The Boy Who Played with Fusion

by Tom Clynes

  The Davidsons sold their original company in 1997. Looking for a way to put their fortune and experience to work to influence school reform, they spent more than two years reviewing education research. In 1999, the answer came when Bob read a newspaper story at their retirement home in Lake Tahoe. It was about a five-year-old in Maryland who was reading at an eleventh-grade level, but the schools said he had to start school in kindergarten. “Imagine that!” he says, outrage creeping into his voice. “You’ve got this genius kid and these parents trying to advocate for him so he can reach his potential, and the schools are basically saying the bureaucracy is more important than the child.”

  The couple decided that education for profoundly gifted children would be their target mission, reasoning that the population was small enough that they could make a significant impact. In 1999 the Davidsons launched a Young Scholars program that now provides mentorship and advocacy to about three thousand U.S. scholars who qualify with standardized test scores in the 99.9th percentile or IQs of at least 145. They followed that with the Davidson Fellows, a sort of junior MacArthur grant for children, and the Think Summer Institute, which offers college courses for twelve- to fifteen-year-olds. They’ve also funded educational research and cowritten a book (with Laura Vanderkam) titled Genius Denied: How to Stop Wasting Our Brightest Young Minds. In 2006 they took their most audacious step yet when they opened Davidson Academy on the University of Nevada–Reno (UNR) campus. The school was a response to ongoing suggestions from parents of children in other Davidson programs that there was a need for a bricks-and-mortar school for their children so they could learn at an accelerated pace in the company of their intellectual peers and pursue the subjects they were passionate about. The academy was established as a subsidized, tuition-free public school for the profoundly gifted.

  Reno, not known for intellectual vigor, seems an unlikely location for a school for geniuses. But Jan says that when they surveyed parents of potential students, the consensus was “Wherever you put it, we’ll come.” The couple had political connections in Nevada, people who helped them get state education laws changed to allow their experimental school to teach almost any way it wanted, though the academy has to meet core curriculum requirements and participate in state testing.

  Jan and Bob also had connections with members of the University of Nevada–Reno’s leadership, who were open to having the academy on the campus. The couple spent $3.7 million converting the university’s former student union into a suitable space for their school, which accepted thirty-five students its first year; there are about 140 now.

  Students above the IQ or standardized-test threshold are invited to apply to the academy. Applicants then go through a demanding all-day assessment that weeds out about two-thirds of the candidates. About a third of the students relocated from out of state with their families to attend the academy.

  There are no quotas for ethnicity, financial need, or anything else; if the child demonstrates ability and the family is willing and able to come to Reno, the child is in. The school is, in many ways, a reaction to trends favoring equity over excellence, a subject that Bob will argue passionately about.

  “As a society, we are selectively elitist and anti-elitist. Certain types of childhood giftedness—such as athletic talent—are supported without question. But grouping and accelerating by intellectual ability is less palatable than grouping by athletic ability.” Parents understand that only a small fraction of young athletes will become professionals. “But with academics, achievement leads to success and privilege, and accelerated learning assists some people to become part of the privileged class. Parents are worried their children will be left behind, so they put equality over achievement. We’ve got to get beyond that. Equality is giving every child an opportunity to excel, not making everyone have the same percentage at hitting a free throw.”

  Tiffany and Kenneth found out about Davidson Academy after Kenneth’s daughter, Ashlee, came across a 2007 article about it in Time magazine and sent a copy to Texarkana. It looked interesting, but moving across the country—leaving behind family, friends, and two businesses—wasn’t something Tiffany and Kenneth wanted to do.

  “We have lots of roots in Arkansas, and we knew nothing about Reno,” Tiffany says. “But we could see the potential of this type of learning environment. Taylor was headed toward high school and he wanted to pursue his passion in nuclear science. And Joey was about to start sixth grade and we needed to find a more challenging school for him. We started to seriously consider it.”

  Tiffany and Kenneth decided to bring the boys to Reno, take a look around, and have Taylor and Joey tested for admission. But they agreed in advance that they’d consider going only if both boys were accepted.

  “We actually thought the most likely scenario was that Joey would get in but not Taylor,” says Tiffany, since Joey had always scored higher than Taylor on every standardized exam, from his kindergarten-readiness test to his ACT.

  But Joey wasn’t at all keen on moving. Even though he was miserable in school, he didn’t want to leave his friends behind. Taylor, however, loved the idea of hanging out with other science-focused kids and having access to courses and maybe even laboratories in the University of Nevada’s physics department, one of the strongest departments in what is not a particularly prestigious university. Taylor got even more excited when he found out that the department’s professors included Friedwardt Winterberg, a German-born theoretical physicist who had studied under Nobel Prize–winning quantum physicist Werner Heisenberg. Winterberg, whose main interest was nuclear fusion, had come to the U.S. through Operation Paperclip, which scooped up German scientists after the war. A noted theoretician, Winterberg had developed a concept for a nuclear fusion propulsion reactor for space travel.

  “When I read about that, I knew I wanted to go there,” Taylor says. “I couldn’t wait to meet him!”

