Age 11, began Harvard University's Extension Program he graduated at 16.

[dfrecore]

Speaking as someone who used to spend all day teaching adult material to children, and who also took college classes while in middle school, that guy won't have grasped 1/3 of what he was "taught". Whoever allowed him to do that did him a lifelong disservice in the name of a stunt. Not to mention depriving him of friends and formative experiences and the kind of socialization he'll actually need to get through life.

You need a certain amount of mental maturity to even grasp the material. I remember a discussion we had as a class in Psychology once about the ethics of forbidding adults in a nursing home environment from having sex with each other, what would a 12 year old have to contribute to that? What would they take from it? Assuming they fully grasped it and could contribute, what then? Someone is going to have a 20 year old psychologist treat them? Not likely.

I agree with you 1 million percent. I used to teach, and I'm a big believer in Piaget's stages of development because I've seen them to be true in practice. When a child is taught things too early you have to use tricks and memorization for them to grasp the material because the part of the brain that understands abstractions is literally not developed yet. I think Piaget calls it formal operations (abstract thought, poetry, etc...)

As a parent, I can truly say that every kid is SO different, you can't do it all based on age.  Yes, there are stages of development.  But, it's all a range, and a pretty wide one at that.

You also probably don't deal with kids who are at the genius level, in which case this all flies out the window.