The highly intelligent child must learn to suffer fools gladly — not sneeringly, not angrily, not despairingly, not weepingly — but gladly if personal development is to proceed successfully in the world as it is.
— Leta Hollingworth, 1942 [emphasis added]
London, September 2018.
It’s the start of a new school year. A thirteen-year-old boy with an ill-fitting blazer and a fuzzy top lip shuffles into my first philosophy class of the term. He has messy black hair and big, dark eyes. He’s by far the shortest in the class. Eyes down, he makes his way to a front desk without any attempt at human interaction. A nervous air hangs over him. Teenagers quickly pick up on oddballs, and I wonder, as he glides through like a ghost, if they already intuit that this boy is strange. Under his arm is a tattered book, the size catches my eye. This isn’t an academically selective school — my expectation is smartphones, not tomes. He takes a seat and places the book face down on the desk. I twist my neck to see its spine, then I begin with the usual question: what is philosophy? His hand shoots up: “The etymology is from the Greek philos, meaning love, and sophos, meaning wisdom, so love of wisdom.” In this first lesson, the boy will — literally squeaking with enthusiasm — raise his hand for every question. He does that thing eager kids do where they hover slightly above their chair, almost hyperextend their arm, and stare at you until you either relent or ask someone else. The boy’s name is Georgios. A few weeks later, he will have locked himself in the bathroom. He will be crying and unable to say why.