Watch this, only 20 mins you will be astonished, Jacob Barnett is my new role model and hero

[Merry]

(Copied directly from Home Ed Magazine website...I'm sure they wouldn't mind):

 

Jacob Barnett is an American mathematician and child prodigy. At 8 years old, Jacob began sneaking into the back of college lectures at IUPUI. After being diagnosed with autism since the age of two and placed in his school’s special ed. program, Jacob’s teachers and doctors were astonished to learn he was able to teach calculus to college students.

At age nine, while playing with shapes, Jacob built a series of mathematical models that expanded Einstein’s field of relativity. A professor at Princeton reviewed his work and confirmed that it was groundbreaking and could someday result in a Nobel Prize. At age 10, Jacob was formally accepted to the University as a full-time college student and went straight into a paid research position in the field of condensed matter physics. For his original work in this field, Jacob set a record, becoming the world’s youngest astrophysics researcher. His paper was subsequently accepted for publication by Physical Review A, a scientific journal shared on sites such as NASA, the Smithsonian, and Harvard’s webpage. Jacob’s work aims to help improve the way light travels in technology.

Jacob is also CEO and founder of Wheel LLC, a business he started in his mom’s garage, and is in the process of writing a book to help end “math phobia” in his generation.

Jacob’s favorite pastime is playing basketball with the kids at his charity, Jacob’s Place. It is a place where kids with autism are inspired every day to be their true authentic selves…just like Jacob. . You will love Jacob!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Uq-FOOQ1TpE#

 

Let this boy be a lesson to us all. We are different for a reason. We are able to THINK in different ways to the majority. When you were little, do you remember thinking that you should have been the teacher and the adults should have been learning from you instead of the other way round? Maybe this is why. Maybe, if we were all allowed to be what we are naturally, we could accomplish unimaginable advances in human understanding, technology, the arts, science and mathematics, phylosophy, spirituality.....WE are the future. There's nothing wrong with us...we simply belong in a different world and need to be in a different world to the one ruled for us and imposed upon us by the majority. Love and blessings to all, Merry x

[Merry]

I have been saying since i was at school myself, that there is a huge difference between intelligence and memory. The education system teaches you to `learn`.... This really just means to REMEMBER THINGS which have already been discovered...other people's ideas only. (And might i add, in a sequence, order and pace set for you by others). Intelligence, real intelligence, is the ability to think critically....to think for yourself...and the drive to want to discover and create in your own way. This is what i craved growing up...i wished for those around me to understand that what i was supposed to be doing with my time was far more important than the trivial things they expected me to take part in. This is what i was trying to explain to Sherbet. Just because the majority of people don't understand us, does not mean they should ever under estimate us....WE ARE the free thinkers of today. We are the revolutionists. We are the ones the majority should be paying attention to, instead of trying to make us fit into their world. We can never be like them...we simply have too many questions to find answers to and too little time to do it. If trusted to follow our own paths, just imagine what we might be capable of!!!

[A-S warrior]

Ive pinned this for now so everyone has a chance to watch (Including me)

[Merry]

Thank you so much A-S Warrior...I've been thinking about this boy all night...couldn't sleep...made me think about so much.

[Linnet]

i feel we are severely held back by the education system. My memories of school are of excruciating boredom and frustration that so many pupils in my class were stupid. I wanted to work much quicker than the majority of the class and got restless and lost interest when I wasn't allowed to. I agree, Merry, that we are capable of so much if given the opportunities.

[Sa Skimrande]

Does anyone ever stop to think if we could throw aside all this disorder stuff each and everyone of us has a use to society, where all of us fit in and can thrive benefitting mankind ?

 

As to face it who said everyone has to be sociable ?

 

And furthermore who said everybody has to be perfect and what exactly is perfect anyway ?

 

Now I do appreciate diagnosi of ASD are generally only required when someone is in some kind of distress, but you have to ask yourself, why the distress in the first place, is it us, or is it society and it's false expectations ?

 

How did people get in the past, say 500 years ago or 2000 years ago, or 4000 years ago or 8 or 12, as you just have to wonder what kinds of mentalities was it that inspired all those leaps for mankind in all the ancient civilisations ?

 

Isn't it time those with ASD starting thinking about the potential for this thing rather than wallowing in the negatives of it ?

 

Because if we wallow too long, we might be depriving the future of the past.

[Merry]

I love that website thanks for the link Sa Skimrande

[Merry]

I agree with all you've posted Sa Skimrande and Linnet. Having read a lot of one of A-S Warrior's old threads today, it has deepened my understanding of Aspergers, because i've actually never met anyone else who has it, apart from very young children. All i've really focused on here so far are people's similarities but i'm discovering that we also have a lot of differences, and definitely view our AS in different ways. There's no doubt that it has it's down sides, the biggest obstacle for me achieving anything great is that i always burn out before i make it and end up depressed...I can't escape myself, that's the problem...and i don't know if it's the struggle of living with aspergers which makes our brains compensate in other ways, or if we have those tendencies anyway. ...and quite clearly not everyone thinks they have any greatness in them but i'm with A-S Warrior on this subject. I don't know why, but I believe if people truly understood aspergers and allowed us to follow our natural interests from childhood, I suspect we'd make great teachers for others...as special talent said in another thread about knowing a lot about dolphins....knowing a lot about a few things but not being able to see the bigger picture is not necessarily a bad thing.

[Aeolienne]

I wasn't a child prodigy - wasn't even in the top stream for maths at school (although I did eventually study it at university). Does that make my diagnosis invalid?

[Merry]

Hi Aeolienne, I'm rubbish at maths too. Hired a tutor once, £30 per hour and after a few months she told me it wasn't fair to keep taking my money because i was impossible to teach. We never got beyond the 1st lesson. Don't understand numbers at all. I'm not saying we're all the same, but it gives me hope to see that other people on the spectrum can achieve such incredible things. It means to me that the potential is there for greatness just as it is with NT types. A break through for me...and a much healthier way for other people to view us.

[Aeolienne]

Hi Aeolienne, I'm rubbish at maths too.

Er, when did I say I was rubbish?

Edited February 20, 2013 by Aeolienne

[matzoball]

The way you worded the previous comment could be taken that way - could be taken any manner of ways really, but I can see why she thought that's what you were inferring.

[Merry]

Er, when did I say I was rubbish?

 

Oh yeah! Sorry Alolienne, I didn't take the time to think through my wording very well did i?! No offense intended obviously.