Off the Charts

by Ann Hulbert

  —

  Norbert Wiener, familiar with depression, had learned what Marc, along with plenty of other prodigies, also discovered: early feats of achievement and the intense anticipation they inspire may well help to fuel a child’s growing sense of autonomy, but can also skew it. Stubborn drive and open-ended curiosity make all children not just avid rule-learners but also rule-breakers. When mastery comes quickly, what at first feels like playful and purposeful empowerment may become shadowed by anxiety, blocking the engagement with a wider world that helps gifts and creativity flourish. Parents may end up paying a similar price, becoming more enmeshed in children’s lives, or more embattled, than they ever intended. The same adult-level powers that set prodigies apart have a way of stirring hopes that may lead, as Andrew Solomon puts it in Far from the Tree, to “a tragic misunderstanding of where one human being ends and another begins.”

  But as Wiener found—as did plenty of ex-prodigies in his wake—doom is not foreordained by any means. Disappointments and difficulties are unavoidable, though. That reality of childhood is writ large in the stories of off-the-charts children. When Wiener wrote down what he considered a prodigy’s crucial entitlement, he purposely laid out modest terms: the “chance to develop a reasonably thick skin against the pressures which will certainly be made on him and a confidence that somewhere in the world he has his own function which he may reasonably hope to fulfill.” Wiener was silent on the theme of success. He offered no facile cures for stress. What he emphasized was respect for a child’s sense of his or her own separateness. In an overachiever culture of hovering adults and social-media-saturated youths, that last piece of advice may sound the most unfamiliar of all, and be the most valuable.

  The young upstarts who helped usher in the computer revolution after Wiener’s death were geeks busy bucking adult guidance and writing their own scripts in ways he couldn’t have envisioned—and would have envied. Proud oddballs, they have also enjoyed a surge in status that would have stunned Terman and that Stanley hadn’t counted on. The tech pioneers got the best of both worlds, reaping meritocratic rewards yet also breaking the rules when they chose. Their precocity couldn’t be mistaken for mere accelerated mimicry; innovative mastery came early.

  Of course, the worship of fast-track nonconformity they inspired has had unintended consequences of its own. The blinkered elitism that has accompanied the “achievatron” ethos, as Jonathan Edwards labeled the hypercompetitive striving that he lamented, might well have given Wiener pause, too. His childhood experience made him skeptical of insular clubs, whether of Boston Brahmins or prodigies. At the same time, as an ungainly half-man and half-boy, he understood that a feeling of contributing to something bigger counted for more than being brilliant. Prone to dark lows, he also never forgot how elusive that feeling of creative fellowship could be.

  In the meritocratic race that continues to intensify, it is the stories of prodigious savants like Matt and Jake—autistic children whose aura recalls otherworldly marvels of long-ago lore—that come closest, surprisingly, to embodying the unillusioned spirit of Wiener’s counsel. Experts and others invoke the savant phenomenon as evidence that unsuspected talents may lie hidden in the brains of all of us. Many also cite autistic achievements as proof of just how crucial the dedication of families, teachers, and others is to the blossoming of any gift. Less often remarked on, but as important, the prodigious savant paradigm calls attention to the child as other—a small person in his own world, endowed with mysterious powers and puzzled by many things, whose way out and forward is anything but obvious.

  A century ago, Wiener’s father enlisted his son in the cause of portraying off-the-charts childhoods as well-rounded idylls, the crucible for future greatness. To take autistic prodigious savants as guides is to go very much against that grain. Their predicaments suggest an alternative perspective on youthful gifts, and on how and why they are worth nurturing. From this vantage, children are still figures who fascinate, yet now they can also be counted on to confound adult expectations early and often. The fixation on future distinction recedes. Instead, the emphasis shifts to encouraging as rich an experience of childhood normalcy as possible, and appreciating the many mundane personal qualities and capacities that enable it. Early development of a special talent, commonly praised for instilling rigorous discipline and focus, acquires a different value. The pursuit of an intense interest may help children overcome fears that might otherwise grow, self-doubt that could box them in. Excited engagement gives minds and bodies new ways to respond, interact, communicate.

