Reply to Parents of AAP kids: is your kid an actual genius or works hard?

Forum Index » Advanced Academic Programs (AAP)

Reply to "Parents of AAP kids: is your kid an actual genius or works hard?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Fairfax hasn't produced the next Terence Tao, so no there aren't any geniuses or prodigies here. And if there were, it obviously wouldn't be because of AAP. Prodigues are doing university math in early ES way before FCPS has a chance to get involved.[/quote]

Terrance Tao should not be the lower limit of genius here. Math wise, we should be looking at how many MOPS or IMO participants there are. I think FCPS sends one very couple of years.  So I think FCPS does have its fair share of (math) geniuses[/quote]

I'd also argue that although contest math participants are bright, more often than not, they are simply kids who work very hard to learn these problems. They are rarely, if ever, geniuses. Terrance Tao is one of the rare cases where a contest math kid went on to do significant work in the field.[/quote]
Yes, and Tao was reading math books for hours on his own as a child, per his parents descriptions. Even more proof that interest/curiosity + significant amounts of time spent is a general recipe for success. [b]The "genius" label is mostly an American invented excuse to label kids in a way that hides the reality of the situations[/b].[/quote]

DP.  The idea of genius is a bit of an American idea.  There are other cultures that believe that anyone and everyone can and should do.  That works well for some but not others.  Personally, I think some people are more academically-minded than others and that some people are geniuses at what they do, whether that's math or chess or golf tricks or whatever.  It's usually a combination of aptitude/natural talent and desire/hard work.  In children, I see no problem in fostering both, even and especially in the children where they don't both align.  [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics