Einstein’s Advice on How to Maximize Your Child’s Intelligence Is Totally Unexpected

Albert Einstein may have been one of the greatest geniuses in history, but that didn’t mean he thrived at school.

Einstein didn’t get bad grades — that’s a myth — but he did intensely dislike the routine and rigor of his traditional German education. He skipped classes, argued with his teachers, and eventually dropped out of school in frustration at 15 to educate himself.

“It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry,” Einstein once wrote.

Einstein clearly didn’t think discipline, obedience, and long hours of cramming were the key to developing a mind to its fullest potential. So what did he recommend? The surprising answer is fairy tales.

Einstein to parents: Read more fairy tales to your kids.

Einstein’s advice to parents looking to develop their kids’ intellectual potential comes to us via a 1958 article in Montana Libraries in which the author, one Rita McDonald, recounts a story she heard about the great physicist. The Library of Congress dug up the old publication for its blog. It reads:

In Denver I heard a story about a…