  All too often, the impulse to herald youthful talents risks inspiring swelled heads and raising sky-high hopes that are likely to be disappointed. But adopt the viewpoint of the hypersensitive and remote child, and of the family hoping to help him or her feel less overwhelmed by the world, and the impulse to champion a child’s singularity becomes an opportunity: a chance for someone to begin developing both a thicker skin and a feeling that “somewhere in the world he has his own function which he may reasonably hope to fulfill.” That benediction of Wiener’s conveys not just wise pragmatism but, perhaps most important, patience. Resilience and assurance, without which gifts may prove useless, grow slowly.

  Back when I first met Marc at six and he was doing his best to stump me with riddles before his music lessons, I was eager for him to get to my favorite, but he never did: Why did the little boy throw the clock out the window? In any case, as I thought about it in retrospect, the punch line—because he wanted to see time fly—was all wrong. The last thing prodigies, or any other children, need to feel is that the clock is ticking on their talents.

  Acknowledgments

  Writing about America’s preoccupation with speedy achievement turned out to be slower work than I had hoped. In the course of it, I learned a lot about a virtue much touted in these pages: patience. I mean other people’s deep reserves of it. If prizes were awarded for that, combined with unflagging displays of interest, my family would be covered in ribbons. The most profound gratitude usually gets saved for last, but I’ll flout patience and put it first. Over many years and many dinners, my husband, Steve Sestanovich, listened and guided with a confidence in the project that has made all the difference. He read and took his pen to every draft and never doubted that the book would get done. Our children, Ben and Clare, never ceased to be curious about what Off the Charts might, someday, say. I couldn’t have hoped for better catalysts or companions.

  I’m especially grateful to the people who have made the second half of this book possible, carving out time in their very busy lives to talk with me. Jonathan Edwards, Joseph Bates, and Yoky Matsuoka shared thoughts and memories, both about the children they had once been and the parents they have since become. Lang Lang somehow squeezed a conversation into an impossible schedule, and made a family photograph available. While the furor over Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother was in full swing, Amy Chua and Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld spoke candidly about their experiences.

  With the younger people whose cooperation has been so crucial, a slow pace has had its advantages. When I first read about Matt Savage, his parents, Diane and Larry, wisely felt their preteen needed less exposure, not more. But by the time Matt headed to graduate school, they and he went out of their way to be available and helpful. Several visits with Matt in New York were highlights of my work. His bass player, John Funkhouser, contributed the thoughtful musical and personal perspective I needed. I was also very glad to have a chance to speak with Matt’s teacher Eyran Katsenelenbogen. I welcomed the wry self-portraiture Jay Greenberg conveyed by email. His agent Charles Letourneau’s insights, as well as my interviews with his Juilliard teachers Samuel Adler and Samuel Zyman, broadened my view. My meeting with Marc Yu and Chloe Hui more than a decade ago helped inspire this book, and I deeply appreciate the trust they’ve shown from the beginning.

  Writing about child prodigies and related subjects for The New York Times Magazine and Slate was a crucial part of exploring the fie
ld and shaping the book. I counted on Alex Star and Meghan O’Rourke for their editorial guidance on those pieces. In the process, I also learned a great deal from various experts, among them Ellen Winner, Howard Gardner, David Henry Feldman, Dean Keith Simonton, Jan Davidson and Bob Davidson, David Lubinski, and Darold A. Treffert.

  I’ve benefited from various library collections and the generous help of many people in the course of my research. The Institute Archives and Special Collections at MIT granted permission to consult and quote from the Norbert Wiener Papers, and the MIT Museum provided a photograph. I owe a large debt to Dan Mahony, whose online archive of materials by and relating to William James Sidis was invaluable. Stephen Bates shared his very thorough research on Sidis. Leon Hansen kindly made a photograph available. Courtesy of Houghton Library, Harvard University, I’ve cited a letter from William James.

  I spent rewarding time reading through the Henry Cowell Papers, archived in the Music Division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, and thank the David and Sylvia Teitelbaum Fund, Inc., for permission to quote from them. Christopher English Walling allowed me to cite material about Cowell from the Anna Strunsky Walling Papers, held in the Yale University Library, the Manuscripts and Archives division. The Department of Special Collections and University Archives at the Stanford University Libraries supplied material from the Lewis Madison Terman Papers.

  The Rare Book and Manuscript Library at the Columbia University Libraries provided access to the Barbara Newhall Follett Papers and the Helen Follett Papers. Stefan Cooke gave me permission to quote from the former and to use a photograph. I relied on his annotated collection of Barbara Follett’s letters, Barbara Newhall Follett: A Life in Letters, published in 2015, and on his website. Richard, Roger, and Michael Meservey graciously approved my use of Helen Follett’s writings. Kathie Pitman shared her research on Nathalia Crane, and other advice, with me. The Brooklyn Public Library staff provided help as I perused the archives of The Brooklyn Daily Eagle for articles about Crane. I’m grateful to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and the Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division of the New York Public Library, for days of fruitful research in the Schuyler Family Papers. Thanks in particular to Miranda Mims. Karen Hilliard Johnson gave me permission to quote from the material. Kathryn Talalay’s biography of Philippa Schuyler was enormously helpful.

  A FOIA request elicited a fascinating trove of material in the form of the FBI’s file on Regina Fischer. Frank Brady’s biographies of Bobby Fischer were essential, and he kindly made two photographs available. The Spencer Foundation gave me access to the transcript of Julian Stanley’s contribution to the Spencer Foundation project, an oral history, 1981–1985, housed at the Columbia Center for Oral History. Jordan Ellenberg’s perspective on the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth was extremely useful, as were our email and phone exchanges. Tim Cawley made time to discuss his experience filming From Nothing, Something: A Documentary on the Creative Process. I count myself lucky to have had the chance to speak with Gary Graffman about Lang Lang and piano training in China and the United States. Ariela Rossberg, the education manager of the Lang Lang International Music Foundation, filled me in on its mission.

  As I was finishing up, I was excited to meet another astonishingly talented young pianist, a high school freshman named Avery Gagliano, then in the throes of deciding how music would fit into her life. Fitting Avery into the book didn’t work out, but she and her mother, Ying Lam, helped me think about an all-important transition.

  Friends contributed in different ways. Early on, Megan Marshall and Emily Yoffe had useful suggestions. Emily Abrahams was always ready to lend an ear (and at the end, with Ruth Abrahams, an eye). Robert Wilson offered thoughts on a chapter. So did Stephen Bates. Mary Jo Salter, Judith Shulevitz, Alex Star, Margaret Talbot, and Dorothy Wickenden each read versions of this book in its entirety; I can’t thank them enough for providing incisive and generous editorial input along the way.

  Amy Weiss-Meyer sprang into action to help with fact-checking and notes at the end, just the careful collaborator I needed. Janice Wolly answered my copy-editing questions. With Todd Portnowitz steering the manuscript through the production process at Knopf, as well as tracking down photographs, I knew I was in great hands. My agent, Sarah Chalfant, gave me unfailing encouragement and wise advice from start to finish. And no one could have guided Off the Charts to its conclusion more eagerly and astutely than Ann Close, my editor, did. I might still be at it without her.

  Notes

  Prologue

  a six-year-old named Marc Yu: Marc Yu, visit with author, July 13, 2005.

  “stop wasting our brightest young minds”: Jan and Bob Davidson with Laura Vanderkam, Genius Denied: How to Stop Wasting Our Brightest Young Minds (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004). See also the Davidson Institute website for its mission to “serve profoundly gifted young people 18 and under. Profoundly gifted students are those who score in the 99.9th percentile on IQ and achievement tests.” “About Us,” http://www.davidsongifted.org/​About-Us.

  “She is still composing”: The Ellen DeGeneres Show, February 21, 2006.

  “I don’t know”: Your L.A. with Janet Choi, KTLA, August 23, 2006.

  “You should play Game Boy less”: Ann Hulbert, “The Prodigy Puzzle,” New York Times Magazine, November 20, 2005.

  “The possibilities are extraordinary”: Jeffrey Bernstein in My Brilliant Brain, a three-part National Geographic series filmed in 2006, when Marc was seven, and released in 2007.

  honing youthful potential ever earlier: Garey Ramey and Valerie A. Ramey, “The Rug Rat Race,” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 15284, August 2009.

  “grit,” the latest lab-tested talent development secret: See Angela L. Duckworth, Christopher Peterson, Michael D. Matthews, and Dennis R. Kelly, “Grit: Perseverance and Passion for Long-Term Goals,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 92, no. 6 (2007): 1087–101. Duckworth’s book, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, was published by Scribner in 2016.

  “yesterday’s news”: Madeline Levine, Teach Your Children Well: Parenting for Authentic Success (New York: HarperCollins, 2012), p. 12.

  “the public ever hears of”: Norbert Wiener, Ex-Prodigy: My Childhood and Youth (1953; reprinted Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1964), p. 4.

  “Next to God comes Papa”: Maynard Solomon, Mozart: A Life (New York: HarperCollins, 1995), p. 11.

  “miracle, which God has allowed”: Ibid., p. 5.

  “the understanding about the balance of power”: Phyllis Rose, Parallel Lives: Five Victorian Marriages (New York: Vintage, 1984), p. 7.

  PART I NATURE VS. NURTURE

  Chapter 1. The Wonder Boys of Harvard

  Where not otherwise indicated, biographical details are drawn from Amy Wallace, The Prodigy (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1986); Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman, Dark Hero of the Information Age: In Search of Norbert Wiener, the Father of Cybernetics (New York: Basic Books, 2005); and Norbert Wiener, Ex-Prodigy: My Childhood and Youth (1953; reprinted Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1964).

  “The first thing my April Fool’s boy wanted”: Sarah Sidis, “The Sidis Story” (1950). Her account is available on sidis.net, the W. J. Sidis Archive and the Boris Sidis Archive.

  one of the first: “Wonderful Boys of History Compared with Sidis,” New York Times, January 16, 1910.

  “with the aid of a crayon”: “Boy of 10 Addresses Harvard Teachers,” New York Times, January 6, 1910. The article misstates Sidis’s age—he was eleven, not ten.

  “the most brilliant man in the world”: S. Sidis, “The Sidis Story.”

  “the individuality, the originality”: Boris Sidis, Philistine and Genius (Boston: Richard G. Badger, 1919), accessed on sidis.net.

  “10,000 hour rule”: Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success (New York: Little, Brown, 2008), pp. 39–40. As Gladwell notes, K. Anders Ericsson and colleagues employed the term “deliberate prac
tice” (p. 288). See K. Anders Ericsson, Kiruthiga Nandagopal, and Roy W. Roring, “Giftedness Viewed from the Expert-Performance Perspective,” Journal for the Education of the Gifted 28, no. 3/4 (2005): 287–311.

  “I congratulate you”: William James to Boris Sidis, September 11, 1902, William James Papers (MS Am 1092.9 (3775)), Houghton Library, Harvard University.

  Einstein’s revolutionary papers of 1905: John S. Ridgen, Einstein 1905: The Standard of Greatness (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005).

  “men with much money”: Jerome Karabel, The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005), pp. 41–42.

  “new immigrants”: Ibid., pp. 47–48.

  “What will become of the wonder child?”: “A Savant at Thirteen, Young Sidis on Entering Harvard Knows More Than Many on Leaving. A Scholar at Three,” New York Times, October 17, 1909.

  “was not forced”: “Harvard’s Four Child Students and the Fathers Who Trained Three of Them,” Boston Sunday Herald, November 14, 1909.