The Genius Factory (Running in Reverse)

Every six-year-old knows they're a genius.

By twelve, most have forgotten.

This isn't natural. It's engineered.

We built a system that takes confident explorers and produces anxious permission-seekers. A factory that runs backwards, dismantling instead of building.

Watch a child before school gets them: They build impossible things. Ask unreasonable questions. Spend three hours perfecting paper airplanes.

Not because someone told them to. Because they can't help it.

Watch them after a few years of school: They raise their hand to speak. Wait for instructions. Ask "will this be on the test?"

The spark didn't die. We killed it.

With 35-minute periods that shatter focus.
With bells that teach them their time isn't theirs.
With tests that reward memorization over thinking.
With grades that measure obedience, not genius.

Parents know. They tell us: "Something changed. The light went out."

Of course it did.

You can't schedule genius for third period.
You can't grade wonder on a curve.
You can't standardize the unstandardizable.

But you can trust it.

At Flourish, a seven-year-old codes for three straight hours. Nobody stops him for "English class." He's writing documentation. That IS English.

A six-year-old mediates conflicts between older kids. Nobody elected her. She just decided someone should.

They run meetings. Launch businesses. Teach workshops. Fail spectacularly. Try again.

Not because we tell them to.
Because we don't tell them not to.

The traditional system asks: "How do we get kids to learn?"
Wrong question.

Kids ARE learning. Always. Relentlessly.

The question is: Will we let them?

Every child carries a specific genius. A particular way they'll dent the universe. Our job isn't to install it. It's already there.

Our job is to not destroy it.

Most schools can't help themselves. They're built to produce predictable outputs. Genius is, by definition, unpredictable.

We have a choice.

Keep pretending we can manufacture excellence through compliance.

Or admit the truth: The genius is already there.

Waiting.

All we have to do is get out of the way.

The world doesn't need more well-behaved test-takers.

It needs the genius we're busy extinguishing.

One bell at a time.