Bright Davis High students get a glimpse of brilliance
By Wendy Leonard
Deseret News
Published: Monday, April 20, 2009 12:09 a.m. MDT
KAYSVILLE — In just over a minute, chess prodigy Kayden Troff had opponents nearly twice his age — and 10 times his ego — sweating.
“He’s amazing,” said 16-year-old Mitch Foote, a Davis High School sophomore who dared go up against the 10-year-old for a game of chess. Others said Foote was the best chess player in the class, if not the entire school.
“He destroyed me very quickly,” Foote said.
Despite the fact that, according to Kayden’s mother, Kim, he’s been taught to go easy on his opponents, Kayden had Foote check-mated in fewer than 10 moves, preceded by a series of “checks,” chasing any remaining pieces around the board.
Kayden served as a visual aid for Honors English students, who have been studying prodigies, specifically chess prodigies. English teacher Joyce Horstmann said she wanted to show her students a different culture of learning, focusing on how adults affect child prodigies.
“They get a chance to examine the personalities, both of the child and the parents, see the cultures these children live in and the teachers they have, as well as the internal and external conflicts they face,” she said, adding that adult reaction to child prodigies can likely make or break them.
Gifted and talented children show up in approximately 1 percent of the population, according to Dan Olympia, an educational psychology professor at the University of Utah. He said children and people of all ages can exhibit a range of abilities and skills, and rarely, they excel at one particular skill set.
In the case of the young composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Olympia said “people were amazed to see how easy that particular task seemed to come to him … in such a case, it goes beyond simply being bright.”
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What’s his rating now?