education

your kid does what?

child prodigies? pushy parents? exploitation?

have a look and decide…

rafita mirabal

when i was 10 years old my idea of danger was knocking on number 34’s door and running away. the adrenaline nearly knocked me out. 10 year old rafita mirabal has different ideas - he’s a bullfighter. with real bulls. there are differences between this mini-matador and the fully grown versions (the bulls are smaller and the finale doesn’t involve him spearing the animal to death due to lack of strength), but that doesn’t mean the bulls give him an easy ride. he’s been knocked about and stamped on many times, his bravery just fuelling his fame throughout mexico.

his parents’ thoughts?

“as long as this is his passion, we’ll do battle alongside him.”

akrit jaswal

when he was just 7 years old akrit jaswal performed an operation on an 8 year old girl to seperate her fingers which had been fused together in an accident. now 12 years old, akrit is busy in his own laboratory trying to find a cure for cancer, something he claims to have almost found. his obsession with medicine started when he was very young - he memorised medical books and dissected chickens to get a better understanding of surgery. he has also handed out prescriptions in his home town to thousands of people after word spread about his gift. bizarrely, his father left the family home last year and told his son not to get in touch until he had discovered the cure.

now that’s what I call pressure.

below is the first part of a fascinating documentary about akrit. subsequent parts can be found on this Youtube user’s page.

solomon yirenkyi

for the past 3 years, 11 year old solomon has been preaching at his local church in ghana every sunday for several hours as well as presenting two weekly radio shows. his father is a well-known preacher / healer too, his stage name being ‘jesus one touch’, and realised his son was meant for bigger things when he started imitating his sermons aged 3. his son subsequently stole his dad’s crown and now stands on stage on a weekly basis holding a microphone that’s possibly larger than his head. since starting he has, amongst other things, ‘healed the blind, caused the dumb to talk and the crippled to walk‘. his father has recieved critisism from a few different angles, the majority from those who believe he’s exploiting his son for financial gain.

budhia singh

at the age of 3, budhia singh was running a growth-stunting 20 miles per day in his hometown of orissa in india. incidentally, at the same age i specifically remember having difficulty running around the couch without getting a stitch. budhia is now the world’s youngest marathon runner and in may 2006 he somehow managed to cover 65km in 7 hours 2 minutes, without a break. just about every organisation in the world has been quick to condemn the boy’s coach who has apparently made a small fortune from budhia’s success and on may 8th 2006 the indian government ordered budhia to stop running. the coach has since been arrested.

below is a news report about the kerfuffle.

extras:

- a short clip to make you smile..

- and you thought getting into mensa was an achievement? the giga society’s aim is “to honor the efforts of the very highest scorers, who are of great importance to the development of ultra-high-ceiling tests for mental abilities”. it’s so difficult to gain entry that only 1 out of every 1 billion people on earth would qualify for membership.

sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

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