Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Old news that's new to me: Justin Chapman

I think it's probably him, but then I've been told I'm a bit gullible.. The reason I think it's him is because he *hasn't* posted anything yet... it makes more sense to me that someone who was so much in the public eye might be hesitant to start posting on Facebook. However I think someone who was a fan or trying to impersonate him would have started putting stuff up immediately.

It is logical that someone who has a book coming out will want to show up on "social media" like fb and twitter. So, I think that it is him.
I read an article that says that his mother got full custody and that they moved to colorado to live a low profile life around 2007. I am not sure what happened after that - my googling skills did not take me farther than that.

Here's a story from 2008.
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/jun/05/kin-battle-over-genius-boy/

That story is so sad.

It reminds me of a 11 year old boy who was in my classes my senior year at university. He had been on 60 minutes and had a lot of media attention for being the youngest university graduate at the time. But dad was really the one driving the college degree and media attention, and this quickly fell apart that summer in a very tragic way. It was really a sad situation and has colored my views of gifted education.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-price-genius/

Mill was a famous philosopher. Wikipedia cites a source saying he was "the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the nineteenth century". If hothousing increases both the chance of eminence and failure, is it wrong?

We accelerated our eldest child and youngest child by a year so that at each age they would have a more challenging curriculum and so that they could start their careers a year earlier. The eldest is spending two weeks this summer at a full-day math camp. I know that even lots of educated upper-class parents think these decisions are weird -- they would never consider early kindergarten.

"Hothousing" is bad by definition, but it's not easy to define.

I think it should be confined to people who are pushing a child beyond their capabilities or to the extent that the child is in distress. One of my friends had parents who made her get up early every day to practice piano, which I always considered very pushy. However, she seemed to enjoy it to some extent and went on to major in music in college. So was it wrong? Plus, it's cultural. So many cultures "push" their children, but it's a fact that these countries are doing better in subjects like math. They don't see themselves as pushy, they see us as apathetic and neglectful and our kids as spoiled brats. So there is a very big gray area and people's values define it. I don't criticize people for their values unless a child is clearly suffering.

He wrote an autobiography and there is a chapter on his early education:

http://www.bartleby.com/25/1/1.html

What his father did makes me feel very uncomfortable. Maybe it's not as wrong this:


http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/may/14/lang-lang-piano-china-father

but still, reading about and imagining the life of JSM as a child makes me very sad.

This may be the same message which grows inside those who feel shortchanged by their education... that they missed their one and only opportunity.

Limiting access to gifted programs or advanced academics by creating artificial limits and lotteries breeds discontent and despair. It may also create an undue sense of competition and even begin to agitate people against each other.

Because there are enough school buildings, enough seats for children, and enough teachers, it ought to be a simple matter to repurpose any needed number of those schools, student seats, and teachers for gifted programs and/or advanced academics. Each child ought to receive an education in which they routinely experience the joy of thinking hard, puzzling through a challenge, and the reward of reaching that aha moment. Each student learning something new every day, with intellectual peers.

This may create a more peaceful, cooperative society in which misguided parents are not harming their children with all-or-nothing thinking.

Yes, exactly. A big part of this problem is a lack of will.