Iris Patterson, 2025 Texas Pathfinder cohort

Iris Patterson describes herself as “a math kid who enjoys skating and playing instruments.” The distinction is important. Iris is remarkably good at so many things that it’s a challenge to pinpoint exactly what makes her tick.

Take figure skating, for example. Iris started skating like any other kid, in a weekly class. However, learning to jump ignited something in her. “It just exploded,” her mother Joyce recalls, regarding Iris’s passion. Now Iris practices four to five times a week, sometimes spending two and a half hours in a single day.

Iris also plays both piano and violin. She performs monthly at an assisted living facility where she initiated a volunteer program. Oftentimes, she plays with musicians older than she is.  

It goes without saying that Iris has never been your average kid. 

Joyce first recognized Iris’s unique abilities when she was about two. The family bought her a copy of “My First Puzzle Book” by Eric Carle. Even though Iris had never seen it before, she immediately began to read the book aloud. “That’s when we noticed she actually could read,” says Joyce. 

Iris’s early literacy can be attributed to her insatiable thirst for knowledge. When Iris was around three, her aunt brought home gifts from Japan. Because nobody in her household spoke the language, Iris became fascinated with the Japanese on the tags, examining them with an online hiragana and katakana character chart. Months later, when the family took their own trip to Japan, Iris stunned everyone by reading the restaurant menus. She now has functional literacy in Japanese as well as Mandarin at home and Taiwanese from her grandparents. 

Of course, she excels in English as well. According to a recent assessment, Iris speaks with a 12th-grade vocabulary – an ability she credits to her dad Jon’s habit of including “unusually difficult words” in everyday conversation.

Even with all these athletic and linguistic abilities, Iris considers herself a “math kid.”  Now age ten and finishing fourth grade as a homeschooler, Iris has completed Algebra 1 and is working through Geometry. In this year’s Math Kangaroo competition, Iris placed first in Illinois and first nationally. She’s taught herself HTML, CSS, and Python, and built an app that encrypts text. She draws using Procreate, as well as Desmos math tools. She 3D prints her own designs, including replacements for her little sister’s missing toys. 

NMS came into the picture through the Davidson Young Scholars network. Joyce had, of course, long known Iris was exceptional but wasn’t sure how to structure her future learning. NMS has provided a framework and a community.

Homeschooling gives Iris the flexibility to move at her own pace and the freedom to maximize her schedule – like booking ice time in the mornings when the rink is quieter. However, the combination of freedom, focus, and ambition can be isolating. Kids that are both her age AND possess similar abilities are hard to come by. 

For Iris, who admits she’s “not a group person,” the online NMS gatherings have become something she looks forward to. “I feel so relieved she’s found a group of math friends who genuinely enjoy sitting together and doing something they all love,” Joyce says. 

The parent community has become just as valuable for Joyce. Monthly meetings give her a space to compare notes with families navigating the same unfamiliar terrain: how much to push, how to balance competition-level math with everything else. “Being able to connect with other parents has really helped ease my anxiety,” she says. 

Joyce and Iris have begun attending in-person NMS meetups with other Pathfinder cohort kids and families, deepening those connections. And who knows? In time, maybe Iris will take them all skating. She could skate rings around her new friends, but hopefully she’ll go easy on them.