If You Want Great Scientists, You Need to Nuture Them

The NY Times had an article about the finalists for the Intel Science Talent Search (formerly Westinghouse Science Talent Search). Forty percent of them came from NY State. So I ask my husband, who lived in Brooklyn, how that might be. The answer was that NY State supports its gifted students and has very specific high schools for them. From the article:

"Six finalists have gone on to win Nobel Prizes."

“Her mature, clear, deep writing style is as high as any student I’ve ever met,” said Mr. Brooks, who conceded that some of Katie’s reasoning could be difficult to follow because of the material’s density. “It’s the work of a graduate-level student,” he said."

"David Alex Rosengarten, 17, another finalist from the Great Neck school, studied Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity and whether it could explain the galactic rotation curve problem in astrophysics."

But really, those kids would have been better off in a general ed classroom because well, those kids always turn out okay.

Comments

Anonymous said…
heh, heh. Melissa, thanks for saying it. I am sure those students would have done just fine in a gen ed classroom, too.
Anonymous said…
Yes, sort of like raising feral engineers. The "smart kids" will just figure it out on their own. WenG
Anonymous said…
Is it more important that the affluent become more affluent or that the poor become less poor?
Anonymous said…
Could this have anything to do with the size of NY maybe? I mean, since Brooklyn alone has roughly the same or higher population than the entire Seattle metropolitan area? It just makes sense to me that if there are 500 people from NY and 100 people from WA who apply for something, the odds of someone from NY being picked are about 5 times higher. But maybe I just don't understand how it works because I wasn't enrolled in a gifted program.
Charles T. Moore said…
The scientists know about nature so well and you write so well. The person who wants to become a scientist should know about superior assignment the nature of the science. You know how much this article took my interest and this is so lovely information.

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