Bring Up Genius!

by László Polgár

Well before having children, Laszlo Polgar wrote Bring Up Genius! where he explained “Genius equals work and fortunate circumstances” and “Geniuses are made, not born”. Laszlo went on to prove his theory by raising three exceptional female chess players - Susan Polgar achieved the GM title at 21, Judit Polgar at 15, and sister Sofia is a strong IM. While Laszlo certainly maintains an above-average IQ, biological predisposition alone cannot explain these results. The Polgar sisters developed their impressive chess skills in a favorable environment conducive to very diligent, hard work.

------------------------------------------------------------

László Polgár (born 1946 in Gyöngyös), is a Hungarian chess teacher and father of the famous "Polgár sisters": Zsuzsa, Zsófia, and Judit. He authored well-known chess books such as Chess: 5334 Problems, Combinations, and Games and Reform Chess, a survey of chess variants.

László is an expert on chess theory and owns over 10,000 chess books. He is interested in the proper method of rearing children, believing that "geniuses are made, not born". Before he had any children, he wrote a book entitled Bring Up Genius!, and sought a wife to help him carry out his experiment. He found one in Klara, a schoolteacher, who lived in a Hungarian-speaking enclave in Ukraine. He married her in the USSR and brought her to Hungary. He home-schooled their three daughters, primarily in chess, and all three went on to become strong players. An early result was Susan's winning the Budapest Chess Championship for girls under 11 at the age of four. Also his daughter, Judit, could defeat him at chess when she was just five.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A1s...

Genres: Parenting, Psychology, Nonfiction, Education, Childrens, Chess, Science

Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

László Polgár is a Hungarian chess teacher and educational psychologist. He is the father of the famous Polgár sisters: Zsuzsa, Zsófia, and Judit, whom he raised to be chess prodigies.

Reviews

[Hilary · Rating 4 out of 5]

I get many requests to send people the PDF file of this book. Thank you to goodreads friend Alexandra for kindly adding a link which can be found on message 15 of the comments for this review.

Thank you to goodreads friend J.Boo for sending me a PDF of this book.

I found this really interesting. This was a short read and consisted of a question and answer style interview of two parents who decided to raise their children to be a genius in a chosen subject. The parents decided this before they conceived their children and considered ideas for their education. Their belief was that any child with a parent who was willing to instruct their child or find someone who could, in a way they could devote time to their chosen specialist field at the same time make learning fun could succeed in creating their genius. They strongly believed that a child was made a genius rather than born a genius.

Lazlo chose to specialise with his three daughters in chess and they all went on to become hugely successful chess players, all grandmasters I believe. This book focused largely on their chess tuition, it would have been interesting to hear what their broader education consisted of.

What I loved about this book was the parents belief that learning should be consentual and fun, and what could be achieved by this. I enjoyed reading the mum's thoughts on how the jewish religion teaches parents that they are their childs first teacher. I think this is profoundly true, I think the first years of life are so important in terms of how thought processes are formed. I appreciated their concern too that their girls where happy, well adjusted individuals, which they seem to be. The girls achievements listed at the end were definitely impressive.

[J. Boo]

This otherwise unavailable book by the father of the gifted Polgar trio of female chess prodigies benefited from a fundraiser to translate its Esparanto version to English. A PDF of the result is here:

http://slatestarcodex.com/Stuff/geniu...

Scott Alexander reviews it, with some comments, here: http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/07/31/...

[Cristian Popescu · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is nowhere to be found ! (especially the English translation)
Did anyone happen to come across one ?

Here are the details of the original edition :
https://openlibrary.org/books/OL19527...!

[Betawolf · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a terribly informative read, unless you are specifically interested in the Polgar sisters (and even then, I think there will be better biographies). The book is presented as the transcript of an interview with Endre Farkas, seemingly reordered somewhat into chapters. This presentation means that Polgar does not manage to clearly set forth his system, instead responding only briefly on each of several points, with seemingly off-the-cuff answers that breezily dismiss certain topics. It is quite common that Farkas will ask something like "What is the proper amount of X to do?" and Polgar will respond that the right amount is not too little X nor too much X, and it must be considered carefully. That is, his answer is non-informative, if not evasive.

