Aadhyan Pradeep Maddela can recall all U.S. presidents in 44.68 seconds

Can you name all the U.S. presidents in less than a minute? Or name countries by their flags and point them out on a world map at the same time?

A five-year-old Hamilton kid can.

Aadhyan Pradeep Maddela was recently registered in the Asian Book of Records and the Indian Book of Records as the fastest kid who can recite all the names of U.S. presidents. He can do it in 44.68 seconds.

Swathi Maddela, Aadhyan's mother, said he gets excited" every time he sees a country's president on TV and wants to learn about them."

Aadhyan is so fascinated by Canada's neighbouring country that he wants to become a U.S. president and work for NASA at the same time, Maddela told The Spectator.

The Maddela family moved from India's Telangana state to Canada in 2018, when Aadhyan was one year old. Maddela and her husband, who work as clinical researchers and pharmacovigilance professionals, have been amazed by their child's excellence.

So are his teachers.

Currently attending kindergarten at St. Mark Catholic Elementary School in Stoney Creek, Aadhyan has been inspiring" his classroom and teachers to expand what we're learning in class," said Aadhyan's teacher, Pamela Mastroianni.

Mastroianni has been teaching at the Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board since 2007.

When it was time to assess his reading, I noticed I had to keep getting a higher (level) book, and then a higher book, and then a higher book," the teacher said.

Vice-principal Collen Horzelenberg, who often teaches kindergarten classes, thinks it's incredible" that a little kid could draw country flags and even knows how to spell the countries."

Aadhyan spoke for himself during the interview. He said his favourite activity at school is to do drawing."

Maddela said the school and teachers have been encouraging and supportive of Aadhyan's curiosity.

While he is able to do Grade 3 math at home, his teachers said Aadhyan has been motivating the class to learn more, and now the whole (kindergarten) class knows how to do (parts of) first-grade math," Mastroianni noted.

As for the record books, Maddela had also reached out to the Guinness World Records, but hasn't heard from them yet.

In the meantime, Aadhyan is preparing to recite all the names of countries by their flags in less than three minutes to get another record, Maddela said.

Ritika Dubey is a reporter at The Spectator. rdubey@thespec.com