Parents,

If you are like me, you’ve heard of Julia Roberts, Taylor Swift, and Tom Brady.  These are the people who dominate popular culture and make news every day.  Kids idolize them because their skills make them seem larger than life.  Beyond that, kids idolize their wealth, their fame, and their accolades.  It is quite the lifestyle.

I wonder though, have you heard of Phil Baran, Ana Maria Rey, or Dina Katabi?  These three are far more amazing and deserve much more of our attention.  Phil is an organic chemist who is synthesizing complete compounds to make new drugs to help cure rare diseases.  Ana is an atomic physicist who is studying the properties of supercold atoms to understand how they interact.  Dina is a computer scientist who works to make wireless networks more secure and reliable.  Together, they are three of the 24 MacArthur Genius Award winners, given “….to talented individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction.”

Beyond the title and the accolades, all three and 21 others receive $625,000 to do with as they see fit.  But here’s the thing:  what makes these people amazing is that nearly all of them use the money not for fancy cars, diamond rings, and the like.  Instead they tend to pour it back into their own research, give it to charity, or donate it to a colleague who the see fit to support.

At Discovery Academy we are working to build an education for your children that instills in them the potential to be “geniuses.”  Geniuses who pursue research that might change the world.  Geniuses who make the impossible possible.  Geniuses who see a monetary gift as an opportunity to give of themselves.

-Mr. Reed-Swale