Child Prodigy Schools In Asia: Hope or Hype?

Schooling all over the world is not the same. Despite the every effort at homogeneity made by the export of Western educational culture to the world, through European examinations, such as the O Level and A Level and the IB (International Baccalaureate), and American University degrees, there remains an element of cultural uniqueness to most educational cultures.

One element of uniqueness in the Asian educational landscape is the emergence of the prodigy school. Now, anyone who knows anything of prodigies might be a little taken aback by that statement: I was, too. The idea that a school would purport to create a prodigy, on demand, is quite astonishing. Yet, in several Asian countries such schools have been established. They are to be found in Korea and China, as well as, surprisingly, Indonesia (more of that later).

The question is: can a school create a prodigy? Firstly, we must understand what a prodigy is. As you may know, a prodigy is a child, under 11, with adult performance in an adult discipline: that is a high bar to expect a school to meet.

What type of children do these schools take? In Korea, they take the top 1% of children - so all their entrants are gifted. That gives us hope, except to note that this is not nearly selective enough to isolate prodigies. So their pool consists of gifted children, but not naturally prodigious children. I think, in some ways, these schools have been mischievously marketed, for what they offer is not to make a child a prodigy, but to educate a gifted child to a high level.

The Chinese case, however, is a little worrying. Promotional material for one school promises to take a child of "average intelligence" and to give them, at age 10, "the intelligence level of a University student", by which they seem to mean the actual intellectual performance of a University student. Well, there is one word for that: impossible (for the child of "average intelligence", anyway.) The school will give each student an exhaustive education in a regimented fashion (if photos of the students at work are any guide). The result will be an educated child, who has been taught by rote, largely speaking. The child will know a lot - but I think it is very unlikely that the process will enhance their intelligence, as we properly think of intelligence. The child will still be a child of "average intelligence" - who happens to have been educated. That is not a prodigy.

In most countries, a school making such a claim would be shut down pretty quickly, especially when its fees are looked at: up to 138,000 yuan per year (which, in terms of affordability, is like the same in US dollars to an American, when salaries are taken into account). The school also begins by teaching students as young as 1 year old. Apparently, they have 400 students - which, in terms of income, is a very successful proposition for the owner of the school. It remains to be seen whether they will produce any prodigies, however.

The Indonesian case is odder still. They have a photograph of Ainan, my scientific child prodigy son, on their website. The implication seems to be that Ainan is a product of the school. This is not so. Ainan has not attended a "prodigy school". I know of no prodigy who has actually attended a prodigy school. So, if you see material promoting Ainan as the product of such a school - know it for what it is: opportunistic marketing. Ainan will never attend such a school, for he is prodigious already, a gift that arose naturally from within him.

What can we expect from such prodigy schools? A group of intensively educated children, with a high level of knowledge, but without, I think, the dimension of gifts characteristic of prodigies. To ask an average child to be a prodigy is a bit like asking the average person to be an Olympic sprint champion: no amount of training is going to get you there - but training will make you faster than you would have been without it. The same thing applies to prodigy schools. No amount of training is going to make you a prodigy if it is unsupported by the appropriate native gifts - but it will make you better at the trained task or subject than you would have been: nothing more and nothing less. I am not sure that is worth the fortune that is asked for by some of these schools.

What are your thoughts on prodigy schools? Will they give Asia an advantage over the Western world - or are they a misguided attempt to thwart nature and create prodigies on demand?