The Prodigy

by Amy Wallace

The Sidis Story;

Formula for Genius and How to Make Your Child a Genius.

1952, Sarah’s ideas were the subject of a lengthy article, “You Can Make Your Child a Genius,”

Avoid punishment in all ways possible—it is the first cause of fear.

Try not to say “Don’t.” Instead, explain why what you say is so.

Good one!

Awaken curiosity—it is the key to learning.

Never fail to answer and never put off your ch...

Never force your child to learn nor judge his ability to learn...

Implant ideas at bedtime, just before sleep. Suggestions made then will m...

Never lie to your child or us...

Refrain from showing...

Norbert Wiener

Let those who choose to carve a human soul to their own measure be sure that they have a worthy image after which to carve it, and let them know that the power of molding an emerging intellect is a power of death as well as a power of life.

There have always been men of intelligence who went on strike, in protest and despair, but they did not know the meaning of their action. The man who retires from public life, to think, but not to share his thoughts—the man who chooses to spend his years in the obscurity of menial employment, keeping to himself the fire of his mind … refusing to bring it into a world he despises—the man who is defeated by revulsion, the man who renounces before he has started, the man who gives up rather than give in, the man who functions at a fraction of his capacity, disarmed by his longing for an ideal he has not found—they are on strike, on strike against unreason … in the darkness of their hopeless indignation, which is righteous … as rebels who never learned the object of their rebellion, as lovers who never discovered their love. -AYN RAND, Atlas Shrugged

perspicacity

prodigious

William James Sidis was not pushed, he was taught to reason. He did not merely conquer forty languages, or one hundred—he had the mental technology to grasp any language, no matter how difficult, in a day. His was not a genius of mere retentive ability—it was that of a magnificent reasoning machine. Boris and Sarah did not create his high IQ through training—their genes provided the better part of it—but their training nurtured and encouraged in a superb manner the rare plant they had borne.

The child must be taught, in no uncertain terms, that his own standards, carefully reasoned out, are the only standards he must live by, and that he must courageously disregard all public standards.

Philistine and Genius, that drew enormous attention to a child with an already insufficient coat of protective armor.

He continued sagely:

How many Einsteins and Galileos has the world lost by treating prodigies as unwelcome freaks in their youth? What mountains might William James Sidis have moved, had he not been stunned into hiding by the public’s mockery of his eccentricities and achievements? Let us hope that in the future all gifted, exceptional children will grow up in a world that instead of shunning them as oddities, will welcome and nurture their talents, their achievements, and their vision.