by Ann Hulbert
the darkened office: Walter Isaacson, “In Search of the Real Bill Gates,” Time, January 13, 1997.
secretly scheming with his good friend: Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2015), pp. 27–30.
“fell in love”: Ibid., p. 17.
The Lakeside Mothers Club: Walter Isaacson, The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2015), p. 322.
a Baltimore Sun article: Martha Jablow, “Hopkins Students Who Skipped High School,” Baltimore Sun, June 25, 1972.
“I knew more than he did”: James Wallace and Jim Erickson, Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire (New York: HarperBusiness, 1993), p. 21.
“The state of mind demanded”: Michael Lewis, Next: The Future Just Happened (New York: W. W. Norton, 2002), p. 235.
Apple’s “think different” ad campaign: Isaacson, Steve Jobs, p. 329.
“personal computer movement”: Isaacson, The Innovators, pp. 300–303.
“Like infants discovering the world”: Seymour Papert, The Children’s Machine: Rethinking School in the Age of the Computer (New York: Basic Books, 1993), p. 33.
“the youthful fervor”: Stewart Brand, “Spacewar: Fanatic Life and Symbolic Death Among the Computer Bums,” Rolling Stone, December 7, 1972.
“usable in the woods”: Isaacson, The Innovators, p. 289.
“A realm of intimate, personal power”: Isaacson, Steve Jobs, p. 58.
“bundles of aptitudes and ineptitudes”: Seymour Papert, Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas (New York: Basic Books, 1980), p. 8.
For radical “Yearners”: Papert, The Children’s Machine, pp. 2, 13.
“hackers” and “planners”: See Brand, “Spacewar,” for the “hackers” versus “planners” idea.
“Remember this was the 70s”: Carole Cadwalladr, “Stewart Brand’s Whole Earth Catalog, The Book That Changed the World,” Guardian, May 4, 2013. See also John Markoff, What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry (New York: Viking, 2005), p. xii.
a fellowship at Stanford: Howard Wainer and Dan Robinson, “Profiles in Research: Julian Cecil Stanley,” Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics 31, no. 2 (Summer 2006): 232.
had chaired the College Board’s Committee of Examiners: Julian C. Stanley, “A Quiet Revolution: Finding Boys and Girls Who Reason Exceptionally Well Mathematically and/or Verbally and Helping Them Get the Supplemental Educational Opportunities They Need,” High Ability Studies 16, no. 1 (June 2005): 8.
“ ‘drybones methodologist’ ”: Wainer and Robinson, “Profiles in Research,” p. 232.
“Sick and tired” of the arid formulas: Camilla Persson Benbow and David Lubinski, “Julian C. Stanley Jr. (1918–2005),” American Psychologist 61, no. 3 (April 2006): 251.
“quiet revolution”: Stanley, “A Quiet Revolution.”
“plenty of time for screwing around”: Brand, “Spacewar.”
better known by now as “nerd camp”: Bukhard Bilger, “Nerd Camp,” New Yorker, July 26, 2004, p. 65.
“It seemed to many persons then”: Stanley, “A Quiet Revolution,” p. 8.
For Joe, who loved machines: Joseph Bates, interview by author, June 19, 2016.
“calm and compliant kid”: Ibid. For other details, see Jablow, “Hopkins Students Who Skipped High School.”
“One swallow does not make a spring”: Julian C. Stanley, “Reflections from Julian Stanley: Supplementing the Education of Children with Exceptional Mathematical or Verbal Reasoning Ability,” presented as the Esther Katz Rosen (invited) Lecture at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, Chicago, August 24, 2002.
“very, very aggressive”: “Reminiscences of Julian Stanley,” June 18, 1984, p. 32, Spencer Foundation Project, Columbia Center for Oral History Archives, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University.
a son whose obvious “maladjustment”: Evan Jenkins, “Express Route to Learning Fashioned for the Precocious,” New York Times, February 28, 1973.
Jonathan’s 3.75 grade-point average: Jablow, “Hopkins Students Who Skipped High School.”
“My life and career thereafter”: Stanley, “A Quiet Revolution,” p. 8.
“the scientific method”: “Reminiscences of Julian Stanley,” p. 75.
“the shortest and probably quickest”: Ibid., p. 6.
“do something, I hardly knew what”: Stanley, “Reflections from Julian Stanley.”
“As far as external controls”: “Reminiscences of Julian Stanley,” pp. 7, 23.
The Marland Report of 1972: Steven I. Pfeiffer, ed., Handbook of Giftedness in Children: Psycho-Educational Theory, Research, and Best Practices (New York: Springer, 2008), p. 390.
Congress appropriated a budget: Congress appropriated $290,000. See James R. Delisle, “A Millennial Hourglass,” Gifted Child Today 22, no. 6 (November–December 1999).
“We decided we didn’t find”: “A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America’s Brightest Students,” Templeton National Report on Acceleration, vol. 1 (Iowa City: University of Iowa, 2004), p. 26.
which had become “very weak”: “Reminiscences of Julian Stanley,” p. 36.
“the assurance that we were not going to find”: Ibid., p. 16.
“Perhaps, if given the same opportunity”: J. C. Stanley, “Psychology in Action: Test Better Finder of Great Math Talent Than Teachers Are,” American Psychologist, April 1976, p. 314.
Ten percent of the male participants: Julian C. Stanley, “Uses of Tests to Discover Talent,” in Daniel P. Keating, ed., Intellectual Talent Research and Development: Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Hyman Blumberg Symposium on Research in Early Childhood Education (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976), pp. 10–11.
likely to have attentive parents: Stanley, “A Quiet Revolution,” p. 11.
younger female colleagues: Linda Brody and Lynn H. Fox, “An Accelerative Intervention Program for Mathematically Gifted Girls,” in Lynn H. Fox, Linda Brody, and Dianne Tobin, eds., Women and the Mathematical Mystique (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980), pp. 173–75.
“Fortunately,” he remarked: “Reminiscences of Julian Stanley,” p. 32. By 1987, 27,000 students were reporting SAT scores in the Hopkins talent search. Julian C. Stanley, “Some Characteristics of SMPY’s ‘700–800 on SAT-M Before Age 13 Group’: Youths Who Reason Extremely Well Mathematically,” Gifted Child Quarterly 32, no. 1 (Winter 1988): 205.
“Our intent is to supplement”: Stanley, “A Quiet Revolution,” p. 10.
“our ‘prodigies,’ ” as Stanley called them: Ibid.
“little creeps”: Gina Bari Kolata, “Math and Sex: Are Girls Born with Less Ability?,” Science 210 (December 12, 1980): 1235.
“smorgasbord of accelerative opportunities”: Julian C. Stanley, “The Case for Extreme Educational Acceleration of Intellectually Brilliant Youths,” Gifted Child Quarterly 20, no. 1 (1976): 73.
After 18 hours devoted: Stanley, “Uses of Tests to Discover Talent,” p. 15.
“But we decided we didn’t want”: “Reminiscences of Julian Stanley,” p. 39.
Mr. Acceleration: Benbow and Lubinski, “Julian C. Stanley Jr.,” p. 252.
it was a “clumsy phrase”: Jablow, “Hopkins Students Who Skipped High School.”
“tragic waste of a rare national resource”: Ron Brandt, “On Mathematically Talented Youth: A Conversation with Julian Stanley,” Educational Leadership, November 1981, p. 101.
“High test scores at an early age”: Stanley, “Uses of Tests to Discover Talent,” pp. 5–6.
“For example, skills such as idea generation”: Peter V. McGinn, “Verbally Gifted Youth: Selection and Description,” in Keating, Intellectual Talent Research and Development, pp. 179–80.
“vacuous talk about creativity”: “Reminiscences of Julian Stanley,” pp. 36, 47–49.
his “mathe
matical wizards”: “Education: Smorgasbord for an IQ of 150,” Time, June 6, 1977.
More teens were in the pipeline: Stanley, “Uses of Tests to Discover Talent,” p. 10.
“Our goal,” he declared elsewhere: Brandt, “On Mathematically Talented Youth,” p. 105.
“most productive years”: “Education: Smorgasbord for an IQ of 150.”
“a precious human-capital resource”: Harrison J. Kell, David Lubinski, and Camilla P. Benbow, “Who Rises to the Top? Early Indicators,” Psychological Science 24, no. 5 (2013): 648.
“We’re not a talent development group”: “Reminiscences of Julian Stanley,” p. 108.
book of Guinness World Records: Ibid., pp. 90–91.
“Scientists are stable introverts”: “Education: Smorgasbord for an IQ of 150.”
“discomfited socially”: Wainer and Robinson, “Profiles in Research,” p. 233.
“I try to appear as normal as possible”: “Education: Smorgasbord for an IQ of 150.”
“ ‘maladjustment’ disappeared completely”: Jenkins, “Express Route to Learning Fashioned for the Precocious.”
“Given that you have the raw ability”: Jablow, “Hopkins Students Who Skipped High School.”
“they were willing to defer”: Isaacson, Steve Jobs, p. 11.
