for what i's worth, i think this is not a problem at all, speaking from the point of view of a parent. as a society we have put school at the level of a deity; something we don't question, just do. back in the day, a good, god-fearing man went to church on sunday. do you live a virtuous life? yes. do you pray everyday? morning and night. do you practice the teachings of the bible? without failure. but all of this didn't matter if you didn't go to church on sundays with everyone else. why? is church not about communicating with your lord? is it not about hearing the word of god and assimilating it? is it not about praising his holy name? yes to all of this. but somehow, the act of going to church overshadowed the point of going to church. much in the same way, the point of school - to be educated - has been overshadowed by the act of going to school. we just dump our kids there because we're expected to. we are somehow convinced that the only way for them to get a good education is to sit in a building and read books so they can come back with a good grade and "make us proud." we don't question it. we don't ask what exactly this "education" is and why is school the best place to get it?

personally speaking i think this is a kid who has found something he would like to do and is rather good at it. without being too long winded, i think it would be best you spoke to his parents about instilling the virtue of being educated in him rather than coercing him to go to school for the sake of it. the reality is, people graduate from school and forget almost everything. but just because they have the credentials, we are somehow supposed to say they're educated. this has been true in my professional life, and not to demean anyone i know, but also in my personal life. education follows you your entire life. it never stops. school ends after four years, and college after another four. at the end of it you would have been no more enlightened about the world around you as you scramble through the transition to "adulthood" - read: getting a job and abandoning the principles that plato and cicero should have taught you, in the interest of moving on up - and if for nothing else, in most cases all that enlightenment is not enlightenment that can only be received via the blessing of the high priest of harvard. i think that should be the important thing to teach any kid, but especially this kid, and when that is learned, school becomes a mere option, rather than the necessity we all portray it to be.

for a personal background, i'm 26, now, and i actually graduated high school when i was about his age, so i understand his perspective. it was dull. i earned the best grades, but i won't deceive myself into saying i actually <i>learned</i> anything. in fact i saw school like everyone else saw school, a collection of classes that were nothing more than classes. i was so terrible and disdainful of maths and sciences that i consoled myself with the idea that they weren't important. after all, i was learning government, economics, sociology; stuff about the "real world." i could quote marx, engels, keynes, and friedman, word for word. i could tell you the difference between totalitarianism and authoritarianism. i could write long essays about the historical context of pride and prejudice. but i never understood any of it. i simply knew them, so i could pass classes very easily because tests were basically "tell me what you read in the book." it wasn't until i graduated that i came across the local public library. i picked up a random book on math and it hit me in the face like a truck. all of a sudden it all had meaning. it wasn't just a bunch of numbers that magically produce other numbers. history wasn't just a bunch of white guys killing themselves. jefferson wasn't just a hypocritical bastard who owned slaves. gradually i stopped seeing education as this prescribed list of books i should read and things i should say. it was all around me all this time. and once you know one thing, you simply want to know more. i'm sorry if it sounds a bit fruity, but it's true. and i thank my mother for not only being supportive in not forcing me to go to college to do the whole child prodigy thing, but also in reconsidering her former idea of education, which was in line with the mainstream view, and coming along with me in the educational journey. it made the world of difference being able to discuss philosophy, in earnest with someone else, rather than have it conferred down to me by some high priest. so you would imagine, it's a bit irritating to hear people talk as if school was this holy arbiter of education. with regards to this kid's parents, my personal opinion would be to engage them in discussion of what exactly education is and focus more on instilling the virtue of education and knowledge in him. present things as they are, life, rather than a series of facts that they have to learn in a building and it won't matter whether or not he was educated in a building, called school, or if he was educated in his fracking car. especially as he's 15 now, support and guidance are the best things his parents can give him. support through his business endeavors and educational endeavors and guidance for when he may seem to be going astray - which, statistically, he will :). and they can't effectively do that if they aren't clear on what exactly their son should get from an education, or even what it is. of course it will be tough, straying away from the traditional route. there is no manual, there are no prescribed books. probably everyone they know went to school and has kids who are going to school. but sometimes the road less travelled is the one that makes all the difference. i wish all parties involved good luck regardless of which road they choose