Smart Kids Should Skip High School

I remember nothing about my government or human health class, very little about my sociology class, I try to forget everything about my senior year English class, and I took Spanish only because there was a state scholarship where part of the requirement was to take three years of a foreign language, instead of the state-mandated two years.

I surely learned things in these classes. I've likely forgotten them because the contents didn't interest me enough. If I regard the brain as RAM, there was no refresh so the memories faded.

Just like I remember very little now about most of my college classes. I took numerical analysis, thermodynamics, theater, psychology, database organization, and more, but I've forgotten them. Even my analysis course, where I remember I adored doing epsilon-delta proofs, has faded into all but emotional tones. I've also forgotten how to do PDEs, but knowing that technique saved my butt a few years later when I took the qualifying exam for physics.

While I vividly remember my theory of automata course, my discrete math course, and a few others which are still so key to what I do every day.

It seems I remember best the things I like, and the things which I still use. I can totally understand that someone who liked high school because of friends and getting high might only remember that part. That doesn't have to mean there was no learning, nor even that the learning wasn't useful. Only that it's no longer recallable.

A few random stories, all true:

A client of mine is global director of a multi-billion dollar Scandinavian corporation largely because a school friend knew a few board members.

A friend obtained deep access to a person, considered to be among the five most powerful people in his country, due to his school network.

Another friend was contacted by a school friend and helped him to land a job in an elite investment bank despite the lack of any relevant experience.

"Christopher Otway"'s story is described in the link. "While in Grade 1, Chris was accelerated to work with fifth-grade students for math and sixth-grade students for English. The following year he did math with seventh-grade students ... at the end of his second-grade year Chris made a full grade skip to fourth grade but took math with the eighth grade. By age 12, he was theoretically enrolled in 9th grade but took five subjects (physics, chemistry, English, math, and economics) with 11th-grade students 5 years older than he." Eventually, "He entered university at 16 years 2 months, graduating with Bachelor of Science (First-Class Honours) in computer science and mathematics at age 20. Chris won a scholarship to a major British university and graduated with a Ph.D. in pure math at age 24. Since then, based in London, he works for a worldwide consultancy assisting other companies with financial strategies."

As for "Ian Baker": starting with preschool, "only after his parents had gently informed the teacher that he had just finished reading Charlotte's Web was he permitted to forego reading readiness exercises". In grade 1 and 2, his teacher worked with him to give him stimulating material, ranging up to grade 8 math, and he was in a pull-out program with other gifted children; however, in grade 3, a new principal canceled the pull-out program, and Ian's teacher permitted him to work on a grade 7 math textbook "with no guidance or assistance, and no other children to work with", and Ian lost interest. Ian was bored and miserable in grades 3-4. He switched schools, and partway through grade 5, was given a high-school math teacher mentor, who took him through math up to grade 9. In grade 6, he took 10th grade math, and the following year skipped into grade 8, taking 11th grade math and CS and 10th grade science. In grade 10, he began taking university math. Ian enrolled in university at 17, did a bachelor's degree in "computing systems engineering", graduated at 20, and was in his fourth year of a Ph.D in digital hardware design at 24.

According to the author of the study, "Ian Baker's mathematical ability is certainly on a par with that of Christopher Otway and may well equal that of Adrian Seng [Terence Tao's pseudonym]. Unlike Adrian and Chris, however, his astonishing potential has largely been ignored by the education system ... It is unfortunate that he had to suffer through four years of appalling educational mismanagement." The author also says, "Adrian is the only child of the 15 who believes that he has been permitted to work, at school, at the level of which he is capable."

What was Adrian's educational program? At age 3.5, he tried entering preschool, but couldn't cope with a full school day at that age and left. At age 5 (by which time he had done all of elementary school math in home study), he entered school again. His parents worked with the principal to design a flexible program, in which he was able to progress through two grade levels per year. At age 6.5, he was attending grades 3, 4, 6, and 7 in different subjects. At age 7.5 he attended high school for part of the day, doing grade 11 math; the rest of the day was spent in grades 5 and 6 at the elementary school. At 8 he was doing math, physics, English, and social studies at high school (variously at grade levels 8, 11, and 12). At 8.5, "having informally sat and passed university entrance mathematics", he started taking university math, first in independent study and then guided by a professor; at age 8.75, he stopped attending any elementary school classes, and spent 3/4 of the day at high school, doing sciences in grades 10, 11, and 12, and humanities and "general studies" in grade 8, and 1/4 at university. By age 12 "his studies at university included fourth-year algebra, second-year physics, and second-year computer science". "By age 14, he had passed university entrance examinations in mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, and English, and completed university courses in areas such as mathematical physics, quantum mechanics, discrete mathematics, linear and abstract algebra, Lebesgue integration, electromagnetic theory, optics, and several areas of computing science."

(source: "Exceptionally Gifted Children", 2nd edition, by Miraca Gross)

It is, shall we say, interesting to imagine what might have been, if all the kids in the study had been afforded such a program.