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Terence Tao, at 8 years old (1984) [pdf]

gwern.net

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Re: Terence Tao, at 8 years old (1984) [pdf]

#291

Post by drited »

gwern wrote: post #251
lich_king wrote: post #231

Since the discussion here focuses mostly on child prodigies in general, I'd note that there are many studies showing that the usual outcomes for gifted kids are not all that great. I think the issue is that it's just harder to fit in. I remember being way ahead in some classes in middle school, and I actually ending up drawing the ire of some teachers when I had answers to every question (let alone corrected them). I…

> I'd note that there are many studies showing that the usual outcomes for gifted kids are not all that great. No, there's not, and they do do great. And this goes back to Terman: there's a handful of highly selected examples (eg the Australian kids recruited from child psychologist referrals, the self-selected self-diagnosed Mensa adult survey), furious anecdotes, and then every systematic prospective sample like Te…

Gwern on that smpy site what does the O-like character next to certainty: log mean?

I'm viewing on chrome from an Android device.

I'm trying to figure out what your certainty on smpy is.

Also thank you for your site. I read your n back analysis some years ago and found it to be very interesting.

Re: Terence Tao, at 8 years old (1984) [pdf]

#292

Post by markus_zhang »

ryanjshaw wrote: post #288
markus_zhang wrote: post #261

I’d kudos his parents. The parents deliberately brought themselves out of the picture, but as a parent I know how hard it is. No, I don’t mean it is hard to feed a kid and educate him a bit. That’s like at least 70% of the parents can do. What is remarkable is that they not only found Terence’s interests and nurtured on it, consistently without any major error. God you have no idea how hard it is. So many constellati…

I’ve settled on the idea that my job as parent is to introduce my kid to a bunch of different things, help them process that information, but ultimately the decision of where they choose to focus their energy is up to them. I’m proud of whatever they do, as long as they try their best.

That’s a good choice. I just feel each kid has so much potentials in them, but there are always something, like a shortcoming in the genes or a bad characteristics that prevents them from achieving a lot more.

And I don’t have the time, will and experience to guide mine.

Re: Terence Tao, at 8 years old (1984) [pdf]

#293

Post by markus_zhang »

throwforfeds wrote: post #235
MrOrelliOReilly wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you might be underrating the value of even that enabling work. Some parents would not have the financial resources to provide those learning materials. And some parents would take a normative stance on how an 8 year old ought to behave. More importantly, it's not as though individuals like Clements or Erdos was corresponding with Terrence directly to arrange a meeting. His parents clearly played an important…

Yeah I agree, an 8 year old isn't setting up these meetings and correspondences. I think beyond even having supportive parents, the most important part was that he had a parent that had a degree in the field that he happened to be a genius in. His mother knew exactly how to guide her child through the material, even if it just was to let him go off to a corner and read the books she guided him towards for 3-4 hours a…

I think gene and characteristics are more important than knowledge and degree. I happen to have two parents who are both in education, one teaches in university and one teaches in middle schools. Because of this I also know many friends whose parents are also teachers.

Without any statistical significance, but nonetheless the sample size is greater than 5. None of us consider their parents to be great, or even good teachers. All kids squandered sometime after they are free from the parents, usually in universities.

This experience impacts me so much, that I have a bias that teachers should not teach their own kids.

Re: Terence Tao, at 8 years old (1984) [pdf]

#294

Post by [deleted] »

markus_zhang wrote: post #290
ekjhgkejhgk wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Phew this resonated with me. Before becoming a parent I'd always thought "when I have a kid I'll teach him such and such" but now turns out that my kid just wants to jump around and break things. I don't know, let me know if you want to talk. Mine is little over 4yo.

I get it. 4 years old is a threshold. After that you can reason with them. Before that they are just mini terminators. I guess parenting is a bit easier if your interests/work align with the kid’s interests. But if not then it’s going to be tough, because parents only have time to do one thing extra, so they either have to ignore the kids and do what they love, or forfeit what they love and do what the kids may or ma…

[deleted]

Re: Terence Tao, at 8 years old (1984) [pdf]

#295

Post by throwforfeds »

markus_zhang wrote: post #293
throwforfeds wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I agree, an 8 year old isn't setting up these meetings and correspondences. I think beyond even having supportive parents, the most important part was that he had a parent that had a degree in the field that he happened to be a genius in. His mother knew exactly how to guide her child through the material, even if it just was to let him go off to a corner and read the books she guided him towards for 3-4 hours a…

I think gene and characteristics are more important than knowledge and degree. I happen to have two parents who are both in education, one teaches in university and one teaches in middle schools. Because of this I also know many friends whose parents are also teachers. Without any statistical significance, but nonetheless the sample size is greater than 5. None of us consider their parents to be great, or even good t…

A parent of mine was also a teacher, and other than grading their student's 9th grade math exams when I was in elementary school, I was on my own for most of my learning.

