I’m curious if you have any follow-up to your proposed math/programming strategy. I’m sure you could write a book on parenting but just a few bullet points would be really interesting e.g., what was hard/easy, what worked/didn’t, what you’d do differently etc.
Also it’d be great if you could help me understand why this blurb claims Laszlo wrote this book “[w]ell before having children”.
My educational plans have mostly failed. I work on two projects in parallel at my job, and I have two kids at home, which means that my usual day is working on this, working on that, going outside with the kids, preparing food for the kids, doing dishes, playing with the kids, reading a bedtime story… somehow the entire day passes without a quiet moment to think, and then it is evening and I am too tired to do something other than browse the web, exercise, and go sleep. So, many things that I planned to do, I did not. The COVID-19 situation only made it worse, as the kindergartens were closed. Yeah, I am also making excuses, a more organized person than me surely could do more, but I am at my limits.
So, my older daughter, currently 6, can write on a computer, and use some simple applications such as VLC media player. She played a few games, so she knows how to use arrows, etc. But the typical use of computer is either painting, or watching cartoons with her younger sister. In math, she can do addition, understands the concept of “half”, and distinguishes odd and even numbers. Nice, but really nothing extraordinary.
I didn’t complete any of those educational programs I imagined. (Note for my next reincarnation: such projects need to be completed before the kids are born. Later, there is not enough time and focus.)
Also it’d be great if you could help me understand why this blurb claims Laszlo wrote this book “[w]ell before having children”.
His first daughter Susan was born in 1969, the book was published in 1989, that is twenty years later. Also, the book describes many things in past tense. So… dunno, perhaps the reviewer wanted to say that parts of the book contain beliefs that author had before the kids were born? Or maybe someone else said that, and then the information passed through the game of telephone?
I don’t know how else someone could write a book “well before having children” that would describe specific problems his children had with government and chess institutions.
Are you familiar with any of Laszlo’s work that was written before his children had reached such great “successes”?
According to Wikipedia, Bring up Genius! was his first book. (The Hungarian page mentions way more publications than the English page, but both agree that he started with this one.) The other books seem to be mostly about chess problems, although it is difficult to tell exactly, if the only thing I have is the title of the book… and a page of some Hungarian book shop that only says the book is out of print.
By the way, looking for books written by “Polgár”, I noticed that two of his daughters also wrote some books, but those books also seem to be about chess only. For a non-professional perhaps the most interesting is Chess Training Guide for Teachers and Parents by Susan Polgar, which seems like an outline of the method László used to introduce the girls to chess; that is, start with the empty board, introduce Pawn, Pawn-only problems, introduce Rook, Pawn-and-Rook problems, etc.
Thanks for providing this pareto translation!
I’m curious if you have any follow-up to your proposed math/programming strategy. I’m sure you could write a book on parenting but just a few bullet points would be really interesting e.g., what was hard/easy, what worked/didn’t, what you’d do differently etc.
Also it’d be great if you could help me understand why this blurb claims Laszlo wrote this book “[w]ell before having children”.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20877035-bring-up-genius
Are you familiar with any of Laszlo’s work that was written before his children had reached such great “successes”?
My educational plans have mostly failed. I work on two projects in parallel at my job, and I have two kids at home, which means that my usual day is working on this, working on that, going outside with the kids, preparing food for the kids, doing dishes, playing with the kids, reading a bedtime story… somehow the entire day passes without a quiet moment to think, and then it is evening and I am too tired to do something other than browse the web, exercise, and go sleep. So, many things that I planned to do, I did not. The COVID-19 situation only made it worse, as the kindergartens were closed. Yeah, I am also making excuses, a more organized person than me surely could do more, but I am at my limits.
So, my older daughter, currently 6, can write on a computer, and use some simple applications such as VLC media player. She played a few games, so she knows how to use arrows, etc. But the typical use of computer is either painting, or watching cartoons with her younger sister. In math, she can do addition, understands the concept of “half”, and distinguishes odd and even numbers. Nice, but really nothing extraordinary.
I didn’t complete any of those educational programs I imagined. (Note for my next reincarnation: such projects need to be completed before the kids are born. Later, there is not enough time and focus.)
His first daughter Susan was born in 1969, the book was published in 1989, that is twenty years later. Also, the book describes many things in past tense. So… dunno, perhaps the reviewer wanted to say that parts of the book contain beliefs that author had before the kids were born? Or maybe someone else said that, and then the information passed through the game of telephone?
I don’t know how else someone could write a book “well before having children” that would describe specific problems his children had with government and chess institutions.
According to Wikipedia, Bring up Genius! was his first book. (The Hungarian page mentions way more publications than the English page, but both agree that he started with this one.) The other books seem to be mostly about chess problems, although it is difficult to tell exactly, if the only thing I have is the title of the book… and a page of some Hungarian book shop that only says the book is out of print.
By the way, looking for books written by “Polgár”, I noticed that two of his daughters also wrote some books, but those books also seem to be about chess only. For a non-professional perhaps the most interesting is Chess Training Guide for Teachers and Parents by Susan Polgar, which seems like an outline of the method László used to introduce the girls to chess; that is, start with the empty board, introduce Pawn, Pawn-only problems, introduce Rook, Pawn-and-Rook problems, etc.