[HPforGrownups] Mozart!Wizard and other inane schooling ideas

[Shaun Hately]

No: HPFGUIDX 52984

Interesting questions - responding here as somebody who works with profoundly gifted 
children - including some who are incredibly advanced, who attend college before they 
are 10, etc. I know these kids.

On 1 Mar 2003 at 7:38, nobodysrib nobodysrib at yahoo.c wrote:

> Has there ever been any speculation on why there aren't any young 
> geniuses running around Hogwarts, Doogie Howser style?  At first I 
> thought that this just wasn't plausible since Hermione, if anyone, 
> would go in that category...  however, picture this scenario:  a 
> witch and wizard ala Frasier and Lilith (from "Cheers" and "Frasier") 
> have a child who starts showing amazing abilities (along the line of 
> doing a patronus charm or becoming an animagi) at a very young 
> age.  Mozart!Wizard, in a way.  Don't you think that in the 1000 
> years that Hogwarts has been around that at least a few Mozart!
> Wizards would come around?  

Possibly - but I'm not sure we can make that assumption. First of all, we don't really 
know how magical talent works. Some talents can appear in very young children. Some 
don't. I'm not sure we have enough information on magic in the Potter universe to make 
a judgement on this.

Second of all, with regards to the wizarding population - it seems to be a lot smaller than 
the Muggle population - I can't judge the exact numbers - but consider how rare a talent 
on the level of Mozart is - quantifying it is difficult - but say, 1 in 10,000,000 (that's a 
guess, not a firm number) with the numbers of people we see in the Wizarding World, 
there may not have been 10,000,000 wizards in Britain since the founding of Hogwarts.

Now -as for the idea of Doogie Howser types running around now.

Well, consider IQ and a muggle school the size of Hogwarts - with 300 kids (near the 
low end of estimates for Hogwarts size), the maximum IQ you would expect in a school 
statistically be around IQ143. At 1000 kids (the general upper bound), you'd expect 
somewhere around IQ149. Allowing for the fact that Hogwarts seems to be an elite 
school with fairly stringent entry requirements... basically at most, you'd expect about 1 
kid at around IQ160 at most in the school at any one time.

'Doogie Howser' type achievement is typically seen in 180IQ(true) and above. You 
wouldn't expect to see a kid at that level at a school of 1000 kids most of the time.

And if magical talent is analagous to IQ based intelligence - there'd be no reason to 
expect a kid like that to be at Hogwarts now - occasionally yes - and it wouldn't be 
absurd if there was someone like that - but there's no reason to assume it's the norm.

> I think it's more likely that H's genius comes from another place.  
> Not only is she the classic over-acheiver, but she also seemed very 
> determined, from day one on the train, to prove that although she is 
> muggle born she very much deserves to be at and belongs at Hogwarts.  
> (This goes along with the idea that's it's 1% talent and 99% effort 
> that gets you ahead in the world.)

Actually, Hermione comes up a bit in a lot of gifted discussion groups - general view 
puts her at around IQ140-145 or so - very bright, capable of anything she wants to do, if 
she's willing to do the work - and willing to do that work. The arguments for that are very 
complex, and they are just arguments - no clear answers. 
 
> But back to my main point - certainly the Frasier!wizards and Lilith!
> witches in the world would petition to have their Mozart!wizard 
> accepted early to Hogwarts.  And it seems dangerous to me for  
> children with this early-developed gift/ability to not be in a 
> magically scholastic environment.

Some parents might petition, if the talent can develop early. But just because they 
petition, doesn't mean it happens. Weekly, I have to deal with kids whose parents would 
love to see them in a more challenging environment - and where the doors just aren't 
opened. Generally it comes down to bureaucracy - and the Wizarding World seems to 
have enough of that going (-8.

Accelerating kids in the muggle world is rarely straightforward - I see no reason to 
suppose it would be in the Wizarding world either.  I mean - just consider one issue - 
such a decision might have to be made by the governors - and would Lucius Malfoy 
want a precocious ten year old showing up his son?

 Yours Without Wax, Dreadnought
Shaun Hately |webpage: http://www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html
(ISTJ)       |email: drednort at alphalink.com.au | ICQ: 6898200

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