Homeschooling a Genius?
Dr. Jay Wile holds a PhD in Nuclear Chemistry. Prior to teaching university students, he had never heard of homeschooling. Then he encountered an incredible student who was engaged and interested beyond his experience of the average student. “What school did you go to?” he asked the student, expecting to hear the name of a prestigious private school. The answer? “I didn’t. I was homeschooled.”
Floored by the statement, Dr. Wile asked a few more probing questions to get his head around what this student meant by homeschooling. When he discovered that this incredible, well-spoken, intelligent university student of the sciences before him was not only homeschooled, but homeschooled by his mother who had no college education whatsoever, well, he was simply amazed.
As time progressed, Dr. Wile says, he encountered more and more homeschooled students. They were all his top students. He was fascinated and so began to pore over research into homeschooling to see if it matched with his observations. It did.
A study that Dr. Wile finds noteworthy is one by Dr. Harold McCurdy called “The Childhood Pattern of Genius” commissioned by the Smithsonian Institute. McCurdy looked at 20 geniuses to see if he could find commonalities in their background. He did.
He said, as quoted in The Victoria Advocate – Mar 12, 1961:
Three striking factors seemed to be typical of the childhood pattern of genius – one, close association with an interested adult; two, relative isolation from other children; and three, a great development of imagination and fantasy.
His conclusion?
The mass education of our public school system is in its way a vast experiment on the effect of reducing all three of the above factors to minimal values, and should, accordingly, tend to suppress the occurrence of genius.
I found the study fascinating, but more than that, I found it encouraging. Homeschooling one’s own children allows for enormous freedoms–which is wonderful. But it’s also a hard road, and so many times moms like myself despair – Am I doing the right thing? Too often, moms hear the question, “But are you qualified to homeschool your kids?” from strangers and concerned family members alike. But, when faced with a study like this, where the most ideal circumstance for fostering the wisdom and brilliance of geniuses includes basically the same three ingredients that are present in most homeschools, then, surely I can rest assured that while we may not produce geniuses, we are, at least, giving them the environment conducive to fully tapping into their potential.
So, mammas – let’s take a step back and look at the big picture; let’s be encouraged by the stories of those who have gone before us; let’s remember that our children really only need three things to excel in their education. So let’s keep giving them the love and interest they deserve, the space to discover outside of their peers, and loads of time to explore, imagine, and grow into the people their God-given potential allows.
I must say, I’m both intrigued and blessed by this article.