The therapist’s verdict after a year: Isaacson, The Innovators, p. 315.
“not socially well-adjusted”: Jonathan Edwards, interview by author, September 22, 2010.
“drank the Kool-Aid”: Ibid.
“I know I could do very well”: Jablow, “Hopkins Students Who Skipped High School.”
“if I hadn’t gone to college”: Edwards interview.
“You really have to be great”: Jablow, “Hopkins Students Who Skipped High School.”
“let loose in wonderland”: Edwards interview.
“People imagine that programming”: Ellen Ullman, “Out of Time: Reflections on the Programming Life,” in James Brook and Iain Boal, eds., Resisting the Virtual Life: The Culture and Politics of Information (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1995), p. 131.
“hard core”: Wallace and Erickson, Hard Drive, p. 30.
“day and night”: Ibid., p. 22.
“tried to be normal”: Ibid., p. 35.
“monetary benefits”: Ibid., p. 43.
relieved not to have to deal: Bates interview.
“It was just obvious”: Melissa Hendricks, “Yesterday’s Whiz Kids: Where Are They Today?,” Johns Hopkins University Magazine, June 1997.
the Go and chess games: Wallace and Erickson, Hard Drive, p. 36.
collaborating with assorted graduate students: Edwards interview.
Joe hadn’t in fact yet dared to date: Bates interview.
“An act of taking dictation”: Ullman, “Out of Time,” p. 132.
“romantic view”: Edwards interview. Quotations in the following paragraphs are also from this interview.
“the fusion of flower power and processor power”: Isaacson, Steve Jobs, p. 57.
“The kids who went to Stanford”: Ibid., p. 33.
the mantra on the back cover: Ibid., p. 59.
“making some big change”: Edwards interview.
Joe decided to carry on: Bates interview.
As Stanley’s Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth: Julian C. Stanley, “Radical Acceleration: Recent Educational Innovation at JHU,” Gifted Child Quarterly 22, no. 1 (Spring 1978): 62–67.
“An alien, a Martian plopped down”: Edwards interview.
Cybernetics claimed a spot: Isaacson, The Innovators, p. 272.
working on mainframes at nearby Honeywell: Wallace and Erickson, Hard Drive, p. 59.
“prodded me to grow up”: Edwards interview.
“mathematical, Spartan feel”: Patti Hartigan, “Young and Brilliant, Blessed and Cursed,” Boston Globe Magazine, March 6, 2005.
“big, philosophical decisions”: Hendricks, “Yesterday’s Whiz Kids.”
“the room for the wild stuff”: Edwards interview.
“decided that computers were”: Hendricks, “Yesterday’s Whiz Kids.”
paving the way for automating: Teletype machines were replaced by computer networks, punch cards made way for computer screens, and an online database turned nightly accounting into a relic of the past. These innovations paved the way for many automating practices in business in the 1980s. Jonathan Edwards to author, December 8, 2011.
“that if I made one mistake”: Hartigan, “Young and Brilliant, Blessed and Cursed.”
“gave my kind a way to live”: Edwards interview.
“By 1979 we of SMPY were nearly exhausted”: Stanley, “A Quiet Revolution,” p. 11.
“It usually takes a viable idea”: “Reminiscences of Julian Stanley,” p. 71.
“propitious zeitgeist”: Stanley, “A Quiet Revolution,” p. 9.
Meritocratic pressure had been on the rise: Jillian Kinzie et al., “Fifty Years of College Choice: Social, Political and Institutional Influences on the Decision-making Process,” Lumina Foundation for Education, New Agenda Series 5, no. 3 (September 2004): 22–30.
“the typical French camp”: “Reminiscences of Julian Stanley,” p. 44.
“encourage participants to be”: Julian C. Stanley, “An Academic Model for Educating the Mathematically Talented,” Gifted Child Quarterly 35, no. 1 (Winter 1991): 38.
“It was a wonder beyond any experience”: Matthew Belmonte, “On Leaving CTY,” 1998, http://www.mattababy.org/CTY/People/leaving_cty.html.
“hot topic”: “Reminiscences of Julian Stanley,” p. 57.
“personal project, if not a passion”: Benbow and Lubinski, “Julian C. Stanley Jr.,” p. 252.
“700–800 on SAT-M Before Age 13 Group”: Stanley, “Some Characteristics of SMPY’s ‘700–800 on SAT-M,” pp. 205–6. In 1991, SMPY was renamed the Study of Exceptional Talent.
By 1983, he and a collaborator: Camilla Persson Benbow and Julian C. Stanley, “Sex Differences in Mathematical Reasoning Ability: More Facts,” Science 222 (December 2, 1983): 1030.
