How to Raise a Genius

Chaperoned a field trip to the Jelly Belly Factory with my daughter’s 3rd-grade class. The young man assigned to escort us on the tour misquoted a brilliant saying by one of my favorite icons.

The guide delivered his canned speech, spoke of how long and complex the process to make even one single jellybean, but that nothing great ever came easily, “as the inventor, Thomas Edison said: ‘Genius is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration.’”

But that is NOT what Tom said. He said, “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.”

So what is my issue with the mere 9% our tour guide misquoted?

Mr. Thomas Alva Edison was trying to tell us that to get good (‘genius’) at ANYTHING takes HARD WORK (‘perspiration’), and a lot of it. He should know. It took him, and an educated team of men many years and over 5,000 exploded glass bulbs to invent the light bulb.

Still, you say, it’s only 9%. The 8 yr old kids the tour guide was talking to didn’t even know what ‘percent’ meant. And while this may be true, there were 15 adults with the pack of 40 kids the guide was leading. And the parents understood. Most had probably never heard the quote before. It is somewhat obscure, which is a shame because it is an astounding insight. What the tour guide misquoted did not communicate the gravity of Mr. Edison’s meaning.

At the beginning of the 4th grade our son failed several math tests in a row, and upon inquiry, we found he didn’t understand the material. When asked why he…