While there are some interesting details that leak through about how he taught the Polgar girls, Laszlo's main preoccupation throughout the book seems to be press and societal criticism of him, his methods and his family, which both he and the interviewer take pains to repeatedly stress is unfounded, and that the girls are all very happy and engaging children. Of course, the interviewer being essentially friendly to him means that no strong criticisms are levelled and debated, so the exchanges seem facile and self-congratulatory.

The interesting segments of the book, relating to the practical pedagological matters, could be summarised completely in a couple of pages. The main points are (1) that parents should choose a specialism for their child, not wait for them to develop an interest (2) instruction should begin while they are young (around 3 to 5), along with language instruction (3) instruction should be fun, framing things as work or play is unhelpful, challenges should be part of play so that a child enjoys their specialism. That, and a general spirit of striving for excellence and not socially-accepted mediocrity, is the essence of the programme. It reminded me a few times of a similar message from Helen DeWitt's _The Last Samurai_. There are some other interesting details, of how a hypothetical genius school's day could be structured, and how exactly you teach a young child to play chess, but these I think were not central, and certainly not covered in-depth.

Polgar is essentially a blank-slatist, but does not put forward a great position for that side. His arguments consist mostly of vague allusions to some studies, and pithy lines quoted from famous figures. He admits that the example of the Polgars does not contribute significantly to that debate, all three being related. (It was, however, interesting to learn of the ripples they made for women in chess.)

The translation by Gordon Tisher is adequately clear but not excellent, the English copy has several minor mistakes, and some of the renditions appear to still be contorted by either Esperanto or Hungarian structure.

[Sombrero Doble · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this experiment the real genius was the father. My favorite part was that he tried to raise not simply geniuses, but happy geniuses.

[Előd Szabó · Rating 5 out of 5]

I made a small research and this book has the best ranking on Goodreads about raising a genius child. I think one of the reasons is how great he summarized the basic principles of the Polgár pedagogy .
I am a fellow countryman of László Polgár. I am even younger than any of the Polgár sisters. For me it seems almost impossible, that the authorities came with soldiers armed with machine-guns, because the Polgár family did not met the legal obligation, going to school after the child reached school age. Today homeschooling is much easier then back in communism.
However, it looks like that the traditional school system cannot find the answer to the challenge bring up geniuses. The same criticism came from Karl Witte 200 years ago (The Education of Karl Witte: Or the Training of the Child), the same from Polgár 30 years ago, and today the most watched Ted video is “Do schools kill creativity?”.
I really liked the possession of Polgár, that at the beginning of the relationship with her wife the majority of their love letters was about pedagogical theories:)
The substance of intensive training is to combine optimal load, gradation, maintaining the interest of the child, helping the sense of achievement.
I really recommend this book for every parent.

[Moha Dem · Rating 5 out of 5]

TRULY One of a KIND !!!
It's a must read, this book illustrates the way Laszlo Polgar brought us the three great prodigies of the chess game, Susan, Sofia and Judit Polgar who sat on the top of the world champions for a long time.
Bring up genius is the way he educated his daughters and made them so, for that I Believe that he is the real GENIUS
All I know is, you need to read this book now once, and whenever you are at that place in your life where you need to grow your children to be extraordinarily capable people.

[Montassar · Rating 5 out of 5]

amazing book

[Tamer · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The fact that I did not send my daughters to school is of course connected to the fact that I hold an unfavorable opinion of it. I criticize contemporary schools because they do not educate for life, the equalize everyone to a very low level, and in addition the do not tolerate the talented and those who diverge from the average."

[Mohammed Alsayani]

Can any one tell me from where to buy copy in Arabic or English

[Mishaal AbdulKareem]

I have free-downloaded the "rarely found & expensive" English version of this PDF book from this link
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gqOA...
Click Get & Enjoy it...

[No Magic Pill · Rating 4 out of 5]

English translation here, funded by the blog Slate Star Codex (SSC author's review here.)

For those that don't know, this book is written by Lázló Polgár, a Hungarian who trained all three of his daughters to become chess Grandmasters. His youngest, Judit, is considered the best female chess player of all-time.

