I’ve finished reading the book. It’s fairly short, and I have some mixed feelings which I’ll share.
As a book for a parent interested in early learning, it’s a good book. He doesn’t get down into too much detail such as a typical day when he was X years old, but he gives an overall look at what he was doing in various years. This is maybe the books biggest weakness from my point of view.
As I mentioned in my first post above, they really focused on MASTERY. He doesn’t mention mastery all that much, but it’s apparent if you’re familiar with the idea. Mastery just means spending time on fewer things until they’re mastered, and then slowly adding to it. It does make some sense that the parents chose this route due to their affinity for martial arts. I can see where the martial arts philosophy played a large role.
When he talks about his flash card program, the things that parents do on Brillkids seems robust in comparison. That may not be bad though - I’m just reporting on what Moshe did.
He didn’t say how he went about gaining calculus ability by 7 or 8 years old. He did mention that his parents had a hard time teaching him the concept of numbers at first UNTIL they combined numbers with items he already knew.
Instead of “two” and showing two of whatever… they took something he knew, let’s say a picture of a tiger. They’d show a card with a tiger and say “one tiger”, next doubling the picture “two tiger” and next tripling the picture, etc. This caused him to understand that one, two, three were all descriptions of quantity and not a description of the content per se.
We accidentally run into interference without even knowing, and it slows the learning process as the child has to distinguish the interference for themselves. He doesn’t speak of this at all, but it’s something that stood out in the one, two, three process.
nee1, that was the article! I was looking for the thread for about an hour and couldn’t find it, THANK YOU.
A few more thoughts about math and graduating college early… not sure how profound this will be, but I’ve given it a lot of thought and believe I understand the formula for how to recreate it.
First, these kids are all early learners. They don’t wait for the education system to kick in; doing this would make it basically impossible for early graduation to happen in such a manner - that’s not to discount the possibility someone could graduate a year, two, or three early… I’m talking about the remarkable instances of pre-teens graduating or attending college.
As early learners, they will be ahead in reading and have higher vocabularies in general.
Second, their parents stress mathematics. This is the PIVOTAL part of the young college attendee. There’s a reason why, but it took me the weekend to really piece it together.
I’m sure it’s happened somewhere, but these examples do not include a ten year old (or otherwise super young kid) attending a 4 year university as a Freshman. There’s a reason for that!!
THE SHORTCUT THROUGH THE EDUCATION SYSTEM REVEALED
What these kids have in common is that they found the short cut through the education system. That’s not to say they didn’t work hard; it’s to say that they found the quickest path to a bachelor’s degree.
In the US, junior colleges exist to benefit the community. That’s why they’re called community colleges. Any adult can attend a community college. There’s no real pre-requisites, but there are pre-requisites for certain classes that are offered. You can’t just walk in and take a second year calculus class. This will not be allowed. In fact, any college level (101 or higher) requires that you place into the class.
This means to attend the college as a legit student without restraint, you must first place yourself through an entrance exam. I’ve only done one community college course and remember the test - don’t remember taking an English test, only a mathematics test; anyone with advanced algebra under their belt would most likely pass; if you understand logs and some more pre-calc stuff, you’ll place better. When I took the CC entrance test, I passed. A few years later, I took one for the 4 year university and failed! It was because I hadn’t used any of that math for so long, but a few tutoring sessions just to remember what I had forgotten, and I passed just fine.
So all colleges and universities will test you before allowing you take 101 math courses.
Moshe had to take an English test as well. This makes sense. In East LA, I would imagine that many in the community aren’t very adept at English. Moshe himself was reading at a 9th grade level when he took this test. GOOD ENOUGH!
I’ll take a brief moment to add, I can tell that Moshe uses English almost as a second language. He’s probably great at reading comprehension, but there’s no way he’d ever get an English degree at this point in his life. His writing lacks complexity (as I mentioned in my first post) and frankly he makes grammar and tense mistakes all over the place; it’s a style I’d expect from a foreigner. He admits it’s a weakness.