  PART IV

  20

  * * *

  A Hogwarts for Geniuses

  ONCE THEY GOT WORD that both Taylor and Joey had been accepted to Davidson Academy, Tiffany and Kenneth considered the pros and cons and decided that it was worth the sacrifices they’d have to make to give their boys what seemed to be an outstanding educational opportunity. Kenneth asked his brother-in-law if he’d be willing to step in to run the Coke company, and Tiffany asked a friend if she’d like to take over for a while at her yoga studio and juice bar. Both said yes.

  “We thought maybe we could just do it as an experiment, an adventure for a year or two, then we’d come back,” Tiffany says.

  Two years later, Taylor and I drive north on Reno’s Virginia Street, passing under the arch that has long welcomed visitors to THE BIGGEST LITTLE CITY IN THE WORLD. Taylor, on the passenger side, flicks the hair out of his eyes and looks around as we continue up the gaudy strip, going by the casinos and through downtown and the porn district, past tattoo and piercing parlors.

  “At first we’d laugh when we drove through here. Joey and I would say, ‘Isn’t it funny that kids should have to see this stuff on the way to school?’ But I don’t mind; it’s just part of life here.”

  Taylor is looking forward to showing me around Davidson Academy and, especially, to introducing me to Elizabeth Walenta, his chemistry and physics teacher. “Actually, Ms. Walenta is kind of more of a colleague than a teacher,” Taylor tells me after we park and begin walking toward the UNR campus. “I come in and teach the classes sometimes, and recently I vetted the particle physics course at the university for her; I gave it the thumbs-up.”

  Apart from the fingerprint scanners at the door, Davidson Academy looks a lot like a typical high school or middle school, and the kids could easily be mistaken for suburban American students anywhere—until they open their mouths. It’s then that you realize that this is an exceptional place, a sort of Hogwarts for brainiacs. As these math whizzes, musical prodigies, and chess masters pass in the hallway, the banter flies in witty bursts, and you rarely hear the wo
rd like used more than once in a sentence. Inside humanities classrooms, discussions spin into sharp intellectual duels.

  “I thought maybe everyone would be nerdy, with no social skills,” Taylor says as we walk through the hallway. “But only maybe ten or twenty percent are like that. It’s been fantastic, socially.”

  Then again, it could be better. In the hallway, we run into Sofia Baig, an athletic, dark-haired girl on whom Taylor has a very public crush. Unfortunately, she has a very public, very steady boyfriend.

  “Hey!” Sofia says as she walks by, flashing a broad smile and playfully punching Taylor’s shoulder.

  Taylor turns and watches her walk away.

  “Hey!” he calls after her. “You’re awesome!”

  While Taylor attends his Critical Theory class, the school’s director, Colleen Harsin, shows me around, peeking into classes, stopping to talk with faculty and students. “These are kids who wanted to go above and beyond the standard classroom curriculum, but their schools lacked the resources or the motivation to let them. You’ll notice that classes move very fast here, and the kids demand that—so it takes a special kind of teacher.

  “Everyone has some sort of advanced obsession,” says Harsin, who wears bright print dresses and has the open but no-nonsense demeanor that tends to work well for principals in the upper grades. “Taylor is Mr. Nuclear, that’s his thing. We’ve got a ten-year-old in calculus, and a girl who just won the International Informatics Competition.”

  These are the kind of kids that a typical teacher might encounter once in an entire career. Their scores on standardized tests (the SAT, the ACT, or the EXPLORE) are in the top one-tenth of 1 percent. In most classes, children are working at least three grade levels above what they’d normally encounter at their age, and students are grouped according to ability rather than age. The main goal, Harsin says, is to be flexible and supportive so that students are not held back in their areas of passion. “If one of our students is ready to have space in a university laboratory and run grant-based experiments,” says Harsin, “they can do that.”

  Small class sizes allow instruction to be tailored to the students’ specific interests, with the goal of going deeper and integrating the subject matter into long-term pursuits. On Fridays, students explore unfamiliar subjects in elective courses like Astronomy, Neurophilosophy, and even Vampire Literature. “Considering that everyone’s so focused, that’s been really interesting, to watch them expand their intellectual horizons,” says Harsin. “I’ve seen a few discover a whole new passion and run with it.”

  The academy, which accepts students as young as nine, employs UNR honor students to accompany children under sixteen to classes at the university.

  “We used to call them escorts,” Harsin tells me. “But somebody suggested that, considering we’re in Reno, it might be better to call them chaperones. I immediately said yes to that idea.”

  There’s currently no other public school doing things quite this way, although some expensive private schools are similar. Most Davidson families are middle-class, but according to Harsin, “We have a few students who would qualify for free-lunch programs in other places.”

  For a teacher, a job at Davidson is a plum assignment. Not because the job pays particularly well (teachers here make the same scale as other Reno teachers but aren’t union members and don’t get tenure), but because the chance to teach a whole roomful of kids like these—so eager to learn and to explore—comes along so rarely.

  “It’s not the intelligence,” says English teacher Alanna Simmons, “it’s the energy and the curiosity, it’s where I can take them and they can take me and the chance to go to a place even bigger together. Call it a Utopian approach, but it actually happens here, every day. These kids are so smart and funny and cut through all the noise and bullshit that exists; it’s invigorating.”

