László Polgár
László Polgár (born 11 May 1946) is a Hungarian chess teacher and educational psychologist. He is the father of the famous Polgár sisters: Zsuzsa, Zsófia, and Judit, whom he raised to be chess prodigies, with Judit and Zsuzsa becoming the best and second-best female chess players in the world, respectively. Judit is widely considered the greatest female chess player ever, as she is the only woman to have been ranked in the top 10 worldwide, while Zsuzsa became the Women’s World Chess Champion.
I always look up famous peoples’ parents and children on Wikipedia, if there are any links. László is the kind of anomaly that he seems like a semi-regular scientist guy but every one of his children have Wikipedia pages, one quite long (the strongest female chess player in world).
Maybe the most amazing this is just how early he planned all of it:
In 1965 Polgár “conducted an epistolary courtship with a Ukrainian foreign language teacher named Klara.” In his letters, he outlined the pedagogical project he had in mind. In reading those biographies, he had “identified a common theme—early and intensive specialization in a particular subject.” Certain that “he could turn any healthy child into a prodigy,” he “needed a wife willing to jump on board.” He and Klara married in the USSR, whereupon she moved to Hungary to be with him.
I actually think that the experiment is huge. The main, probably the only problem with the world is that people aren’t smart nor civilized enough to live in harmony, and work Polgár’s work is almost direct proof that you can strongly shape children with education.
Comments about László Polgár’s experiment to teach his 3 daughters chess (and being wildly successful at it):
And he didn’t have a control kid?
This is why I’m not allowed to have twins.