Or what age should they start? I think a toddler age is ridiculous obviously, but when a child gets to middle school age they should be aware of what's going on in the government in their country even if they can't vote yet. Maybe a bit sooner, but if they can learn about sex around middle school age then they should know about the world around them where they live because obviously they aren't (or they shouldn't be anyways) having sex at that age, but at least they're aware of it so they will know the dangers of unwanted teen pregnancies. So if they know about the government, they can know how to vote when they can vote. Just my two cents anyways.
From what I remember raising my kid, and watching my niece and my cousins kids grow up, they all age and mature intellectually, at different rates.
I have also noticed, that humans, intellectually at least, seem to tend to regress somewhat, when their hormones kick in.
Not regress in terms of what they know so much, but in their ability to concentrate, retain knowledge, and think critically. As soon as their focus becomes the other sex, peer rank, and the other things that teens think about, their interest in reading and intellectual pursuits, tends to drop off. Indeed, some eleven to thirteen year olds, sometimes seem more intellectually aware of the world when they were younger, than when they are at sixteen.
It is an odd phenomenon IMO. It takes a person till they reach twenty to regain that awareness, or, "spooky," consciousness, and connection to the wider world again.
For some reason, as we grow as humans, as soon as puberty hits, intellectually, self-awareness, cognitively, seems to turn inward, so, culturally and politically, IMO, teens aren't as cognitive of the greater world outside of themselves as pre-teens and post-teens.
Of course, this is just, general across the population. EVERYBODY, ages and develops at their own rate. And this is the crime of state controlled/industry influenced education grading and sorting standards. The very premise of your question is based on that, because everyone born after the civil war was inflicted with it. That fact of the matter is though, there are some people that had the maturity and intelligence to earn high school diplomas at 12, and others that should not have gotten them til 21. That is the hard reality of the situation.
And it has nothing to do with, "intelligence," or "genius," and everything to do with maturity and development.
But, that's just my two cents.