Polgar's method for raising a genius is relatively straightforward and devised from the upbringings of other so-called geniuses (Polgar researched many childhoods in preparation for his own children's). Start young, specialize in a specific topic, and continue studying and refining specialization. After reading this, most people would have an image of an abusive father disciplining his children for only studying chess openings for 6 hours that day, not 7—but Polgar is quite the opposite: he focused on ensuring his children's happiness alongside their success, not just the latter. The children want to play and learn chess for both themselves and their father, and do not feel forced or pressured into doing so. He balances failures and successes in a 1:10 ratio, allowing the children to experience what it's like to fail while still gaining self-confidence through successes. They should be praised often for their work, not to inflate their ego, but to make them feel worthy as a competitor and peer, not just a child.

Starting young is due to Polgar's belief (he cites the 1) WHO's Barnet (can't find source) saying that "the first five years of life are most important in forming a person’s behavior," and 2) B. Bloom's book Stability and Change in Human Characteristics , which says that "50% of a person’s intellect is formed during the first four years of life, and a child’s extraordinary ability to understand, typical until four years of age, little by little decreases with the passage of time") that after childhood, the brain's ability to learn new skills drastically diminishes, e.g., learning a foreign language is much more difficult for adults than young children. To take advantage of this time, Polgar started his children at the ripe age of 3. He begins with basic instruction in foreign languages (his top choice was Esperanto for its simplicity and cultural significance, but the girls also speak Russian) and moves on to basic games to pique the child's interest. Serious training begins around the age of 6 and continues from there.

Polgar chose his children's specialization as chess, but also proposes mathematics, physics, music, and foreign languages. This decision needs to be made at a young age (3-4), so as not to waste any of their precious enhanced-development time.

In continuing their chess specialization, Polgar had them playing chess 5-6 hours per day from the age of 4-5. One clarification on the word "playing" in the previous sentence: while "playing" is grammatically correct and it is not referred to as "training" or "working" chess, it was still "play" in the true sense of the noun: the girls were having fun while continuing to develop their abilities to high levels. This perception of play is crucial to the development of a genius, as it prevents burnout and boredom from occurring. A typical day for his children consists of "4 hours of specialist study, 1 hour of a foreign language, 1 hour of a general study (native language, natural science and social studies), 1 hour of computing, 1 hour of moral, psychological, and pedagogical studies (humor lessons as well), [and] 1 hour of gymnastics". A full day! But going back to the use of "playing", these days are enjoyable. The girls enjoy learning new chess openings, or how to converse in Esperanto, or a new joke.

While this specialization is exclusive to one field, hence the term "specialization", it does make the acquisition of other skills easier through the use of learning heuristics. It's often said the the knowledge learned in university may not be directly applicable to a career, but the problem-solving skills learned will be. Polgar states the same thing. By achieving a high level in one field and "learn[ing] how to learn", picking up new skills will be easier.

Polgar often claims that he himself can raise anybody to be a genius given full reign of their environment, especially the social aspect: "Genius is not born, genius is raised." The nature crowd from the nature vs. nurture debate will have a pretty big issue with this. He cites Watson's "twelve infants" quote, in which the famous psychologist boasts he can raise any one of them into a "specialist...regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors."

Even if Polgar's claims about the guarantee of raising a genius using similar methods, the child raised will still be an outstanding citizen. Polgar preaches morality as the foundation of genius, and views it as a major factor in the development of genius. He describes his qualities of a moral genius as follows: "I see before me a person who is sacrificial, honest, and courageous; a good friend and family member, not cynical, not egotistical, but empathetic and good-hearted, who feels responsibility, is attentive, and is capable of keeping secrets, who does not misuse their power, does not gossip, and can master their ambition, who is just, demands quality, an internationalist and not envious, who generally behaves in a friendly way and does not judge others easily, who is persistent, has initiative, conscious of duty, critical, self-critical and conscientious, who relates well to learning or ignorance, and who is capable of self-education (self-perfection), who has self-control, who is sincere and strives for freedom for themself and others, whose ethics are at a similarly high level, who is modest, able to love others, who has solidarity, tolerance and politeness, has a healthy competitiveness, is helpful, peaceful, and well-intentioned, who shows respect to those who merit it, etc. This kind of person is definitely an exemplary moral authority. Whoever has in themselves all of the qualities above to a high level is a moral genius, even if they never become a hero, and even if those around them never consider them to be one." Try to find an undesirable quality in the above description—it's impossible.

