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Homeschooled with MIT courses at 5, accepted to MIT at 15

news.mit.edu

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Re: Homeschooled with MIT courses at 5, accepted to MIT at 15

#141

Post by ChuckMcM »

I think this was a great story and I hope to hear more like it. It has been one of the "promises" of the Internet that smart children could get access to as much learning as they can handle, breaking the bottleneck that was the availability of local resources.

Of course not everyone cares, or wants to learn all they can, but for those who do it is important to give them that opportunity. And it is in that context that I think the availability of course ware will help us guide smart, motivated, kids before their boredom leads them into an ill advised adventure.

Re: Homeschooled with MIT courses at 5, accepted to MIT at 15

#143

Post by codingdave »

allendoerfer wrote: post #75
sannee wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to realize the fact that humans have some really annoying bugs. a) The first one is the fact that we want (mostly) to help each other and make each other happy. This looks benign, but combined with b) can be really irritating b) Humans are bad at empathy. You might enjoy humanistic education or sports and so you automatically think that everyone else does too. This probably worked fine for our ancestors (get…

I think a bit different about humanism. I think a basic humanistic education is more like a drivers license for society. Know nothing about WW2? Well, you should not be allowed to vote, because it could turn out really bad for all of us. Democracy can be really dangerous without proper education. What does all technical excellence mean as long as the Middle East is a clusterfuck? Most really big problems have little…

Are you truly proposing a limit on voting rights based on educational achievements? I think that is a road that will lead to an elite class in our society, limiting political power to those who grew up in poverty or had other struggles.

We already have enough problems with an elite class within our economic power. Lets not extend that elitism into governmental processes as well.

Re: Homeschooled with MIT courses at 5, accepted to MIT at 15

#144

Post by wuschel »

Truly impressive accomplishment. My congratulations.

And now imagine that you actually do not need MIT. In comparison to what you have done, it is another rigid institution with a more or less rigid structure.

I hope the educational landscape will keep changing, giving more alternative bodies to aquire high end knowledge, e.g. through hacker spaces, virtual/internet based platforms, etc.

Re: Homeschooled with MIT courses at 5, accepted to MIT at 15

#145

Post by losvedir »

hemantv wrote: post #131
rtl49 wrote: post #22

“I will never forget the feeling of walking into the lobby of Building 7, looking up, and then touching the pillars to see if they were real. I couldn’t believe I was at MIT. My life and my ambitions moved to another level at that moment.” I think this impressive achievement is more a testament to the role that aspirations acquired during childhood play in determining a person's success than it is a reflection of thi…

The grass always seems green on another side. There is a lot of benefit to the singularity of purpose at the same time there are a lot of side effects. To give you one example, homeschooled kid lacks good social skills, which are more important to success in life than mere intelligence or knowledge.

> homeschooled kid lacks good social skills

Definitely not the case, and I wish this tired cliche would go away already.

My homeschooled sister is far more social than I am (I did the normal school thing), although we're both fine at it. Homeschoolers probably have a lot more realistic socialization opportunities, as it's all based around common interests and skill levels, just like the real world, rather than being packed together with a bunch of people whose only trait in common with you is their age.

Re: Homeschooled with MIT courses at 5, accepted to MIT at 15

#147

Post by whatsup »

jazzyk wrote: post #71
Spearchucker wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree with you. My wife and I are already arguing over the future of our 3-year-old. She wants him to learn to read and write. I want him to play, have time to be a boy, get in trouble, kiss a girl, and have a care-free childhood. We're so obsessed with money, and forget all about the one currency that really matters. Time. Time to live . I'd rather he were average academically, and experience life exceptionally.

Up-voted for courageously (and beautifully) expressing a potentially unpopular opinion. Stay strong - it is hard not to feel guilty when other kids in kindergarten can seemingly write essays and do calculus, but in the end, it does not matter as much as it may appear to. And sometimes putting so much pressure may have unintended consequences. I know a few kids from affluent families in my town where their "early prod…

Sad that offering a differing opinion is considered courageous.

Re: Homeschooled with MIT courses at 5, accepted to MIT at 15

#148

Post by droithomme »

rtl49 wrote: post #22

“I will never forget the feeling of walking into the lobby of Building 7, looking up, and then touching the pillars to see if they were real. I couldn’t believe I was at MIT. My life and my ambitions moved to another level at that moment.” I think this impressive achievement is more a testament to the role that aspirations acquired during childhood play in determining a person's success than it is a reflection of thi…

> had they been provided a similarly advantageous upbringing

He's a minority immigrant that fled poverty and homeschooled himself. Please clarify in what ways this was an advantageous upbringing over say an american native raised in the suburbs by a wealthy family who attends the best public schools, few if any of whom enter MIT at 15.

Re: Homeschooled with MIT courses at 5, accepted to MIT at 15

#149

Post by matheweis »

uhtred wrote: post #77
agentultra wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These stories attract the attention of some of us because we wish we had been raised similarly. We wish we had been but we didn't live in the right time or place for an upbringing like this. I remember stealing my dad's college textbooks on mechanics and applied mathematics and sneaking them off to school; taking out Byte and Compute issues from the library when they were available... just starving for more all the…

I wish I had the drive / focus / interest that you sound like you had when you were at school. I hung around with the wrong people, didn't put enough thought into what I might like to do for a career, valued the wrong things, and as a consequence spent my twenties in lots of meaningless, unsatisfying jobs. I'm in my early thirties now and am lucky in that I've managed to change my circumstances and begin a career as…

> I feel I will never be able to achieve the success I could have if I had only...

Learn from your past, take things from where they are today, and change the things that you can, now, going into the future.

There are other people like you today; some of them will do that, others will only continue to live in regret.

10 years from now you can be the person that they will look at and say "if I had only..."

Re: Homeschooled with MIT courses at 5, accepted to MIT at 15

#150

Post by Cyph0n »

allendoerfer wrote: post #80
Cyph0n wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is exclusively technical education bad? Who cares if he doesn't know much about politics, art, or geography? All that matters is that he loves what he's doing.

Because we live in a democracy and I want to be sure that people how have actual power over me know some basic facts about politics, art, geography and history.

Ah yes, good point. Coming from a fledgling democracy, I'm not used to thinking about these kinds of things. I don't see art being useful for decision-making though.
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