Once the Dean allowed Moshe to take the placement tests, the ball was rolling. All he had to do was pass the test, and because he was doing calculus at the time, it was an easy proposition.
The kid that wasn’t allowed into public school would experience his first classroom at the college level shortly after being denied public school (he was the age of a first or second grader!)
This shortcut is easily duplicable; well maybe I shouldn’t say “easy”. It’s duplicable, and I’d bet that most of the kids that have done early learning could do it if they spent time gaining ground in math to the degree that they could pass the placement test. Their reading would likely already be good enough to muddle through a text book.
But this brings me to the flip side of the coin. While Moshe received his AA at the age of 11 and is now at UCLA, I’m quite confident in saying that his education is not on par with other seniors at UCLA. There are things that he learned better and stronger than his peers, but there are also things he never learned or learned very weakly. He doesn’t discuss this in the book, so I can’t tell you what they’d be.
The downside to taking the short cut is that it may cost you that well roundness that is admired of a quality education. The upside is that tick for tick on the age clock, this might be the most productive path possible AND in the current state of the US higher education bubble (where cheap money permeates higher education, causing the costs to rise precipitously) this short cut is also an awesome way to lessen the financial burden on the parent AND the child!
When Moshe became the youngest AA graduate and did so with a 4.0 GPA, he set himself up for a very affordable university experience.
If you or I go out and get our AA and get a 4.0 GPA, we will likely be able to transfer to a school like UCLA but it’s not guaranteed. Also not guaranteed (and far, FAR from it) is getting any sort of financial assistance that doesn’t need to be paid back.
Moshe, however, is unique in that regard. He was recognized by the California State Legislature, the Governor, the Mayor, etc etc. When someone is capable of graduating that young with such a strong academic performance, schools will begin to salivate at the idea of taking in such a student. Moshe didn’t mention which two schools turned him down, but my guess would be Stanford and USC (but I don’t know if he applied to USC). Which schools are beside the point though. The important thing to remember is how a school will view such a child - perhaps as a rare gift to human kind; a rare breed of academic superstar that has the potential to change the world. Perhaps this is true of Moshe, but perhaps he’ll turn out more ordinary when he’s 40 or 50 (though far more educated than most). What I’m saying is that it doesn’t mean he’s going to cure cancer or win a Nobel prize in physics or any other subject.
The schools, on the other hand, will likely view him in such a way!!!
And for that reason, they will throw money at a child like this, just to make sure he achieves his potential and maybe even so that he’ll achieve that potential at their institution.
What am I saying?
I’m saying that for the meager cost of an associates degree at a community college, you could buy your child a top tier degree at a prestigious university. That’s a big deal for people.
The flip side is that I think the overall education will lack. If you waited until they’re 16 to go the shortcut route, weaving an interesting story line filled with the ideas of unmet super potential just won’t have the sizzle that the same story would have with a 12 year old. In my mind, taking this shortcut or not is really a matter of what’s important to you and important for your child.
nee1, to give a quick answer to your question about high performance and math - I think reading is the most fundamental skill because it leads to more useful and profound knowledge; and writing correlates well with a productive work life. It’s harder to take a short cut in these skills.
In math, if you spent 5 hours per day on it as a home school student, before long you’d wind up many years ahead of your peers. Math is correlated to quality of thinking. If the thinking is strong, learning can be strong as well.
The one thing these kids had in common is their high math achievement. I don’t think this is by chance for reasons I stated above. It does help in thinking, and obviously will make it possible to catapult the student through the ranks like no other subject matter can do.
But, there are plenty of educated people that are weak in mathematics. Universities in particular, graduate a massive percentage of students that are effectively innumerate (when judging from a college level that is). There are countless degrees that require very little math to graduate; and the math needed to graduate is not very advanced or difficult. My business degree would fit this. I imagine English degrees or writing or such would require even less!
I can’t, in good conscience, say that the people who graduate with low math requirements AREN’T educated; therefore, math and education are not synonymous, even though I can draw a correlation between ability in math and ability in reasoning and logic.