So I agree that yes, just having a parent who is a teacher doesn't necessarily get you much, outside of likely being in a home environment where school is deemed important (many don't have this unfortunately). But where things become slightly magical is when you have a genetically gifted child and a parent that both knows how to guide that genius and has the resources to do so.

Re: Terence Tao, at 8 years old (1984) [pdf]

#296

Post by markus_zhang »

throwforfeds wrote: post #295
markus_zhang wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think gene and characteristics are more important than knowledge and degree. I happen to have two parents who are both in education, one teaches in university and one teaches in middle schools. Because of this I also know many friends whose parents are also teachers. Without any statistical significance, but nonetheless the sample size is greater than 5. None of us consider their parents to be great, or even good t…

A parent of mine was also a teacher, and other than grading their student's 9th grade math exams when I was in elementary school, I was on my own for most of my learning. So I agree that yes, just having a parent who is a teacher doesn't necessarily get you much, outside of likely being in a home environment where school is deemed important (many don't have this unfortunately). But where things become slightly magica…

Yeah, and can be worse if they are arrogant and thinks they know everything about teaching. That’s why I said characteristics is important.

Re: Terence Tao, at 8 years old (1984) [pdf]

#297

Post by nephihaha »

quietbritishjim wrote: post #170
vixen99 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tangential but am reminded of Churchill's comments" "And when in after years my school-fellows who had won prizes and distinction for writing such beautiful Latin poetry and pithy Greek epigrams had to come down again to common English, to earn their living or make their way, I did not feel myself at any disadvantage." and "“However, by being so long in the lowest form I gained an immense advantage over the cleverer…

Great quote! Your final sentence seems a bit odd in that context though: Churchill's point is that Latin and Greek actually isn't useful at all, so it would follow that it isn't better to do both (i.e. study the classics as well as English), especially as time to learn them would have a huge opportunity cost, e.g. you could use that time to study more English composition instead. (If you think they're worth learning…

I think Churchill's main point is that they neglected teaching English well. However, if you read him and politicians of the era, you will find plenty of classical references. If we dig into classical history it is quite amazing how many of the same things we see. I was reading something about how certain cities in Asia Minor (modern Turkey) were spending more and more money on civic vanity projects and having to be bailed out by central government in Rome. Very similar to patterns today.

Re: Terence Tao, at 8 years old (1984) [pdf]

#298

Post by Viliam1234 »

zozbot234 wrote: post #237
lich_king wrote: post #231

Since the discussion here focuses mostly on child prodigies in general, I'd note that there are many studies showing that the usual outcomes for gifted kids are not all that great. I think the issue is that it's just harder to fit in. I remember being way ahead in some classes in middle school, and I actually ending up drawing the ire of some teachers when I had answers to every question (let alone corrected them). I…

These stories are quite common. It just goes to prove that the point of modern mass schooling is just to corral the kids in and provide daycare, not really an education.

I think it does provide some education for the average child. It's just when you are not average that it fails you.

Re: Terence Tao, at 8 years old (1984) [pdf]

#299

Post by Viliam1234 »

tarentel wrote: post #252
meroes wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a big one you didn’t touch on is being told you do well in school because you are smart, not because you put in the effort. It’s a lie many start believing, that they don’t put in effort.

Not sure that's true. I am by no means gifted in the sense of Terence Tao, or even people much more gifted than me but far less gifted than him, but I did well in school up to a certain point in college. I never really learned how to study until I got fairly far in my education process. I put very little effort into school up until that point. That's when I actually had to put effort in and it was quite a wake up cal…

Exactly. Up to some point, you actually do well because you are smart. Then, in the middle of the game, the rules change (from your perspective), and it may catch you by surprise.

It would be much better for the gifted children to attend schools where their effort is visible since the beginning. That is, schools with other gifted children.

For example, in math, my kids didn't learn anything new during their first three years of the elementary school, because they already knew numbers and addition at kindergarten age. Yet they were forced to sit there for three years. It would have been better to give them a book to read, or a collection of interesting problems to solve.

Re: Terence Tao, at 8 years old (1984) [pdf]

#300

Post by Viliam1234 »

danielmarkbruce wrote: post #230
somenameforme wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still meritocratic even with dramatic genetic differences between individuals. A peer comment mentioned an anecdote of Terence nearly failing his orals because he ended spending all of his time playing Civ instead of studying anything. It's basically the Gattaca story. Somebody can have the most brilliant mind in the world, but without actually applying it, they're not going to do great in life. If you give a pe…

"Dedication and work ethic" is almost certainly nonsense here. Some people do the activity a lot without having any ethic or dedication - they like it.

Yeah, it's easier to do the difficult and boring stuff when it's actually easy and interesting for you.
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