That a gap existed: Among students who scored 600 or higher in the Johns Hopkins regional search, boys outnumbered girls by a ratio of 4.1 to 1; at 500 and above, it was 2.1 to 1; at 700 and above, it was 13 to 1. Ibid.
“need to be investigated by other people”: “Reminiscences of Julian Stanley,” p. 70.
“because of the hormones”: David A. Vise and Mark Malseed, The Google Story (New York: Delacorte Press, 2005), p. 18.
a rendition of “American Pie”: Meghan O’Rourke, “My Summers at Nerd Camp,” Slate, July 20, 2006. See also Bilger, “Nerd Camp.”
“Those Asian American Whiz Kids”: David Brand et al., “The New Whiz Kids: Why Asian Americans are Doing So Well, and What It Costs Them,” Time, August 31, 1987.
that attitude especially inspired her: “Bionic Woman,” NOVA ScienceNOW, July 1, 2008.
“wealth of facilitative options”: Stanley, “Reflections from Julian Stanley.” See also Linda E. Brody, “The Study of Exceptional Talent,” High Ability Studies 16, no. 1 (June 2005): 88.
“tennis factory” model: Barry McDermott, “He’ll Make Your Child a Champ,” Sports Illustrated, June 9, 1980.
unnecessarily “flamboyant”: Hendricks, “Yesterday’s Whiz Kids.”
“think that I’m actually cute”: Yoky Matsuoka, interview by author, November 15, 2010.
daughters of Asian-born-and-educated parents: Linda Boliek Barnett and William G. Durden, “Education Patterns of Academically Talented Youth,” Gifted Child Quarterly 37, no. 4 (Fall 1993): 163.
“more nerdy interests than most”: Ken Auletta, Googled: The End of the World as We Know It (New York: Penguin, 2010), p. 30.
“Oh, I’m one of those men”: Matsuoka interview, November 15, 2010.
“embrace her inner geek”: “Bionic Woman,” NOVA ScienceNOW.
“if he was taking any advanced courses”: Auletta, Googled, p. 31.
“I tr
ied so many different things”: Vise and Malseed, The Google Story, p. 29.
stereotype threat: See Claude M. Steele and Joshua Aronson, “Stereotype Threat and the Intellectual Test Performance of African Americans,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69, no. 5 (1995): 797–811.
the pathbreaking roboticist Rodney Brooks: Joseph Guinto, “Machine Man: Rodney Brooks,” Boston Magazine, November 2014.
a brain-linked artificial hand: In the early 1960s, recovering from hip surgery, Norbert Wiener had generated ideas about a brain-operated artificial limb, which inspired work on the “Boston arm.” “Boston Elbow (‘Arm’) Prototypes, Robert Mann, 1966–1973,” MIT Museum, n.d., http://museum.mit.edu/150/10.
Still, she thought her path: Yoky Matsuoka, interviews by author, November 15 and 16, 2010. See also Amy Hodson Thompson, “Cogito Conversation: Yoky Matsuoka,” Cogito.org, September 28, 2009, accessed in 2009.
math is only for geniuses: Jordan Ellenberg, a student tracked by Stanley’s SMPY, made this point in “The Wrong Way to Treat Child Geniuses,” Wall Street Journal, May 30, 2014.
verdicts on their potential: See Carol S. Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (New York: Ballantine Books, 2008), pp. 78–79, on women’s tendency to trust other people’s opinions too much.
she shared thoughts in a 2009 interview: Thompson, “Cogito Conversation: Yoky Matsuoka.”
a tripling over the course of two decades: Stephen J. Ceci and Wendy M. Williams, The Mathematics of Sex: How Biology and Society Conspire to Limit Talented Women and Girls (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 155. The 13:1 ratio of boys to girls in the above 700M group in 1983 had become a 3.2:1 ratio in 2005. In other words, girls’ representation in that cohort had more than tripled, rising from 7 percent to almost 24 percent. The near parity of boys’ and girls’ scores in other countries made further increases among girls in the United States seem likely. See Janet S. Hyde and Janet E. Mertz, “Gender, Culture, and Mathematics Performance,” PNAS 106, no. 22 (June 2, 2009).
“I am very interested in changing”: Thompson, “Cogito Conversation: Yoky Matsuoka.”
“all heart” to his “all brains”: Hartigan, “Young and Brilliant, Blessed and Cursed.”
“many years of toil and tears”: Jonathan Edwards, “I Scare Myself,” Alarming Development (blog), February 8, 2016, http://alarmingdevelopment.org/?p=1049.