Other ultralearners shed the conventional structures of exams and degrees altogether. Trent Fowler, starting in early 2016, embarked on a yearlong effort to become proficient in engineering and mathematics.

Directness is the practice of learning by directly doing the thing you want to learn. Basically, it’s improvement through active practice rather than through passive learning. The phrases learning something new and practicing something new may seem similar, but these two methods can produce profoundly different results. Passive learning creates

Scott’s projects that resonated with me on a deeper level: he had a bias toward action.

He had catapulted to internet fame one year prior by learning the entire MIT undergraduate computer science curriculum and passing all of the final tests in less than a year—four years’ worth of classes in under twelve months. I had seen the TEDx Talk summarizing

Scott Young

Using what he described as the “Socratic method” for chess, posing questions his girls must answer instead of telling them to remember a presolved solution, he was using the right method to encourage the expansion of their memory and understanding.

Finally, László was entirely against coercing learning. Self-discipline, motivation, and commitment, he felt, must come from the girls themselves. He explained, “One thing is certain: one can never achieve serious pedagogical results, especially at a high level, through coercion.”16 He also felt that “one of the most important educational tasks is

However, it is important to keep in mind as László insisted that “play is not the opposite of work” and “a child does not need play separate from work, but meaningful action,” adding “learning presents them with more enjoyment than a sterile game.”13 Play and work combined in the Polgárs’ approach to learning, with no rigid boundary between them.

The obsession into chess, therefore, was clearly something fostered, rather than imposed. At the same time, their participation in the experiment wasn’t exactly voluntary. László had dreamed up his goal of raising geniuses before knowing whether his children would consent to the program, so it was not a case of each daughter discovering for herself