Maybe Wole was a Child Prodigy

Much has been said recently in class over the subject of Wole’s highly sophisticated account of his childhood. While we can be certain that his stories have been embellished, as they are told from the mental perspective of a Nobel prize winning author, I don’t consider it outrageous to believe that maybe Wole was an extremely intelligent three year old. After all, we are aware that his childhood is unique, and looking up to his father means glorifying those books and news papers which his father’s life revolves around. Universally, for most of youth culture across the world, school and schoolteachers take on forms that are authoritative and unappealing. There are exceptions, we all hold dear are favorite teachers and professors, however more than often we all have tales of figures in our educational experience that we didn’t like, sometimes if these figures are from our early education they may take on monstrous and mythical proportions. Wole’s experience is far from the norm. While most kids can agree that they would rather be at an amusement park then in a classroom, I get the feeling that Wole doesn’t fit this same mold. His fascination with books and other classroom materials is evidence of the unique personality and intense curiosities that have fostered as a result of his upbringing as the headmasters son. “Not feel like coming to school!” (25) Wole can’t imagine that kids his age aren’t in hurry to start school, and at the beginning of novel, he is unaware that books and maps are anything but tools for human amusement and pleasure. His curious appetite is, I believe, what separates him from your regular three year old, and makes his depictions believable. “In addition, I had made some vague, intuitive connection between school and the piles of books with which my father appeared to commune so religiously in the front room, and which had to be constantly snatched from me as my hands grew long enough to reach them on the table.” (pg. 25) Not all three year olds are cable of these kind of reflective intellectual insights, however not everyone goes on to win the Nobel prize either. Today in class, Professor Snehal made a Tiger Woods analogy, so allow me to make one of my own that has little to do with the adult Tiger but more to do with the child prodigy golfer. Tiger, like Wole, had a towering father figure in his life, one that he looked up to and emulated, and during his childhood he had an extremely mature golf game. So at the time other kids where learning to color within the lines, Tiger was sinking 18-foot putts that grown men who’ve played golf their whole life have yet to develop the skill to execute. So like the Tiger we remember before his days as a TMZ staple, maybe Wole is indeed simply special, and uniquely gifted.