111111111 × 11111 = 1234555554321
111111111 × 111111 = 12345666654321
111111111 × 1111111 = 123456777654321
111111111 × 11111111 = 1234567887654321
111111111 × 111111111 = 12345678987654321
MY THIRD WEEK AT SCHOOL
27 September
Today as soon as I got into class Miss Lewis took me to one side and said, ‘Stephen, I want you to make a real effort to be a cooperative member of the class.’
I said it was hardly necessary to remind me of this as Dr. Bandura had underlined the importance of cooperative behaviour. Miss Lewis said, ‘Good.’
28 September
Today when I got to school Miss Lewis said it was important for people to do their own work and what was she to think when she found that five other children had 111 × 111 and 1111 × 1111 and 11111 × 11111 on their addition sheets. I said they would appear to have used the distributive principle of multiplication. Miss Lewis said I must understand that it was important for people to work at their own rate. I said I did understand. Miss Lewis said, ‘Good.’
I worked out that I have spent 12 days in school which is 84 hours so I could have read 8400 lines of the Odyssey. I could have read Herodotus or ad Nicoclem or Cyropaedia and Memorials of Socrates. I could have finished Algebra Made Easy. I could have started Calculus Made Easy. I could have mastered all the Japanese characters thoroughly.
The thing that is worrying me is that J. S. Mill did not go to school. He was taught by his father and that was why he was 25 years ahead of everybody else.
I decided to take the Argonautica to school.
29 September
Today I took the Argonautica to school. Miss Lewis took it away and made me take it home again at the end of the day.
30 September
Today I could have read Book 2 of the Argonautica.
1 October
Today I could have read Book 3 of the Argonautica.
2 October
Today was Saturday. I read Book 1 of the Argonautica. It is longer than I thought. I read up to line 558 and I mastered 30 Japanese characters thoroughly and the rest of the time I practised tying knots.
3 October
Today was Sunday. I read Book 1 of the Argonautica up to line 1011 and I mastered another 30 Japanese characters and I practised some more knots and I read Half Mile Down.
MY FOURTH WEEK AT SCHOOL
4 October
Today I could have finished the Argonautica.
3
9999997= 999993000020999965000034999979000006999999
11 October, 1993
Today Miss Lewis gave me a note to take to Sibylla. She said this could not go on.
I gave the note to Sibylla and I do not know what it said but I do not think Miss Lewis told her what really happened. Sibylla read the note and she said, ‘What!’ and then she looked at me and said, ‘Well, you must feel good after throwing so many people around.’
I said, ‘Well, do you want me to go and die? Do you want me to jump out a window?’
Sibylla said now that I was 6 I was old enough to act like a rational human being.
I said Miss Lewis told me to be a cooperative member of the class but when I tried to help people she said they should do their own work but when I tried to do my own work and take Algebra Made Easy to class she said I should try to be more involved and be a cooperative member of the class. I said, ‘We are supposed to be working at our own speed but whenever I try she tells me to stop and whenever I ask a question she does not know the answer. She does not know anything I do not know already so I don’t think there is any point in going to school.’
Sibylla said, ‘But you’ve only been at school a month. How do you know Miss Lewis doesn’t know anything you don’t know? You can’t possibly make up your mind on so little evidence.’
I said, ‘Well, how much more evidence do you need?’
Sibylla said, ‘What?’
I said, ‘How much more evidence? Do you want me to go for another week or another two weeks or how long?’
Sibylla said, ‘I think you are legally required to go until you are 16.’
Sibylla said, ‘Please don’t cry,’ but at first I couldn’t stop. No wonder Miss Lewis doesn’t know anything because we have to go whether she knows anything or not.
I said, ‘Let’s take two people about to undergo 10 years of horrible excruciating boredom at school, A dies at the age of 6 from falling out a window and B dies at the age of 6 + n where n is a number less than 10, I think we would all agree that B’s life was not improved by the additional n years.’
Sibylla started walking up and down.
I said, ‘I could just take some books and ride the Circle Line or go to a museum by myself every day. Or I could take the bus over to the Royal Festival Hall and work there, and I could save up my questions and you could just explain things for an hour a day.’
Sibylla said, ‘I’m sorry but you are too small to go out by yourself.’
I said I could work here and I wouldn’t be in the way. I said, ‘What if I promised to ask just 10 questions a day and only at one time it would hardly take any time at all.’
Sibylla said, ‘No.’
I said 5 questions which was still more than Miss Lewis ever answered and Sibylla shook her head and I said, ‘Well, I won’t ask any questions ever again, if I ever ask a question you can make me go back to school but I promise I won’t.’
Sibylla just said she was sorry.
I said, ‘What kind of argument is that?’
Sibylla said, ‘There is an argument but it is not one I can discuss with you. You will have to go to school and do the best you can.’
She said she would go and talk to Miss Lewis tomorrow after school.
12 October, 1993
Today Sibylla came after school to talk to Miss Lewis. Miss Lewis said I should go to the other end of the class but Sibylla said, ‘No.’
Miss Lewis said, ‘All right, then.’ She said I was a disruptive element in the class. She said there were other things in life besides academic achievement and that often children who had been forcefed at an early age had trouble adjusting to their peers and were often socially maladjusted all their lives.
‘La formule est banale,’ I said.
Miss Lewis said, ‘That will do, Stephen.’ She said she was prepared to adapt the programme to stimulate a gifted child but that it must be made clear to me that whatever my achievements they did not give me the right to disrupt the class and interfere with the learning process of the other children. She said that whenever I was in a group with other children she invariably found that the other children had failed to remain on task. She said she would make every effort to integrate me into the class but that she could not do this if everything she tried to achieve during the day was undermined as soon as I went home, and that it would only work if there was a genuine partnership between home and school.
I said, ‘Does that mean I don’t have to go to school any more?’
Sibylla said, ‘Lu— Stephen. We can’t, that is even if I wanted you to stop working with Miss Lewis which I don’t we can’t afford to hire people who know about quantum mechanics and we especially can’t afford it on £5.50 an hour.’
I said, ‘Although the capacity to think vastly expands human capabilities, if put to faulty use, it can also serve as a major source of personal distress. Many human dysfunctions and torments stem from problems of thought. This is because, in their thoughts, people often dwell on painful pasts and on perturbing futures of their own invention. They burden themselves with stressful arousal through anxiety-provoking rumination. They debilitate their own efforts by self-doubting and other self-defeating ideation. They constrain and impoverish their lives through phobic thinking.’