Wow...Painful interview

rhino17 · Jun 18, 2007

DonkeyMagic said:

very john nash in his early years.
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yeah, really

ima_drummer2k · Jun 18, 2007

I think they would have mentioned it if the kid had some kind of condition. Remember, that chick that won it a few years ago by yelling out the letters to the last word (that Jim Rome use to make fun of) was equally as weird.

I think these spelling bee parents just push these kids too hard, therefore turning them into human vegetables.

Astro101 · Jun 18, 2007

I don't think he acts like a r****d. He's just socially inept.

hooroo · Jun 18, 2007

He comes off normal in this video.

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rhino17 · Jun 18, 2007

Astro101 said:

I don't think he acts like a r****d. He's just socially inept.
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Yeah, I think he may just be screwed up because he has ZERO social skills because of his homeschooling.

JuanValdez · Jun 18, 2007

He was a little awkward in his NPR interview, but nothing terribly bad.

Smokey · Jun 18, 2007

Astro101 said:

I don't think he acts like a r****d. He's just socially inept.
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Yes or no answers might be socially inept, but when he doesn't respond to questions and stares...that's r****ded.

hooroo · Jun 18, 2007

http://www.contracostatimes.com/ci_6019445?nclick_check=1

Evan O'Dorney was not yet 2 when he surprised his mother by pointing to a sign in the fabric store.

"E-X-I-T," he read. "Exit."

It wasn't the first evidence of what lay ahead. Already, the toddler had learned to recognize a few simple words -- ant, bird, cat, dog -- printed on one of his favorite puzzles. And he could recite the entire text of Dr. Seuss' "The Foot Book," a story his parents often read aloud.

"But that was auditory," said his mom, Jennifer, by way of qualification.

Not long after his spelling debut, 2-year-old Evan tore into math, performing addition problems from flash cards.

"I would be on the bed and he would run around me and just say what the answers were," Jennifer recalled. "Anything I could tell him, he wanted to know -- especially with math, but really with anything."

At 13, Evan's curiosity still thrives. Taught at home through San Ramon's Venture School, the Danville eighth-grader keeps busy exploring calculus, composing piano concertos and learning Latin.

He also has become one of the nation's top spellers.

This week, Evan will compete in his third and final Scripps National Spelling Bee, an annual event so popular its final rounds are broadcast live on network television.

This year's competition features 286 spellers, most of them middle-school students.

After three straight wins at the regional bee sponsored by the Times, Evan will be among 11 making a third appearance at the national event.

Three other spellers -- Matthew Evans, Maithreyi Gopalakrishnan and Tia Thomas -- are making their fourth trip to the national bee.

And 13-year-old Samir Patel of Texas, nicknamed the "rock star of the spelling world," will take his fifth shot at the championship.

Blogging at last year's bee, journalist Sean Mussenden named Evan and Samir among a half-dozen favorites to win.

Evan's age made him a "dark horse," but his confident stage presence made him stand out, said Mussenden, who works in the Washington, D.C., bureau of Media General newspapers. The chain sends 17 spellers to the annual bee and covers the event heavily.

"He had this kind of interesting voice," Mussenden remembered. "He was just kind of fun and he was always smiling, he had these big old glasses.

"He just looked pretty much unfazed up there, just rhythmically rolling off the letters."

Among Mussenden's six favorites, four finished as last year's top four spellers, he said.

The other two were Evan and Samir, both knocked out in round seven of the finals.

Bee fans and oddsmakers often name Samir as a favorite to win this year's competition.

But Mussenden likes Evan's odds, too. "I think he probably has a really real chance of winning, or finishing in the final three.

"He's just really easy to get behind," he said. "You're supposed to root for all of them, but there's some kids you root for more than others."

He may not look it, but Evan does get nervous at the national bee -- in part, he said, because he knows luck always remains a factor.

A more accurate measure of spelling ability would test a larger sample of words, with multiple errors before a speller struck out, he said. Instead, he said, "they make it dramatic, so the audience will like it."

In truth, Evan doesn't much like spelling

His real loves are math and music, in that order.

"In general, I like things that are logical," said Evan, who studies piano and composition at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

"I like the way that math works. It's not like spelling, where you have to memorize all the exceptions to all the words. Math is orderly. It makes sense. You can always figure out whether something is true, and once you figure it out, it will always be true, if the logic is correct."

Ken Perano, a computer scientist at Sandia National Laboratory in Livermore, calls Evan a "one-in-a-million student" who likely will begin placing at the top of national math exams soon.

"It's just an extreme aptitude," he said. "He's a genius."

Perano first met Evan three years ago while speaking to students on a field trip touring the lab.

"At first, I thought he was a younger sibling of one of the advanced students," he remembered. "Then Evan started asking some very probing questions, which proved he knew what he was talking about."

Perano, whose children also are home-schooled, began spending an hour each week mentoring Evan.

