I came across this in an aviation forum that interests me. It's about a young (14) teenaged girl who aspires to be an aeronautical engineer. She believes in hands-on learning. Sabrina lives in Chicago and went to Canada to learn how to fly starting at age 9. She has built her own homebuilt airplane (a Zenith Zodiac XL) including building the engine. Her plane flew for the first time last month.

Here's a youtube video of her being interviewed by a Chicago TV station. You'll want to fast forward a bit to get past the promo material. A one page summary of her plane is available here.

She sounds like someone with her head on straight. We hear so much about bad kids but there are a lot of good ones out there. She wants to go to MIT and learn how to build spacecraft. I'll bet she makes it.

And where do we see the guy with his own observatory?

Great kid, great example... but I also think there's a lot that she has that most people can't re-create for themselves. (In other words the parents have the money and involvement).
On the other hand, Miley has those advantages, and I don't see her going after some intellectual acheivement.

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

I was thinking this too.

Ah, but the kid has the desire!

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We don't often find individuals, with so many opportunities presented to them, actually willing to use those advantages in a positive way. A credit to both her and her parents.

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Spock Jenkins of the Vulcan Jenkins'.

I saw the thread title and though "That's too crazy to be true!".

...sorry couldn't resist

And yes, you could make the argument that she's at an advantage due to her parents support, both phsyically/emotionally and financially...but it still speaks volumes that she'd take advantage of that support to better herself to meet her goals. Frankly, there's tons of kids who have that kind of financial and family...ial backing, who never take advantage of it (ever seen "my super sweet 16"? That show puts me closer to a homicidal rampage than anything else). Good for her.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.
"In order to increase awareness of the homeless, security have been given binoculars."

And yes, you could make the argument that she's at an advantage due to her parents support, both phsyically/emotionally and financially...but it still speaks volumes that she'd take advantage of that support to better herself to meet her goals. Frankly, there's tons of kids who have that kind of financial and family...ial backing, who never take advantage of it (ever seen "my super sweet 16"? That show puts me closer to a homicidal rampage than anything else). Good for her.

That was my point about her. Sure, not many kids have the money to take flying lessons or build an airplane but there are a lot who have everything handed to them and still don't do anything. This girl did something amazing, IMO. She even analyzed certain aspects of the design such as the incidence of the horizontal stabilizer and came up with a modification that the plane's designer approved. Pretty impressive.

There are some good kids out there. A coworker's daughter (Julie) is a case in point. She's a high school senior this year that has a scholarship to Embry-Riddle to study physics. Julie also has an ROTC scholarship, plays cello in the Colorado Springs Youth Symphony, and participates in athletics. She'll be attending a leadership course at the Air Force Academy next week. Julie also wants to work on spacecraft design. I gave her a ride in my plane and let her take the controls. I'm always hoping to influence another potential pilot.

Yes; better words for my Miley comment.

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

Define often. I think this is another perception issue; probably helped along by anecdotes, news stories, etc. As LJ mentions, there are lots of intelligent kids out there, many of them doing good things, regardless of financial advantage. I look around my daughter's school and see good kids and the things they do far outweighing the little miscreants; I'd say by at least 9 to 1.

Parent involvement, not financial status, seems to be the primary factor in success. Sure, the family with more money might be able to put more glitz on their kids projects; but that is not a criteria on which to measure a child's achievements or contributions.

As an aside, I just saw an article in the NYT - - not only are the number of kids taking advance placement exams on the rise; but that the percentage successfully passing them is also increasing.

So there is hope for the future. (Facetious last line).

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Don of Borg - Cool, Calm, Collective.

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

I do hope that is a good indicator. I just see too many standardized test stories about how they are changing because they are "unfair". That leaves me with the thought that maybe it's the tests that are getting easier.

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

I know that, when I took it, the AP English exam had an essay question. (Of course I passed; I got a five, thank you very much!) That means, so far as I am concerned, that the English exam is a lot more subjective than the US History Exam, which I also took (only a three, but I didn't actually take AP US History; I'd taken regular old boring US history the previous year) or the AP Calculus exam or whatever. (Of course I didn't take the calculus exam! I didn't even take calculus, for the excellent reason that I would have failed.)

Does that make it an easier test, being more subjective? I cannot say; I don't know anything about the people they have judging those essays. I'm not terribly surprised at my five, of course, but I really did think the essay question was interesting and challenging, which was nice.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Good points. I thought about that (the dumbing down of tests) and just assummed (maybe wrongly) that tests like AP and ACT and such were not subject to that.

Anybody know for sure?

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Don of Borg - Cool, Calm, Collective.

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley