Guest Author - Rita Ostrager
My son, Ryan has been taking college classes since he was 11. Before letting him take his first course I read all the books and research I could find on giftedness and acceleration, I spoke to the few experts that were available and I thought about some of my past experiences as a parent and student but what I wanted most was to meet a real students who had tried this, to look at them and see if they were ok; to talk to their parents and ask if they felt they made the right choice. Now Ryan is that child and I am that parent.
BEFORE YOU REGISTER YOUR CHILD FOR HIS/HER FIRST COLLEGE COURSE
Read, study, talk to experts. The best thing to do is talk to the experts -- other parents of children who have taken college course. HEROES is a resource I've created to help you do just that. This summer Rutgers in New Jersey offered high school and younger students scholarships equal to 30% of the tuition for any summer session courses that they took. I was told that 50 students took advantage of this scholarship; half of whom where "very young" students.
Probably the scariest part of letting Ryan take his first college course is wondering how those "great big college students" were going to relate to this "little boy" who could still fit into his pre-school t-shirt. Would they stare at him? Would they tease him? Would they like him? On the first day of class one or two students do stare at him a bit before one of them finally asks the question so many of them are probably thinking, "How old are you?" After a few comments the issue is normally dropped. If anyone treats him differently it's a few maternal types that will shadow him until he meets up with me after class. Ryan's comment about student relationships was "Nobody talks to me, but then nobody talks to anyone else either." Classes in college aren't social like classes in middle school or high school. For the most part, students come to class, listen to the lecture and leave. They look for friends at clubs, social activities, bars, dorms and parties.
In middle and high school school teachers normally show concern if a student isn't doing the work, turning in the homework on putting in enough effort. They ask for homework, they remind children to stay on task during class, they call parents if they aren't seeing progress. In college, professors give out a syllabus and that's it. End of story. No calls to Mom. No conferences with parents. For Ryan's first two classes, he was very careful to read ahead, do all of his work neatly, and carefully check all his materials and notebooks before each class. He got As in both of them and wanted to frame his first blue book exam. After a year, Ryan got the idea that college wasn't any harder than "regular school." He figured that he was able to skip doing his homework in "regular school" and still get top marks, so why couldn't he do it in college? When he didn't turn in his homework, his professor didn't say anything to him, no one called Mom, no note to take home to get signed. Hey, that was easy! When grades came out he was in for a big surprise. It was a tough lesson but one that I hope he will remember for a while. A different lesson than the one he expected from the class, but probably even more important.
The other issue with student-professor relationships to consider is: Can your child walk up to a professor and ask him/her a question? There's a big difference between walking up to a classroom teacher and a college professor. College professors walk in and write their name on the board on the first day of class, lecture and leave. If you need help you can either go up to them at the end of the class or go to visit them during scheduled office hours. It takes a lot more nerve to walk up to the front of the class to talk to a professor after a lecture. I tested Ryan on this ability when he was 10 and wanted to take pre-calculus. I took him on a scheduled tour of the school and told him that if he wanted to take a class he would have to go up and talk to the admissions counselor himself. I prepared all his documents for him in a notebook -- SAT score reports, reports from on-line classes, CTY summer camp evaluations and school records. I told him that if he wanted to do this he had to show me that he could go up and talk to a professor by himself. If he had to hide behind mommy's skirt, then he wasn't old enough to do this. Ryan did go up and talk to the admissions officer, who treated him very professionally and sent him to another person in the admissions office. We found the building and he walked up and talked to the receptionist, giving her the business card of the admissions officer. He met with the second officer who sent him to testing. He took the placement tests and waited for the results which he took back and discussed with admissions. He was told that he could take pre-calculus that summer! Wow! He was as high as a kite! I looked at everything he did to get in and decided that, yes, he really wanted this enough that I had to let him try and yes, he was mature enough to talk to his professor if he needed to.
In many ways math is the easiest type of class to let your child take. Courses are sequential so if your child has finished Calculus I, then you know he is ready for Calculus II. The material is objective, concrete and doesn't have anything that might not be appropriate for a young child. On the other hand, humanities courses and even some science courses may have material that a parent may want to review first. I spoke to one mother of a 9-year old who took biology at a community college. She was very upset that her child was exposed to a discussion on STDs. Discussions of STDs are perfectly appropriate for most college students. Literature classes may also have required readings that you may not find suitable for your child. Ryan took English Composition 101 and hated a required reading from "Reading Lolita in Tehran." I don't have a problem with him reading this book, in fact, I loved that book and his sister says it's one of her favorite books. But at 11 years old, Ryan was not capable of understanding the issues of women's oppression and how an underground book club changed their lives. It wasn't an IQ issue, it wasn't a reading or writing ability issue. It was a maturity issue. My recommendation is if you think the course may contain material that may not be age appropriate, you should review the required reading list and maybe talk to the academic department.
Rita Ostrager is the founder of HEROES, Higher Education Resources for Outstanding and Exceptional Scholars. She founded HEROES to provide profoundly gifted students with information regarding educational opportunities, to facilitate the creation of additional resources and promote advocacy.
