Belgian boy Laurent Simons heads off to university aged 8

RAEL’S COMMENT:

A good lesson for countries which force talented children to go through the same amount of boring years of learning nothing. Genius children should be allowed to do all these boring years within a few months. Keeping a gifted child for many years with “normal” children in a “normal” course is the best way to destroy geniuses.

A Belgian boy has graduated secondary school aged eight after completing six years’ study in just a year and a half.

Laurent Simons, whose father is Belgian and mother Dutch, and has an IQ of 145 according to his parents, collected a diploma with a class of 18-year-olds.

Speaking to Belgium’s RTBF radio, Laurent said his favourite subject was maths “because it’s so vast, there’s statistics, geometry, algebra”.

After a two-month holiday from school, he will start university.

His father said his son had struggled when he was younger to play with other children, and had not been particularly interested in toys.

Laurent said he had considered becoming a surgeon and an astronaut but was now thinking about going into computers.

“If he decided tomorrow to become a carpenter, that would not be a problem for us, as long as he is happy,” his father said.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44668452