for its own sake.
Second, I'd let the poor kid hang out at my startup just to get away from his parents and structure. He can play with action figures or something. Of course maybe he's perfectly happy where he is, but if not, it would be nice to have someplace to go where the adults just leave you alone. A lot of us can relate to his situation.
Re: 10-Year-Old Scholar Takes California College By Storm
#13For a long time I’ve been meaning to write about the subject, and what was to be a simple comment morphed into this essay.
On YC:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=190148
Or directly:
http://daniellefong.com/2008/05/15/advice-to-the-bright-and-...
Re: 10-Year-Old Scholar Takes California College By Storm
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ouch. Excuse me. I'm just glad to have news stories about Downey that don't involve the house the Carpenters used to live in.
The downmodding is for conflating grades with "deservedness" re: interning at your startup. First, if someone does the work, they should get the pay/equity, regardless of age. I say forget grades and jumping through other people's hoops. If he wants to do it, he will do it for its own sake. Second, I'd let the poor kid hang out at my startup just to get away from his parents and structure. He can play with action fig…
I'm just saying there's not much going on in Downey. There really isn't. Downey makes Burbank look like Mountain View.
I am not in a position to have anyone intern (I run my startup out of my house -- Downey doesn't let you have a business license for an apartment, by the way!) That, and I flunked out of college in my first semester.
My offer is entirely tongue-in-cheek and it came from the same place you're coming from. But I understand you don't know me, so it's cool. Nice to meet you!
Re: 10-Year-Old Scholar Takes California College By Storm
#15I think more cases similar to this (ok, maybe not this young, but still) will, or should, happen more in the future. I'm sure there's many opportunities where a kid is actually interested in studies but can't or doesn't go on the "fast track" for various reasons. One reason, I think, is that kids are expected to play non-productive games all the time. Another is that there's this warped, prevalent perspective that wo…
I don't know about that. There are plenty of cases similar to this, and yes, even younger.
I got pushed into a gifted program (the highly gifted magnet schools in LAUSD) by my parents. It was boring, and I wish they didn't - the people I met were fantastic but the program itself was the biggest waste of time. Another kid in my class made the papers like this one cause he finished his HS diploma and went on to college early, and his mom fought EVERYONE along the way to make it happen.
Of course, I dropped out of HS early and went to a community college too (well, I took a whole bunch of classes there starting from 6th grade anyway), and I enjoyed the experience. A lot of my friends went from middle school to college. There are a fair number of programs like that around like at Cal State LA..a few more places..Simon's Rock is another one I can think of now.
I don't think it's really the studying, but the attitude. The only time I liked the gifted program was where we almost had individualized studies (one kid might be doing basic math, another could be doing algebra) but were grouped together into one class (the social factor) and we were free to do whatever we want. I liked community college because I picked what I wanted to do, generally wasn't stuffed with useless busywork (I dropped most of those classes and took the same one with different profs), et cetera. Meanwhile, the equivalent AP classes at the HS were boring, nothing BUT busywork, and we HAD to stick with the schedule studying to the tests we had to take and there was no room for anything more because some people couldn't keep up. The forced-ness was what I hated.
And yeah, that whole work and play are opposites thing is annoying too. I learn a lot from hands-on labs and things, and we didn't get to do a lot of those ever. Maybe it was because it was a cash-strapped public school?
Finally, I think all of this needs to be customized to the student, because that's what makes it so good. The gifted program I was in was great for some, the early college stuff was great for others, and neither really worked for me.
Re: 10-Year-Old Scholar Takes California College By Storm
#16I think more cases similar to this (ok, maybe not this young, but still) will, or should, happen more in the future. I'm sure there's many opportunities where a kid is actually interested in studies but can't or doesn't go on the "fast track" for various reasons. One reason, I think, is that kids are expected to play non-productive games all the time. Another is that there's this warped, prevalent perspective that wo…
At this child's age, it's up to the parents to decide what is best for the child. Sometimes the parents will not make the best decision. Personally I feel that if the child can state the want to study more complex or advanced topics, the child should be allowed to study those topics. I am a bit biased because I found most of my pre-university studies boring. I also didn't fit in with the other students while I was in…
Except they aren't making the best decisions most of the time, and by the time the kid can study what they want easily on their own (think things like money for buying materials), they're stuffed with bullshit busywork from their normal classes that are intellectually boring and take forever to do, until they get to college (hopefully).
Or at least that's what it was like for me. One of the things I loved to do was to code, and well, that sort of went out the window for the two years I was in high school because I'd be dead tired and in need of sleep every single night after the requisite extracurriculars and homework. My parents wouldn't let me drive to school in the morning because I'd get only a couple of hours of sleep a night sometimes and they didn't want me to fall asleep behind the wheel.
Even on weekends I didn't have time because I had to study for the classes I hated and do lame group projects where at least one member didn't do their fair share of work.
Re: 10-Year-Old Scholar Takes California College By Storm
#17Oh jeez, I know this kid. I have the same piano teacher as he does, and I felt so sorry for him. His lessons were often after mine.
Personally, I think his parents (his dad in particular) ARE pushing him way too much.
Re: 10-Year-Old Scholar Takes California College By Storm
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ouch. Excuse me. I'm just glad to have news stories about Downey that don't involve the house the Carpenters used to live in.
The downmodding is for conflating grades with "deservedness" re: interning at your startup. First, if someone does the work, they should get the pay/equity, regardless of age. I say forget grades and jumping through other people's hoops. If he wants to do it, he will do it for its own sake. Second, I'd let the poor kid hang out at my startup just to get away from his parents and structure. He can play with action fig…
PLEASE! I'll even pass on your details next time I see him.
I really think he needs a break from his parents. It might do him some good.
Re: 10-Year-Old Scholar Takes California College By Storm
#19Maybe pg should have been less negative about the abilities of 10 year olds in his essay. Of course it's hard to know very much by age 10 if your parents lie to you frequently. But that isn't the child's fault.
It doesn't take much insight to see that this kid's life is hyper-scheduled and regulated by his parents. His Dad is "fretting" that his grade in piano will be bad, because he broke his arm in martial arts? Time to get some perspective, Pop.... Point being, this kid doesn't have the experience to know what he's missing by not being a little boy. Who says that his parents are telling him the truth?
If it's any consolation, his piano teacher (also mine) actually sat his mom down and pointedly told her that he needs a break from piano because he's overloaded with other extracurriculars (let alone college work). :)
Re: 10-Year-Old Scholar Takes California College By Storm
#20Over. Scheduled. On the flip side I think we should front-load education because kids hardly learn anything from jr. high onward, thanks to the hormone fairy. There are a few exceptions, of course.
I think all high schools could do with starting classes a couple hours later, and to lessen the busywork.
It certainly works for me. I schedule all my college classes after 10am if possible, otherwise I just fall asleep in class no matter how early I go to sleep the night before.