Very Young Korean College Student

<p>An "unschooled" Korean boy has become a college student at age eight, </p>

<p><a href="http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2005/11/05/200511050024.asp%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2005/11/05/200511050024.asp&lt;/a> </p>

<p>which is certainly different from the usual college admission situation in Korea.</p>

<p>Amazing! I think I'm glad my kids aren't that intellectually gifted. I don't know if I would know how to raise a prodigy. :-)</p>

<p>I was wondering about the part in the news story where it said the dad spoke for the boy, because the boy isn't used to speaking to adults. Here in America, I would suppose that a prodigy ready for college could do his or her own talking with reporters, but that sounds a little more plausible in a Korean cultural context.</p>

<p>well actually TOKENADULT, I am korean and just to tell you, it is because the dad doesn't want his kid to blow off saying bad stuff. It is true. There is no denying. Why? Every korean parent doesn't want their child talking crap about their parents. It is true for sure. All korean parents want their child to do well in school and do everything in their power, whether to spank them, use intimidating tactics, etc in order to get their child "up to par" with rest of the other kids. </p>

<p>I have a 7 year old cousin who absolutely is goign insane. His mom is bombarding him with 100 words of vocab a day, studying for SAT I already, and reads book that I have difficulty reading. His schedule is no joke where after school, its tutoring until midnight. </p>

<p>the article quotes his parents and says that they want what is best for their kid. Yea, by excessive force for sure. I have never met a single korean parent that has ever said that. They want their kid to succeed. </p>

<p>TO ME, looks like he's been through a lot and probably was forced to study when his school peer were out playing.
my whole point is, the parents statement of saying they want him to explore everything and when they said about the zoo animals storym, that's bull. I heard my mom say that to one of her friends while they were bragging about their child. Also, he might be intellectually gifted and "motivated" but kind of seems weird that he knew incredibly difficult stuff without any "assistance"</p>

<p>WOW....</p>

<p>I feel so incompetent now...thanks a lot token</p>

<p>rexrun, I'm Korean too and while stories like the one you told about your cousin are definitely not uncommon, I don't think it's fair to jump to conclusions about Yoo-geun's parents. I go to an international school here so the perspective is obviously different, but my school definitely has its share of psycho parents who start sending their kids to SAT hakwons (after school classes) from the 7th grade. It's difficult to exaggerate the Korean obsession with learning English/getting into a good college...</p>

<p>Nevertheless, there are plenty (okay, maybe not plenty) of parents here who do NOT pressure their kids to this extreme. My parents have never hired a tutor for me or sent me to hakwon or made me study. They encouraged me to play sports and learn an instrument because I wanted to, not because they thought it would help with college admissions. They want me to work up to my potential, like all parents. In fact, the top three SAT scores from my grade (and the top three GPAs) are from kids who have never gone to hakwon or had tutors. To give some perspective, more than half of the Koreans in my grade go to hakwon.</p>

<p>Having said all that, it IS a little weird that Yoo-geun's parents wouldn't let him talk to the press because he can't "communicate with adults." Any kid who's grown up in Korea knows exactly how to speak to adults... and they know all the different bows, too. I went to a Korean school for a few months during elementary school. If you didn't bow right, the teacher smacked you with her stick. Hard.</p>

<p>Haven't you all realized that all Korean kids are smart?</p>

<p>Thsi reminds me a bit of a weird story that happened in my town. A 6-yr old (Justin Chapman) made BIG news when he enrolled at University of Rochester. He was in just about every newspaper and educational journal. Two years later they "discovered" that his mother had faked everything and he was just a normally intelligent kid. Due to some ugly things uncovered in the course of the fiasco the mother actually lost custody of the kid and she went to jail. The interesting part - if you do a google on his name + Rochester you still see lots of glowing reports about him. (Unfortunately, many of the articles you are by subscription only.) But few of those sources ever followed up with the true story 2 years later. It really was a terrible tragedy.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Haven't you all realized that all Korean kids are smart?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Gee, is Lake Woebegone in Korea? ;)</p>

<p>"Gee, is Lake Woebegone in Korea? "</p>

<p>Yes the lake is called Lake Yoo-be-geun!</p>

<p>"where the women are strong, the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average."</p>

<p>I saw the video documentary of it and the child seriously seemed really into learning. He was programming a robot and did it with ease and they even tested him in math problems not only in Korean but in English as well.</p>