Leo Batauta just posted this super-smart post on education which seems especially important in these days of state control of learning. My friends Laurel Kenner and Dusty Sojourner have also recently written very interesting articles on the subject.

The issue of indoctrination is a major one for chess players and traders because both these pursuits require a spirit of independence to reach higher levels. More conventional spheres could also do with this trait as  it could be that the best achievers are weeded out before they have a chance to show their originality. Einstein, for example, failed miserably at school which makes me wonder how many other Einsteins might have been lost in the wash. In his Education of a Speculator Victor Niederhoffer recounts his problems with the random walk movement and the ferocity with which the established view was defended.

In many ways it’s a relief that my son is showing the same kind of hog-on-ice like independence as I did, perhaps even more so because I probably tend to encourage it without particularly realising. Thinking about it now at a more conscious level I figure I should be giving him space and the resources to explore the world on his terms. And I try to encourage my chess students to do the same.