Polgar does not shy away from criticisms of his system (there are many, including from the Hungarian government itself), but answers them thoughfully and completely. Hungary originally tried to suppress the Polgar sisters' successes, but thankfully did not succeed. He is especially critical of modern educational systems in regards to learning, stating the children see no obvious purpose in learning. In his system, they see tangible progress and become more motivated, creating a perpetual cycle of learning. I must agree with him here. Are "international and cultural diversity" credits (as my university referred to them) truly necessary? What is the purpose of making them a mandatory part of a degree program? To make sure I'm a well-rounded citizen of society? Who's to say I'm not already? Anything worth learning should have a purpose to it, else it seems fruitless and motivations wanes. He also sees educational systems as catering to the lowest common denominator, preventing potential geniuses from succeeding and fulfilling said potential. This was one of the principal reasons he chose to self-teach his girls.

The book is organized in a question-answer fashion, with Endre Farkas acting as the interviewer.

While I am no parent, it seems reasonable enough to suggest that most people should read this book. Outside of the genius education part, Polgar makes a compelling case on ways to raise a child to be well-rounded in ethics, morals, intelligence, work ethic, and any other venture they attempt.

[Mohamed Esam · Rating 2 out of 5]

كنت انتظر من هذا الكتاب اكثر مما اعطى

[Giedrius · Rating 4 out of 5]

While somewhat radical, I love how Laszlo is challenging the average approach or raising kids and ability to pick his brain through this interview.

I criticize contemporary schools because they do not educate for life, they equalize everyone to a very low level, and in addition they do not tolerate the talented and those who diverge from the average. [...] Contemporary schools do not promote a love of learning. They do not inspire to great achievements; they raise neither autonomous people nor communally-oriented ones.

[Ala'a Ekedat]

How to bring out your child's genius in just ten minutes a day ,,, thats mean genius is made , not born

[CardosoHS · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF
I was curious about this books title and, knowing that the author is a psychologist, was also expecting a more scientific centered aproach to its main subject. The reading feels more like an autobiography guided by seaminly disconected questions of an interview. I lost count of the times I read the word "I"...

[Warsoly · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a supremely interesting book that went above and beyond my expectations.

Before I read it I'd been peripherally aware of Laszlo Polgar's work from my time studying educational psychology and definitely looked up to him to a large extent as a good example of what humans were capable of under the right circumstances.

I never had a clear understanding of just how much integrity he had as an individual or how much I could learn from his philosophy and overall attitude until after reading this book though, and it's proof that reading a dry summary of someone's life or work from secondary sources is never quite the same thing as reading it directly. Things are necessarily lost in translation and become vulnerable to other people's selectivity, and you can get all of the points without the underlying energy or charisma that makes them so memorable.

The book covers a lot of different aspects of his life that you wouldn't necessarily take away from a quick summary and gives you a pretty good feeling for what kind of person he might be. It really makes you wonder what could have happened if people like him were in charge of the USSR.

It was refreshing to see the opinion of a person who clearly has at least some cross-disciplinary knowledge, ranging from religious and political philosophy to history, psychology and child development.

Most or all of what is covered in this book is backed by contemporary research or a citation and displays a clear and uniquely lucid understanding of the world that existed at the time, which is something all too lacking in modern writing because of the inherently myopic and specialized needs of a society hijacked by science and efficiency.

Being more or less entirely self educated, I found that a lot of his ideas rang true for me and could be verified from personal experience: treating education or really any pursuit in life as something external to yourself or which is imposed upon you by society all too frequently drains the motivation and the life out of you and turns it into a punishment.

By treating children as objects that are incapable of judging their own best interests or advancing beyond the relatively shallow limits that we impose on them we do them no favors in their development, and with so much of society being increasingly alienated and ranked they often lack access to a good - and more importantly - politically and economically independent source of peers to learn from, meaning that they wouldn't be capable of advancing outside of the boundaries we set for them anyways.

So much of parenting and of politics in general is based on exercising authority over others without ever explaining or justifying why, and for this reason I think that the education system damages students to a certain extent, training them to view education as something that you do solely out of necessity and not something which has its own merits and its own value as something to be pursued.

You could easily make the argument that an education which is imposed upon students this way drains their motivation by treating them as subordinates or inferiors that have to be 'trained' to think and believe the right thing in an almost Edward Bernays esque exercise of propagandization as all too much of this society is wont to do.

You could probably say that a lot of the anti-intellectualism endemic to modern American culture as well as the rampant commercialization of an education that's been turned into a product or a socioeconomic and political tool as opposed to a human right is a result of this point of view.

