Nature vs nurtureĪnecdotally, the aforementioned summary of the Polgár nature/nurture experiment doesn’t resonate a great deal with the general public. To test his pedagogical theory László implemented his strategies on each of his three daughters resulting in two of them becoming Grandmasters (GMs) in chess with the other daughter becoming an International Master. László subsequently hypothesized that if he took the right approach to child-rearing, he could turn 'any healthy newborn' into a genius provided that his educational experiments began before the child’s third birthday and provided that the child began to specialize in a domain by the age of six. After studying intelligence as a university student László concluded that the life stories of geniuses were all the same, “…they all started at a very young age and studied (a subject) intensively.”Īdditionally, he observed a discernible pattern - a parent singularly focused on the child’s success.

László was a Hungarian educational psychologist who had a longstanding belief that “Genius was made and not born”. Over 20 years ago I learned of a book called “Nevelj zsenit!” (Bring Up Genius!) by László Polgár. They seem to think that excellence is only open to others, not themselves.' - László Polgár as told to Matthew Syed in Bounce: Mozart, Federer, Picasso, Beckham, and the Science of Success

'Children have extraordinary potential, and it is up to society to unlock it … The problem is that people, for some reason, do not want to believe it.

How To Raise A Genius Book