Ten year old intelligence

Today I read the Dilbert blog (www.dilbertblog.typepad.com) which was about an e-mail Scott Adams received from a ten year old boy. There was some question as to whether or not it was a hoax. The language used was very precise and intelligent, correctly spelled for the most part, and just not what one would expect of a child.
I fall into the category of those who believe that the letter could have been written by a ten year old boy. I have seen the level of ability displayed by youngsters. So have you. How many of you have seen a kid reading the Harry Potter books? A show of hands please. That is no easy read, and yet there are reports of kids not much more than seven having read it in two nights. Not just reading it, but understanding it.
These kinds of kids are the thing that gives me hope for the future. With any luck, this Bobby kid will avoid having the crap kicked out of him by older, dumber kids. If he goes on to use such a talent and obvious intelligence, maybe he and his peers can pull us out of the dark ages that we seem to have been heading for these last few years.
I like to think that all kids are capable of showing high intelligence. If they have the genetic predisposition, then it's just how we train and encourage. Stress that last word, encourage. Smart kids really just have to be exposed to conditions that let them learn. They have minds like little sponges that soak up any knowledge within reach. History is full of such people. Einstien, Mozzart, Twain, all of them were gifted in different areas, and all of them flunked at something in their education.
You have to be so careful these days who you call an idiot or a nerd. I have this clear picture in my head of some guy that Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs went to school with. They would have picked on them for being electronics geeks. Now those same Neanderthals are pounding away with frustration on keyboards that the two Steves made possible, making minimum wage because they were afraid to learn about something new. That is the true power of ironic revenge, people.
We won't even go into the envy of Bill Gates' former classmates.
I think if we could just encourage a little bit of the genius that exists out there, we could solve half of the world's problems within twenty-five years.