  Humanities classes tend to be less age diverse than STEM classes, since ability in that arena is dependent on emotional trajectory and range of experience. In Taylor’s first year at the academy, he showed up in Simmons’s creative writing class. “He’s not what you’d think,” Simmons says. “People assume that he’s phoning it in in English, but it’s just the opposite; he’s energetic and passionate. And as a scientist, with critical theory he can come in and look at a work and analyze it and form a critique based on the knowledge-making framework of science. I hadn’t seen that before; it’s really original. Oh, and he loves to perform!”

  Christopher, a student hanging out in Simmons’s classroom, chimes in. “I love it when he does his Southern preacher voice. When you watch him, you say he should be an actor.”

  The long padded benches outside Harsin’s office are the primary hangout area. “I call it Shenanigan Central,” she says, watching her students clowning. “Some students struggled, socially, at their previous schools. Being around peers that they can relate to and making friends who think as quickly as they do is what most of them say is the best thing about Davidson. They’re used to being the smartest by far where they came from; some would formerly even dumb themselves down.”

  “I never felt like I had to dumb myself down, but you hear of kids having to do that,” says Sofia Baig. She and two of Taylor’s other friends are hanging out in Shenanigan Central with me, talking about Davidson and their former schools. “My parents came from India, and they were pretty aggressive at getting me into accelerated programs, summer programs, and things like that.” Sofia plays softball at the local high school, since there are no sports teams at Davidson. “I do notice, though, that when I’m with students from outside the school, in softball or something, I might use a word and I’ll see blank faces.”

  “At my old place, we never used higher concepts; they just never came up in conversation,” says Anthony “Biff” Fidaleo, another student. “Here, we don’t have to be conventional; we can study esoteric subjects and get in as deep as we want to.”

  “There are a lot of savants here,” says Tristan Rasmussen. “Biff has his math, and Taylor is obsessed with nukes. In fact, I’m completely convinced that Taylor is going to either win at least one Nobel Prize or be on the America’s Most Wanted list by the time he’s eighteen. Myself, I’m more of a polymath. I was actually functioning well at my old school, enjoying myself. But it was a breath of fresh air coming here. I can take anything I want at the university, so I have thousands of courses to choose from. The kids are interesting here. It’s a faster pace.”

  Biff, who has already maxed out on the highest math class at the university, is in a choir with Taylor and has taken biology classes at UNR with him. “Taylor is the most energetic person I know,” he says. “He loves discussion, he loves drama.”

  Sofia laughs. “He’ll come in on a Monday morning all breathless and say, ‘I almost died this weekend!’”

  Though humanities instruction is strong at Davidson, the academy tends to draw mostly STEM-focused kids. In contrast to most high schools, the kids who are not science nerds are the quirky minority. Davidson students say that by and large, the humanities classes at the university have proven to be disappointing.

  “In the history classes at UNR,” says Tristan, “the students don’t discuss; they will sit there. You may get more complex concepts, but the students are not inquisitive and it’s not much fun. When we do history here, it’s an exploration, it can be wild; everyone’s got an opinion and a question. The discussions are explosive.”

  Taylor comes out of his class looking fired up. “You missed a wild one!” he tells his friends. “Ulysses!”

  The bell rings. “Okay, off to study hall,” Tristan tells Biff, and the two trade high-fives, mocking the brainiac stereotype for my benefit. Taylor leads me through the halls and into the science lab.

  “Tom, meet Elizabeth Walenta,” he says. “I’m her star student.”

  Walenta looks up from her desk. “Actually, Taylor’s more of a teacher than a student at this point,” she says, not missing a beat. “He was my guest lecturer la
st week, talking about the structure of the atom.”

  “So, how are the kids doing on the periodic table?” Taylor asks, beginning to rifle through the room’s cabinets.

  “Really well,” she says. “How’s that molecular biology class at UNR?”

  “I’d give it a seven out of ten,” Taylor says.

  He finds a Crookes tube in a cabinet and hands it to me, telling me that it’s part of his personal collection that’s “sort of on loan” to the school.

  “Careful!” he says. “That’s a hundred years old. J. J. Thomson used one of those to discover electrons. Check it out; it still has vacuum integrity.

  “Anyway,” Taylor says, continuing to open and close drawers and cabinets, “y’all talk.”

  Walenta, who wears her hair in a long, no-nonsense braid, came to Reno from Irving, Texas. “With the kids here I don’t have to do as much repetition or modeling. I give them the basics, see if they can figure it out, and then they just take off.”

  Then again, she says, she misses the freedom to do more hands-on science. “Maybe it was a Texas thing,” she says. “You want to go and blow something up over in the field, you go and do it. We’d let kids make catapults and have them do their calculations, figure out angles, trajectory, wind speed, then use us teachers as their targets.

  “Some kids wanted to make dynamite; maybe that’s why I hit it off with Taylor. It’s harder here to find places to experiment Texas-style. We did try thermite, which created divots by the duck pond. UNR got mad at us.”