Boy aged seven ‘could be the next Einstein’
TUESDAY is museum day for seven-year-old Romanieo Golphin Jr.
So one recent afternoon, the boy and his father visited the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. As they approached works by neoclassical painters, Romanieo Golphin Sr. spoke to his son about technique in a hushed tone.
“Typically, you’ll have the master in the room and then his students,” the father said.
Golphin quizzed his son about a painting across the exhibit. A correct answer, he promised, would mean extra french fries at lunch.
“That’s John Singer Sargent,” Romanieo said. He was wrong - but it was difficult to see the painting from that distance. After that, he easily picked out works by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and J.M.W. Turner.
The home-schooling session was typical for the Silver Spring, Maryland boy, who has shown what his parents, and some academics, say is an unusual intellect. He loves art and shows an aptitude for music, but Romanieo’s passion is science.
Though he’s still into Legos and candy, Romanieo recently had an opportunity that many scientists dream about. He and his family were invited to the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN), which runs the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s biggest science experiment, in Switzerland.
“It was excellent!” Romanieo said of the November trip.
To Steven Goldfarb, the experimental physicist at CERN who invited the Golphin family to tour the facilities, Romanieo is no ordinary boy.
“Romanieo Jr. looked like he would be a lot of fun to host, and my hunch was correct!” Goldfarb wrote in an email.
Struck by the boy’s age and interest in physics, Goldfarb named him a CERN “ambassador” to the Washington area, with the prospect of attracting more young people to the experiments there and to science overall.
Romanieo has never been enrolled in a public or private school. His father is an adviser for the music department at the University of North Carolina.
He could be the next Einstein. He’s got a mind that is built to solve problems. I do know that his memory is very impressive and that he appears to have developed some of his own methods to absorb and retain information. I wish I had that. — Steven Goldfarb, experimental physicist at CERN
His mother, Cheri Philip, is a personality psychologist and serves as the research director for their educational consulting firm, the Robeson Group. Dissatisfied with the outcomes in traditional education, both parents have committed themselves to home-schooling Romanieo and preparing him for the future their way.
“Enough with the Industrial Age approach to education in the 21st century,” Golphin said.
Golphin spent some of his youth in the projects of Brooklyn and remembers other gifted young African Americans who felt trapped by their circumstances. Some had broken homes and parents unprepared to handle their children’s thirst for knowledge.
Romanieo began exhibiting his understanding of elements as only a child could. One day, he used his popcorn snack to create model atoms, his father said. With his little hand forming a nucleus, he used popcorn kernels as protons, neutrons and electrons to make elements such as nitrogen and lithium.
Golphin fixed himself on providing an education that no school could.
He estimates that the family has taken advantage of US$1 million worth of free educational opportunities, seeking them wherever they can find them, online or otherwise. When he’s not taking his son to free programmes at museums, he routinely brings Romanieo to university classes to observe, and sometimes even to speak, as he did at Morehouse College and Duke University in 2015.
“When he looked in my classroom, all I saw was his hair, his forehead and his eyeballs,” said Brian Hogan, a professor of chemistry at UNC. “And his eyeballs, they looked like hardboiled eggs, they were open so wide.” The more Hogan talked with the boy, the more he realised he was dealing with an exceptional child.
“At first, I was like: Is this a gimmick? Was it Mister Ed the counting horse?” he said.
Hogan has been a strong advocate for the Golphins since they met and has been impressed with Romanieo’s desire to learn.
“He could be the next Einstein,” Hogan said. “He’s got a mind that is built to solve problems.”
“I do know that his memory is very impressive and that he appears to have developed some of his own methods to absorb and retain information,” Goldfarb said regarding Romanieo’s intellect. “I wish I had that.” — Washington Post