In the past three years, they have covered a variety of college- and graduate-level math and physics, including differential and integral calculus, tensor analysis, dynamic systems, stress analysis and, more recently, computer science.

"To me, the fascinating thing is not just the level at which I can work with Evan, but the speed at which he can assimilate the information," Perano said. "When I found I could teach him stuff probably 10 times faster than I would expect to be able to teach the average bright college student, that's phenomenal to me."

In the field of number theory, not the usual purview of engineers and physicists, "Evan's abilities far exceed my own," Perano said.

"Sometimes he would bring in a piece of paper and say, look at this proof he had been working on over the weekend. If I tried hard I could sort of follow it, but I couldn't come up with it on my own."

Perano respects Evan's preference for pure math over applied forms, such as computer programming. But he also tries to expand the boy's horizons, pushing him to explore fields of science and engineering that he may not have pursued on his own.

"He's very refreshing to be around," said Perano. "I just enjoyed the challenge of seeing what I could teach Evan. He challenged me mentally. It can be a very intense hour."

Perano looks forward to resuming their sessions, which have been put on hold partly to allow Evan to prepare for the national bee.

In the past several weeks, spelling has dominated life in the O'Dorney home, suspending Evan's usual schoolwork.

"We don't really do anything else, except eat and sleep and maybe some music or something," he said.

Don't worry that he'll fall behind: Evan has passed his high school proficiency exam and plans to begin biology and calculus courses in the fall at Diablo Valley College.

In the living room, a large marker board leans against the fireplace, covered with words that Evan has tripped over and now wants to look at every day.

The couch is stacked with loose-leaf binders that contain his personal study guides, page after page of words categorized in elaborate gradations of mastery: checks, stars, circles and pluses that show which entries he knows, which he misses, which he spells correctly but remains uncertain about and which he is likely to miss in random, instead of alphabetical, order.

While he practices spelling, Evan juggles.

"It's just kind of a habit," he said. "When I have balls in my hands, I automatically juggle them ... otherwise, my hands will drift over to other things, and then my eyes will drift to them, and then my brain.

"The juggling doesn't take my mind, but it does take my hands."

Sometimes Evan studies silently, staring at the words and trying to memorize them. "I'm so visual," he said. "I see things and I remember them."

Other times, he has his mother quiz him, or he quizzes her.

"It doesn't matter if I botch it up; he'll remember what he saw in the book," said Jennifer. "I'm getting worse: It seems like the more words I see, the more I forget."

Not long ago, Jennifer found herself remembering a word Evan still needed to learn: "djoor." Before quizzing her son, she tried to look up its definition. Only then did she realize it wasn't a real word at all, but one she had imagined in a dream.

Evan smiled, enjoying the memory.

But the made-up word wasn't "djoor," he corrected, smiling happily.

It was "djorr."
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Yaozer · Jun 18, 2007

I would put him in a soccer or a football league or something if I was his parent before it's too late. Ok maybe that's too big of a jump.. maybe start of with a ping pong league.

This kid better not run into kids like me when I was young.. I guess that home schooling was for a good reason.

justtxyank · Jun 18, 2007

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6iwD4PI47c&mode=related&search

HOLY CRAP HAHAHAHA

krnxsnoopy · Jun 18, 2007

Blame the mother:

Cause this guy's never getting laid.

thelasik · Jun 18, 2007

justtxyank said:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6iwD4PI47c&mode=related&search

HOLY CRAP HAHAHAHA
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ROFL!! wow this is hilarious.

Clutch · Jun 18, 2007

Within 10 years the GARM will read:

[Chron] Rockets O'Dorney will honor Spanoulis trade demand

Book it.

Poloshirtbandit · Jun 18, 2007

justtxyank said:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6iwD4PI47c&mode=related&search

HOLY CRAP HAHAHAHA
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lol I saw that, the kid almost ruins it by taking it so seriously.

Poloshirtbandit · Jun 18, 2007

The 2006 one is better:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgaUzfcQV7o

hooroo · Jun 18, 2007

Poloshirtbandit said:

The 2006 one is better:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgaUzfcQV7o
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she sounded older than 13.

Tommyboy · Jun 18, 2007

Wow how does this kid survive in society? And how does he have a black belt? Do they home school karate as well???

Chicken Boy · Jun 18, 2007

Doesn't anyone care that little dude is a genius? Who cares that he's a little socially awkward. He can probably read minds. He's gonna explode our heads with his mind power.

rezdawg · Jun 18, 2007

Rain man.

If he stepped foot in a regular school, he'd get his ass kicked...Im still shocked at how socially r****ded he is. wow.

Invisible Fan · Jun 18, 2007

Tommyboy said:

Wow how does this kid survive in society? And how does he have a black belt? Do they home school karate as well???
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With a very thick bubble.

Maybe he'll redeem himself when he finds the cure for not getting any for the rest of his life.

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