Ramanujan was, what, a 1 in 100,000,000 level genius? The gap between Ramanujan and the average class valedictorian is much wider than the gap between the class valedictorian and the average student. I think if we optimize schooling for people like him, we are probably not going to do as well for the other 99,999,999 students.
We probably aren’t going to get it quite right for that 1, either. Extreme outlier geniuses are extreme outliers and there’s no easily generalizable pattern around them. The ideal education for a young Ramanujan is probably different from the ideal education for a young Von Neumann. Of course in an ideal world we would give an extremely individualized education to every child, but that’s much easier said than done. Failing that maybe we could identify and then invest in the extreme geniuses, but that’s what we already try to do.
We probably aren’t going to get it quite right for that 1, either. Extreme outlier geniuses are extreme outliers and there’s no easily generalizable pattern around them. The ideal education for a young Ramanujan is probably different from the ideal education for a young Von Neumann. Of course in an ideal world we would give an extremely individualized education to every child, but that’s much easier said than done. Failing that maybe we could identify and then invest in the extreme geniuses, but that’s what we already try to do.