Student, age 10, aims for doctorate

BLOOMINGTON, Minn.— If we told you a 10-yearold feels at home in a high school precalculus class, you might be impressed.

But Elliott Tanner isn’t just keeping up with college-bound high school students. He’s tutoring them.

“I just take great pleasure in teaching people,” Elliott said.

Moments later, Elliott spins in a dizzying circle as 10-year-olds are prone to do.

“He should be in elementary school and he’s way above my high school students that are about to graduate,” Bloomington Kennedy math teacher April Baden said.

Yet, none of that should come as a surprise.

Elliott has already aced college algebra, physics for scientists & engineers, trigonometry and calculus— earning a 4.0 GPA as he nears the end of his second year at Normandale Community College.

Again, Elliott is 10—an age that would typically put him in 4th grade.

“I think we kind of have to step out of the box sometimes to realize that this isn’t a normal situation,” said Michelle Tanner, Elliott’s mother.

Not normal, even four weeks after his birth, when Elliott rolled over on his own.

“It just started happening really, really quick,” Patrik Tanner, Elliott’s father, said. “It was just us trying to keep up.”

Elliott spoke his first words at seven months. By a year, he was completing short sentences, KARE-TV reported.

By age 2, Elliot could recite the alphabet. “And then he learned it in Swedish right after that, for the heck of it I guess,” his father said.

But from the start, Elliott’s true love was numbers.

“He would have these little magnetic numbers, they were his little lovies instead of stuffed animals,” Michelle Tanner said.

By 4, Elliott was giving math lessons to anyone who would listen.

Elliott’s only failure: kindergarten. He was too academically advanced to fit in with the other kids.

Having breezed through the high school curriculum, at 9 Elliott started as a fulltime student at Normandale Community College—much to the amazement of his college classmates.

At home in St. Louis Park, Elliott enjoys playing guitar and hanging out with his neighborhood friends. They ride bikes together and play Dungeons and Dragons.

Soon, Elliott’s ride will be taking another turn. He’s already visited the University of Minnesota and plans to attend in the fall.

“I don’t know exactly how this works, but I want to at least get a doctorate,” Elliott said.