Ultimately, I would recommend that everyone read this book at least once, even if you disagree with the conclusions or consider some of them outdated. It probably has at least one thing that you can take away from it no matter what your discipline may be.

[Adel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unlike some of the reviews, the author doesn't try to by all means to convince you that you should try to raise up a genius or follow Laszlo's pedagogical approach. What it tries to convey is that it is possible to conduct a pedagogical experiment to raise up happy and "genius" children despite the external obstacles that one might face during that period. The main takeaway message is that every child is a potential genius and it's up to the events that follow later in life e.g. parent conflicts, divorce, luck, society, etc., to either raise them so or otherwise. Then, it is UP TO YOU to whether raise up a child following his unique approach. Not following such a pedagogical approach doesn't mean that any child will be of less merit. Many of the world's geniuses were raised by simple parents that followed no such approaches.

The "genius" term that is used in the book might have meant something different to what we some of us assign the word for. For example, to me, genius isn't related to the degree of how successful you are in your career, it is the notion of how fast and accurate your intuition response to many life aspects. I guess among most people the term's meaning is being subjected to change from one society to another. Plus, not all geniuses are well known or acknowledged like others. If Albert Einstein had faced harsh economic conditions and some psychological issues that set him to dismiss his ideas (and what later came to him as his happiest thought) and settle for something else, not related to theoretical physics, that wouldn't make him any less genius but we might have not heard of him and, who he became the genius we know today. I think what the author tried to say by using the word genius is that so to speak an artificial genius child is capable of challenging normal genius people in their fields of expertise though weren't intentionally raised to be geniuses. Thus, the notation of a genius is only an educational matter (keeping in mind that other conditions should be met), hence, every child is a potential adult at the top of his/her profession regardless of their gender if conditions help them to be so.

Many wonderful philosophical and pedagogical ideas are presented in the book that I feel I cannot do it justice by briefly mentioning them in this review. But I can say this with some confidence, everyone must read this book if they are expecting children. The idea is not to raise geniuses but simply to learn that raising wonderful, amazing, happy, and smart children is evident and it's almost* up to the parents!

*This "almost" is subjected to other factors the book addresses in detail.

Worth mentioning that the book is presented as a form of questions and answers from Laszlo and his family. They were interviewed by Endre Farkas, which he asked many wonderful and provoking questions.

[Lucas M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Polgár's experiment, as it became known, could very well be translated as "the scientific attempt to create geniuses." Not in a conventional laboratory, but in the comfort of one's own home. A Jewish family, progressive in humanist terms but traditional in family terms, managed to provide the world with three great women chess masters. They were able to prove the theory and contribute to future studies in the field of psychology, pedagogy and many others. One thing is fact, the great message left goes far beyond the possible happiness through genius or how to reach high levels of excellence; but, how to provide optimal conditions for all children so that they can let all their talents emerge and, from then on, we manage to create higher societies in moral, ethical and intellectual terms. Is the theory valid for large groups of people? for nations? This is the big question and the answer has not yet been provided.

[Hranush · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is in an interview format which makes it a pretty easy one to read. For the same reason it is very general. If you are looking for an intensive step by step instruction on how to make a genius out of your child, you won't find it here :) Actually that's the very thing that makes this book valuable and Polgar's method realistic. I actually enjoyed it and it did answer the questions I had about education and self-development.

[Jeno · Rating 1 out of 5]

it isn't really a book, it is a long interview with many politicised questions of little value;
like 'how bad was government in Hungary back then?' or some bullshit like that;
the topics of early development, methods of incentives and so on are briefly touched (at best);
I am very disappointed, as a future father I am trying to systematize the knowledge I have to prevent bad things from happening and Laszło failed to deliver on the promises with that little brochure.

[Angel Grimalt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Prof. Laszlo Polgar and his three daughters Zsuzsa, Zsofia, and Judit who are the greatest chess female players in the history of the game, present a very strong and compelling case for the thesis that “Geniuses are made not born”.

In this free text translated from Esperanto written as an interview to Laszlo, he sets the core believes, guidelines, and arguments on the education and morals of his pedagogic and life methodology.

A fruitful read for any educator, parent, and chess fan.

[Sara Sabri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great

[مستكن خان · Rating 5 out of 5]

very good

[Bruno M C Oliveira · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read to those interested in education, parenting and talent developing.

