My Son the Genius

I took last Friday off from work, and so had the pleasure of walking the twins to kindergarten. As we are en route, Joey says out of nowhere that he is a genius.

“Oh yeah, is that right, a genius?” says I.

“Yeah.”

“What makes you a genius?”

“Cause I answer all the questions.”

Ah yes, but you come to realize later in life that it is not just the ability to answer all the questions, but also the ability to ask novel, interesting, and important questions that you can then go on to answer. Plenty of people can do one of these two, but not both.

Anyway, I pick them up later in the day, and as we are walking, Joey says that now, even his friends are calling him genius.

“Who called you a genius, Joe?”

“My friend Daniel.”

“Why did he call you a genius?”

“Because I wrote the word F-A-R-M all by myself without the teacher.”

Billy started cracking up; it was clear even to him that something more should be required before you’re fast-tracked to the special and talented classes. But maybe he's onto something, and I regret not trying to use that strategy during my thesis defense - when asked a question I had no hope of answering correctly, I should have simply walked to the board and written out "F-A-R-M", and they'd of backed right off.

I’d heard that self-esteem has become a big focus of early education, a development that I am not all that enamored with, but this is going a little overboard.

But I trust that Doctor Hawes, the principle of the school, who by the way is a Doctor, possesses all of the skills necessary to shepard my kid’s early education because, after all, she is a Doctor. Did I mention that she’s a Doctor? If I failed to, it’s not because she doesn’t insist upon that title from her kindergarten charges, because she does. It proves the long-held observation – the likelihood that you insist upon being addressed with the title for receiving a doctorate (as opposed to an MD) is inversely proportional to the prestige of the field and the institution. You’ll never see a professor of physics at MIT making kindergarteners call him doctor.

She seems like a very capable principle, and should view the responsibilities she has in managing a substantial staff, not to mention relationships with parents and the local government, as a position worthy of more respect that can ever be conferred via any degree. I have to remind myself of that every time she introduces herself, after which I crack a string of jokes to the Wife of Hatcher. I’ve even told the kids to ask her if they can get their flu shots from her this year. God I love having kids in school.