What is it like to be a child prodigy? Is it worth the label of "prodigy"?
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What is it like to be a child prodigy? Is it worth the label of "prodigy"? How does it feel to be a child prodigy, or grow up as one? Growing up as a child prodigy was probably detrimental to me, for the following reasons: I was always in special classes. When I was five I was already doing algebra, so my teachers had me sit behind the counter and work independently while the others were learning to add. When I was eight my parents sent me to the eighth grade, where I worked alongside people twice my height. I saw nothing wrong with this at the time, but in retrospect I probably would have benefited from fitting in. Between the newspaper articles, the special classes, and my parents emphasizing academic achievement to the exclusion of everything else, I ended up seeing myself as a genius. This is how I would introduce myself to other students. I can't be sure of why I had no school friends until college, but that probably had a lot to do with it. I looked down on everyon...