Child prodigy, with IQ of 146, stirs debate
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E-mail China Daily, October 17, 2015
Parents the world over dream of having a child prodigy, but how will you educate a genius if your child has unbelievably high intelligence?
Parents from Xi'an, capital city of Northwest China's Shaanxi province, faced this problem when they found their eight-year-old son was a genius with an IQ score of 146, just a little lower than scientist Albert Einstein's reported IQ of 160, according to Huashang Daily.
At one stage the gifted eight-year-old boy, Gao Yonghan, had his mother worried as he did not speak a word although he was two and a half years old, an age when most children were already fluently speaking.
However, Gao surprised his family one day by unexpectedly counting out loud, "six, seven, eight, nine, 10", when his grandmother, who was carrying him upstairs, stopped to catch her breath after counting "one, two, three, four, five", as usual.
The little boy showed an interest in math and reading as early as kindergarten, where he chose to read while the other kids took noon break.
Besides memorizing multiplication tables at three years old, the boy quickly showed his talent in math after enrolling in primary school. At the beginning, his math teacher, Zhang Yan, found he understood math problems before she taught him. Later, he beat some sixth grade students in solving some difficult math problems.
It was after this competition that Gao took the Wechsler Intelligence Scale, an internationally recognized intelligence test, and scored 146, which places the boy in the top 2 percent of the population, since most common IQs are between 90 and 110.
Gao's Math Olympiad teacher, surnamed Zhu, said: "He was the cleverest student I have ever met during my years of teaching." Zhu told a reporter the boy usually explores new methods to solve math problems that are beyond many adults' comprehension.
Now the eight-year-old is allowed to study math, physics and chemistry for junior high school students – subjects he is interested in - at home three afternoons a week.
But Gao Xin, the boy's mother, has her worries. She told the reporter that his education is "her biggest concern", because she doesn't want her son to develop at the expense of his childhood, especially when he says he wants to be with his friends.
People have different opinions on the math genius' further education, as evidenced by 3,482 comments and 1,875 reposts that Gao's story on Huashang Daily's official account on China's Twitter-like Sina Weibo received.
"For the highly intelligent children, it's recognized at home and abroad that different educational tools should be tailored for these children in case their unusual abilities disappear after being ignored in their daily lives," said Zi Yanyang, head of the admissions office at Xi'an Jiaotong University.
Zi's viewpoint garnered support from many Internet users. Feixue said: "It's necessary to let the child get tailored education, especially when China lacks expertise."
However, some voices asked for all-round development for the eight-year-old boy.
"Just like the growth of vegetables, children also need time to develop themselves to be physically and mentally healthy grown-ups. Growing up shouldn't give way to developing one's talent," said Li, whose son is a fifth grade student.
Li went on to say, "Individual quality, good personality, physical and mental health, all these constitute the most key factors for a child's growing up."
Many Internet users voiced support for Li's opinion. For example, web user changsang said,"It's good enough to teach him to be a good person", which got 6,099 supports.
Anyone who wonders how the child prodigy Gao thinks about math problems can challenge themselves with this problem, which Gao solved. Have a try! You can compare your solution with his.
Question: There are 170 students in Tiantian Kindergarten, and if three-fourths of the number of boys equals two-thirds of the number of girls, then how many boys and girls, respectively, are in the kindergarten?
Zaizai's solution: 3/4+2/3=9/12+8/12=17/12
170 ÷ 17/12=120
120 × 8/12=80（the number of boys）
120 × 9/12=90（the number of girls）
What's your solution?
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