KZN boy the next Einstein
December 7 2011 at 07:44am
By Sinegugu Ndlovu
Kialan Pillay may be 10 years old, but don’t make the mistake of thinking his brain works the same as those of his peers.
Having finished Grade 7 this year, after jumping grades in 2009, Kialan, who is able to read an 800-page book in about six hours, could justifiably be called a genius, although his mom, University of KwaZulu-Natal anthropology department head Maheshvari Naidu, is reluctant to have him labelled as such.
She said Kialan spoke before he turned one, was reading Grade 1 books by the age of two and novels before he was four. He learned to play chess at three, when he also began piano lessons. At six he read all the Harry Potter books in three weeks, and was devouring Dan Brown books at seven.
“At age one he could remember word for word the simple stories and poems I had read the previous night,” said Naidu.
“It became increasingly apparent from his use of language, questions about life and death at age three, and his love for classical music and opera, also at age three, that he was gifted.
“We were careful that he saw himself as a kid who was just simply amazed at everything.”
Kialan attended Kainon Senior Primary School, where he was the editor of the school newspaper. He began competitive chess at seven and is the under-12 KZN champion. Last Thursday, he was named school dux and first in his grade. He also plays the violin and is a brown belt in karate.
Kialan’s intellect, according to Naidu, is largely attributed to his “innate and deep curiosity”. The countries he has travelled to – including England, Greece, Egypt, Romania, Switzerland, China and France – in turn feed this curiosity.
Kialan said he enjoyed playing with children his own age and could easily relate to them.
“Half the stuff I think about is that of a 10-year-old,” he said. “Sometimes I can be very childish. I’m clever and can understand more, but I don’t like to be labelled a genius; that would isolate me. I love having friends and being able to play, while still being myself.”
Naidu said Kialan’s IQ had never been tested because she feared that he might be labelled.
“I taught him to celebrate being both different and like every other kid,” she said.
“I had immense help from my parents in raising Kialan. They helped create the space and opportunity for his talents to blossom.”
After visiting Cern in Switzerland, Kialan plans to pursue a career in astrophysics because he finds “the discovery of new theories about space interesting”.
“So much has already been done in biology and zoology,” said Kialan. “We find new species and plants every day. It’s not every day we find a new star cluster. The impact will be huge if a new dimension is found (in astrophysics).”
From next year, he will attend Verity Preparatory School and College, a school for the gifted in Assagay.
Joburg educational psychologist Kerry Skinner said children with Kialan’s intellectual capacity were rare. From what she was told about Kialan by The Mercury, she said it sounded like he had an aptitude for reading.
However, a disadvantage of being pushed up grades was that a child could miss out on developmental milestones.
“He can’t be the same as a Grade 7 pupil emotionally and physically,” said Skinner. “There are areas that I may be concerned about, like identity development, which he is missing out on.”
Source: http://www.iol.co.za
Very cool article. The parents seem to have a healthy approach and the child seems to be well adjusted. Not that it’s really possible to judge such things from one short article.
It brings up a very interesting question which I often wonder about. What is the correlation between chess ability and other types of intelligence? Of course intelligence is very hard to define. Without being modest, I measure exceptional in almost all traditional measures of intelligence. My strongest areas happen to be those that I would expect to correspond with chess ability, such as logic and math. I have very good ability to visualize spatial relationships in high level problems. But for some reason, I have never been a strong chess player. I haven’t entered a tournament since my early teens, but I’m guessing my over the board rating as an adult is only about 1600. (At 13, I was rated 1390). I am sure that with practice I could improve on that, but I am not interested so much in my own particular case as I am about the general question of what chess ability predicts about other intellectual abilities. And secondly, by implication, whether there may be some potential to improve cognitive abilities in certain other areas by studying and playing chess.
Given Susan’s unique upbringing, natural intelligence and success in chess, I would be very interested in her views on this subject. I hope she reads this.
Nonsense on the “developmental milestones” and the “identity development.” Some kids are just more mature than others their age.