Sunday, March 03, 2002
We don't need no education
So Martin [the father] threw himself into it the way he had thrown himself into glassblowing, silversmithing, puzzlemaking, and filmmaking, among various other pursuits. He fired the nanny and came up with a plan: They would live on $5,000 a year. They would travel by bus, support themselves with craft shows and the proceeds of the “Erik & Dad Puzzle Co.,” and attempt to feed themselves on a budget of $1 per meal per person (a goal Martin admits sheepishly now they did not always achieve). Martin would work as little as possible.
The father's educational theory went like this: Apart from one hour of home schooling a day, the child should pursue his own interests. They spent a few weeks at a commune in Tennessee, a year in Providence, six months in Chicago. During a three-year stint in Miami Beach, he sat Erik down with a neighbor to see if he was interested in learning Chinese; the language instruction went nowhere, but the neighbor had a computer.
Via Robot Wisdom, Road scholar finds home at MIT
Not only is Erik 20 years old and an assistant professor at MIT but his speciality is in computational origami (and the link there is an article about Erik solving the problem of why maps are so hard to fold) which isn't your everyday ordinary discipline.
I do notice though, that parents that have an interest in their childrens' education often produce intelligent children, reguardless of formal education (as this shows).
