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College at 11

Posted at 11:30 AM on October 19, 2011 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Schools

Your 11 year old isn't almost finished with high school and already taking college classes? What's wrong?

This WCCO story last weekend on 11-year-old Lucas Kramer, who is already taking college classes at the U, is going to make those "my kid was student of the month" bumper sticker look pretty foolish (which, for the record, they already do since every kid is usually named student of the month during a typical school year.)

The story got picked up by Drudge (aka, the national news media's assignment desk) and now the National Review Online is holding the lad up as an example of what's wrong with the rest of us...

I recently discovered that, at my local elementary school, only 20 percent of fourth graders score at a "proficient" level in mathematics on state tests. Yet, as measured by those same tests, this is one of the best schools in the city! Imagine how low the scores are at the "bad" schools.
Young Mr. Kramer's fame originally comes courtesy of the University of Minnesota Daily, which did a story on him last month. Being at the University isn't his first experience in college courses, but it does have the largest classes he's experienced.

In spring 2011, Lucas took a physics course at Augsburg College.

"It was fun watching him help the 20-year-olds with his modern physics," (mother) Angela said. "That I get a kick out of."

Comments (6)

Seems like a nice kid.

So he wants to be a priest or a scientist? I'll let some Jesuit friends know.

But only on the condition that they leave him alone to live some life until he's 30.

Posted by Jim Shapiro | October 19, 2011 12:20 PM

@Jim, hopefully they'll let him be a kid (or force him to if he doesn't want to). Otherwise it may turn into a real life Big Bang Theory...

Posted by Brian | October 19, 2011 1:57 PM

And in some of my college classes kids can't even spell "a lot" or follow "i before e..." let alone follow the directions. It's great to see someone with a passion and a means of following it.

Posted by bench | October 19, 2011 2:25 PM

Brian - I was a little precocious too (no where near the level of this little guy).

But I played pretty hard as an "adult", and continue to learn lots of cool stuff from my 4 yr old. (Much to the chagrin of his saintly mother).

In the human development biz, they say that one will eventually go through all of the stages, but sometimes just not in the typical chronological order.

Posted by Jim Shapiro | October 19, 2011 2:48 PM

Just for the record, this story first appeared as a news feature by Jill Jensen in the Minnesota Daily on Sept. 28 -- before WCCO ran it. Just want to give credit where credit is due. http://www.mndaily.com/2011/09/28/doctorate-degree-age-eighteen

Posted by Gayle Golden | October 20, 2011 10:18 AM

//Just want to give credit where credit is due

See paragraph 5.

Posted by Bob Collins | October 20, 2011 7:28 PM