How 3 sisters who didn't go to school managed to become the smartest women in the world

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Their father once set out to raise geniuses. Such aspirations are not uncommon: many parents sin by transferring their unrealized ambitions to their children. But Laszlo Polgar did it all - his daughters became famous all over the world as the strongest female chess players. Home education and training, very early and intensive development, the coordination of actions of both parents and a warm atmosphere in the family - something like this turned out to be a recipe for success, available, according to Polgar, to almost everyone.

Sisters Zsuzhanna, Sofia and Judit

Judit Polgar, the youngest of the famous sisters, even before reaching adulthood, won tournaments of the best chess players on the planet. Precisely chess players, without a feminine, giving off a certain condescension towards female masters: Judit has always, with rare exceptions, played in men's tournaments. At 15 years and 5 months, she received the highest chess title - grandmaster, breaking Robert Fischer's record of thirty-three years: Fischer was a month older at the time of the title award.

Judit Polgar not only burst onto the chess Olympus at a young age, she consolidated her success step by step, gaining victories in tournaments, beating champions - among whom were Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov. Judit is recognized as the best chess player in history and is one of the ten best grandmasters in the world, where, besides her, there are no other representatives of the weaker sex.

The older sister, Susan or Zsuzhanna (Zhuzha), became the world chess champion in 1996 (we are talking about winning the women's championship). Zhuzha received the title of grandmaster among men at the age of twenty-two.

The achievements of the middle sister, Sofia, may seem modest compared to the other two Polgars, but she has inscribed her name in the history of chess. Sofia is an international master among men, she has been holding this title since 1990 (that is, from the age of sixteen) and a grandmaster among women, she successfully participated in major international chess competitions.

Each of these biographies deserves attention and, perhaps, admiration - after all, the passion for a career did not harm the Polgar sisters in their performance and classically "female" roles: all three created families and, as they wanted, joined the roles of motherhood and household. True, chess did not remain forgotten either: Susan is engaged in coaching and educational activities, Sofia is raising children with her grandmaster husband, Judit left chess and is also busy with her family, but, besides this, she devotes time to teaching and writing books. A series of publications for children - about chess, of course, was written by Judit together with her sister Sophia - she acted as an artist.

But something else is much more interesting - the achievements of these amazing sisters were the result of a special, innovative method of education and training, which was created by their father, Laszlo Polgar.

Experiment in the field of education

The geniuses Laszlo Polgar decided to raise children even before their birth - moreover, even before the marriage, which took place in 1967 and was the result of a correspondence relationship. Laszlo Polgar, or, in the Hungarian version, Polgar Laszlo (the last name precedes the first name), was born in 1946 into a Jewish family.

Already at a fairly young age, studying the biographies of thinkers and scientists of the past, Polgar came to the conclusion that from any child - provided that he is born healthy - a genius can be raised. Here I would like to assume that the young enthusiast immediately decided to experiment on his future children, but no: the first person raised by Laszlo was himself. It is worth noting that Polgar was in less favorable conditions relative to pupils of childhood: by the age of twenty, according to his own theory, the probability of achieving serious success in learning decreases to five percent.

Polgar studied pedagogy and philosophy at the university, attended psychology courses, studied Esperanto and taught himself in high school.

The chosen one of Laszlo Polgar was Clara Altberger, a resident of the Transcarpathian region of the Ukrainian SSR, also a teacher, who shared her views on pedagogy and education with her husband. The couple's first-born daughter was Zhuzha; she was born in 1969. The girl, like her sisters later, studied foreign languages from early childhood, including the artificial language of Esperanto.

And from the age of four, Zhuzha learned to play chess - and even before she turned five, she had already begun to win her first tournaments and beat her father, her teacher. Chess was chosen as an activity for a girl for the reason that it allowed seeing the results: victories in games and in competitions became an objective criterion of success.

Laszlo and Klara were unconditional adherents of home education - and in those years it was not easy. It was considered ideologically wrong to raise a child outside the school collective - after all, it was a question of the country of the socialist camp. We had to seek permission from officials - but the Polgars succeeded. This, however, did not protect the family from accusations of "stealing childhood."

In 1974, Sofia was born in the family, and two years later, Judit. Like their older sister, they studied at home and also played chess from an early age. Then came the time of tournaments - and Polgar insisted that girls take part in "men's" tournaments, because he was sure that it was necessary to learn and check their achievements by playing with strong opponents, and men's chess, whatever one may say, seriously outperformed women's chess. the level of competition.

The formula of happiness according to the Polgar family

Polgar also expounded his theses that talent can be brought up in a child in his books. Raising a genius - using the right motivation, instilling in the child the discipline, the habit of hard work and the willingness to achieve their goals - according to the Hungarian teacher, is a task that is quite feasible for the parents of a child from the civilized world. As components of the formula for happiness, he calls "work, love, freedom and luck", noting that luck loves those who work hard, and that it is easier for geniuses to be happy than ordinary people.

The reproaches that are addressed to the parents of the famous sisters are hardly justified - first of all, concerning the allegedly "lost childhood." Zhuzha, Sofia and Judit remember their early years with warmth, mentioning that the family was friendly and close-knit, and that going to chess tournaments was more an interesting travel experience than a burdensome duty.

Outside of competition, the life of the Polgar sisters was subject to a strict routine, which, in addition to chess, included physical education, and classes in languages, history, mathematics, physics. We lived in a modest apartment in the center of Budapest, where there were thousands of books about chess in a small living room, and not a day passed without a few hours at the board.

Laszlo Polgar became one of those, thanks to whom stereotypes about the secondary role of women not only in chess, but also in the intellectual life of society in general, became a thing of the past: the thesis that a genius woman cannot simultaneously build family happiness breaks down on Zsuzsa's biography. Sofia and Judit.

It would probably be naive to expect - in connection with the unusually increased popularity of home education in recent years - a genius generation of children, but, in any case, for those who set themselves the goal of raising a new Einstein, there is a good example of Laszlo Polgar.

You can, following the example of a Hungarian teacher, raise an Esperantist from childhood - that is, an Esperanto speaker: here how this language appeared 150 years ago.