[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

Considering that everyone is different, that's bound to be true for some children. Perhaps it even applies to most children - who knows? The trouble is that inspiration is a hard thing to come by and to foster. On one hand, it's very easy to lose inspiration if you feel that what you're doing is relatively mindless memorization drivel; on the other hand, once you've had that basic knowledge forced into you, perhaps you can appreciate the higher-level materials more. Nobody enjoys practicing the piano day after day, repeating the same basic exercises and songs, but once you've gained a certain level of mastery, the fun begins.

I've seen a number of stories about this ("child prodigy does X" or "child prodigy discovers X in research lab"), and having worked with a number of high schoolers doing things like internship projects in a lab, I tend to be a bit skeptical. It's not that the students aren't intelligent, but their base knowledge isn't built up enough to really engage in the research. Their teachers write back to us with glowing praise after seeing a research presentation from them and after reading their reports (and no doubt they're thought of as geniuses), when we were the ones supplying the data, preparing the figures, and occasionally going so far as to write certain things out for them. The students, meanwhile, were either messing around on their phones/computers, or following us around with a somewhat bored expression. I'd generally try to ask them questions about the various steps that we were going through, to at least keep them thinking and engaged...

I don't know whether that's the case with this guy. The world seems to desperately cling to the idea of child prodigies, hoping that one genius will come around to save us all and elevate society. Regardless, the benefit of these articles is that hopefully younger children would read it and be inspired. If it makes even a few kids think to themselves that they can engage in science here and now (which they can), and that they don't have to wait until they're in their late 20's to finish school and really get into it, then it's very beneficial.

I hate to agree with you on that - however I see that the cause of it is that we are constantly bombarded by articles and information everyday that we start not to be bothered with them.

Maybe gassing dyslexic or reading-handicapped children who are diagnosed at birth would allow the more comprehension-capable to be inspired, rather than going through the time and money consuming process of " academic meritocracy" to "socially darwinise" for prodigies. *sarcastic*