Children going to college age six...

Press, 28 August 1979, Page 17

Children going to college age six...

By

JUDITH REGAN,

Features International

In two years time, dark-haired Elizabeth Lim hopes to have become a doctor . . . but it is doubtful whether anyone will offer her a partnership in a practice. It’s not that she will not be fully-qualified — she will. But patients might be a little dubious about consulting a doctor who has not yet reached her fifteenth birthday. For Elizabeth, daughter of a Los Angeles restaurateur, is one of the new generation of superkids who are turning the educational system on its ear by being able to learn in a fraction of the normal time. For instance, 13-year-old Elizabeth is expected to complete the four-year medical course in 18 months, which means she will be qualified before she is 15.

It is only now that educationalists throughout the world are beginning to give super-bright children the chance to shine. In the past, says the British educationalist, Dr Mia Kelmer Pringle, less than one in five of the really bright children had been allowed to realise their true potential. Schools cannot provide the challenge they need. Now, super-bright youngsters are being

allowed into universities and colleges as early as six or eight — and they are startling both teachers and fellow students with their dazzling ability. Edith Stem entered Michigan State University when only 12 and had become a lecturer in advanced calculus by the time she was 15. Her genius showed early: at two she could read, at three she was

playing chess, and at four she could solve complex mathematical problems. By the time her friends were reading nursery rhymes, Edith was immersed in the theories of Darwin and the philosophy of Kant.

Tousel-haired Danny Jacoby was only six when he enrolled in a New York University course designed for college professors. But, in other ways, he’s just like any other schoolboy — and can occasionally be seen turning cartwheels on the way to university. Matthew Marcus was only 12 when he became a full-time honours student at New York’s City Uni-

versity — the youngest freshman to enrol there since the turn of the century. As a freshman, he has been taking advanced calculus and conducting independent chemistry reAnd the highlight of a recent edition of “The World Surprise Show” on Tokyo television was a solemn South Korean named Kim Ung Yong,

who performed breathtaking feats of mental arithmetic and integral calculus, ending his performance with a recital in four languages of a poem he had composed on the spur of the moment. And the surprise? Simply that Kim Ung Yong was only four years eight months old. He could also work out square roots in seconds, an ability shared by a 13-year-oid Mexican boy, Herbert de Grote, who recently extracted the 13th root of a 100 digit number by an algorythm of his own invention during a 23-minute mental test in Chicago. The answer, as

you’ve no doubt worked out for yourself, was 46,231,597 . . .

Superkids invariably have fantastic memories, too, as pro:d by a 14 year-old Canadian boy, David Richard Spenser, who memorised Pi to 750 places. He wouldn’t go any further after hearing that an expert had disagreed with his calculation of the 512th place. Not all super-bright children are obsessed by numbers. The mechanics of maths and science often absorb them too, as in the case of an Essex boy, Stephen Gravett, who at the age of six walked into the headmaster’s study and said: “Please, sir, would you like to see the maths book I’ve written?” He produced a bulky textbook describing a revolutionary new approach to learning maths. Sadly, not all budding geniuses find life easy — as in the case of a Rome schoolboy Luigi Solano who Was turned out of junior school when he was six because there was nothing left to teach him. Four years later, at the age of ten, Luigi qualified as a teacher of English by passing a Cambridge University examination usually taken by people twice his age.

Had the law allowed, Luigi could then have become a lecturer at Rome University. Certainly no school could teach him anything, yet, under Italian regulations, he had to stay at school until he was at least 15.

On finally leaving school he studied for three years on his own — noone would risk trying to teach him. — and in the evenings spent his leisure translating English novels and learning Shakespeare plays by heart. Finally, he began to

study medicine at Rome’s Catholic University and at 21 has just graduated with the highest mark ever awarded. How can you tell whether your child has the sort of brilliance which will take him to

university at a very early age? These, say education experts, are the qualities a superchild will show by the age of seven: 1. Precocious behaviour with an easy ability to learn. 2. High reading ability and the eagerness to read

anything he can get his hands on. 3. Self-confiden'ce tempered by self-criticism and a curiosity revealed in the sort of questions he asks. 4. Perseverance and confidence backed by foresight and originality.

If he possesses all these, your child just could be one of the juvenile elite. Or, like John Pewensy, who as a six year old in 1945 possessed the brain of a mathematics professor, he might prefer to become a deckchair attendant on a holiday beach.