[Liz Whalen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Soooooo good!!!

[Yehyeon Cho · Rating 5 out of 5]

Raise a Genius!

By

Laszlo Polgar


Laszlo Polgar is known for being the father of the Polgar Sisters, having raised each of them to be exceptional chess players, perhaps the most famous chess playing siblings on the planet. In this book, originally written in Hungarian, Polgar outlines the background of his pedagogical and psychological experiments, his and his daughters experiences and the applied theories, which in retrospect proved to be quite successful.

I found his expressed humility refreshing and very much appreciated the heavy focus on raising happy children, with the freedom to explore the world at their pace. It is important to note that he explicitly does not endorse the making of geniuses, but merely aimed to show the feasibility of such an endeavor.

Polgar believes that every healthy child is born with the potential to be a genius. Furthermore, he believes that attaining high level proficiency in any field at an early age can contribute to a child‘s happiness, as the child is able to enjoy a feeling of accomplishment. Contrary to common belief, he firmly maintains that geniuses are largely made, requiring a helpful environment that does not dampen their creativity and interest. Though rigorous training is necessary, it must be conducted at the child‘s level and with consideration to their peculiarities, so as not to overwhelm them. Polgar stresses that children, like his daughters, must be active participants and without their full cooperation raising a genius is not possible, even going on to say that it would also not be desirable. The point is not to restrict them, so Polgar, but to provide the possibility for children to attain the highest attainable level of freedom.

I had great fun reading about the perspectives and theories on raising healthy, happy, fulfilled and accomplished children, i.e. geniuses.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

An extremely interesting subject matter, and, at the same time, not a very good book. It too often veers off into topics like "the emancipation of women," or an entire chapter about being jewish, while everyone reading it is obviously only doing so due to a interest in parenting/education, or a love of chess. Coming from the first camp, there was also a little too much talk of chess for my tastes (even though I do enjoy chess), but I can hardly fault the author for that.

What does peek through of the educational method is amazingly valuable, but entire foundational points of his system get only one passing line, easily missed. Cut the unnecessary bits, and this books is instantly better, though short. Add in more detail about his methods, and it would be a masterpiece, required reading for any parent.

As it is, 3/5 stars seems appropriate, because that is nearly the exact fraction of worthwhile material vs tangents. But the good stuff is good, life-changingly good, even, if you can sit and think about the implications, and applications of it.

He also has almost convinced me to learn Esperanto. As someone who despises the language offhand, this is impressive.

If anyone knows of a book that goes more into his method - in the minutiae - and how it may be applied to other fields, please let me know! Otherwise I will have to wait until I am rich enough to bribe one of his daughters to allow me an interview so that I can get the information first hand.

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Genius is not born, genius is raised

Raise a genius, gained widespread attention mainly because of the author's daughters' remarkable success in chess, which made readers curious about how he managed to raise three world-class champions. Their achievements are what truly brought fame to both the author and the book.

In his short read, Polgar explains that genius is not purely innate but something that can be developed through the right upbringing and environment. He stresses on the fact that children should be provided the highest possible of freedom to do what they love and helping them specialize very early in some field.

Polgar has an antagonistic point of view towards school as they are separate from real life or any domestic, political or local public life. It doesn't develop potential capabilities in people.

Also, foreign languages and mental play important roles in forming a genius child.

A day in a genius school:
4 hours of a special study (chess for ex.)
Foreign Language
General study (Natural science , social studies)
Computing
Moral Studies
Gymnastics

[Nour · Rating 3 out of 5]

Confirms my belief that nothing is without a reason why it is.
I agree with everything he says about the failure of our educational systems to accommodate highly capable individuals as schools are meant to produce average children (unfortunately, it produces more mediocre children than capable ones -and not coincidentally). Adding to it the belief that high intelligence is a result of “luck” (while good average intelligence is the result of good work) even though most intelligent people display similar behavioral patterns such as enjoying challenges and enjoying to learn -and that’s precisely because they have been directly or indirectly taught to and exposed to the proper environment.
I should however note that the book is not a lengthy guide on how to raise a “genius”, nor is it a biography. It is rather a Q&A interview. The questions are sometimes trivial -i.e “does this definition of genius (criminal geniuses, genius war criminals) trouble you?” and the answers are unfortunately too brief to go in depth into any topic.