Intellectual Skills Are Not Number One
History provides us with numerous examples of artistic, musical and scholastic geniuses whose childhood educations stressed intellectual achievement. These noteworthy people were not necessarily happy, as their lives and often premature deaths indicate. Mozart, Beethoven and Nietzsche immediately come to mind as examples of the kind of tragedies which can result when education overemphasizes intellectual training.
Such unhappy lives have caused many parents to shy away from educational programs designed for "gifted" children, or to encourage more rapid learning at an early age. The following quote sums up their feelings nicely; "Being regarded as a genius or at the least a very talented child doesn't mean much. I will be happy if my child can lead an ordinary but happy life rather than the difficult life of genius."
I cannot help but concur with this opinion in so far as it relates intellectual training only. However, the kind of early education I am proposing has very little to do with training in specific skills or preparation for intellectual performance in later life; though an individual who is appropriately educated at an early age may go on to produce brilliant work later.
The first and most important lesson a child must learn is love. From this basic principle all other aspects of a child's personality will flow naturally, develop to their fullest potential, just as the tomato plant flourished with enough sunshine and nutrients. Thus a baby's character is not simply a genetic formula following an inexorable course, but a highly sensitive and malleable entity which responds to and interacts with its environment. The problem with our educational systems today is that they focus almost entirely on a child's intellectual growth and neglect his or her human side. True education can only be accomplished when children are given both mental and emotional nutrition. Nurturing is especially important to a developing personality during the pre-verbal period of life.
