October was extraordinary for recognizing and remembering true geniuses. Nobel Prize winners were announced, including one in our community: Saul Perlmutter, father of Noa (3rd) who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of distant supernovae that indicate our universe is expanding at an astonishing velocity.
I had the pleasure of greeting Noa when she arrived at school the day of her father’s announcement. “My dad won the Nobel Prize in Physics!” she exclaimed to me and whomever she encountered. Indeed, how many children are able to say that? At that moment, I had a glimpse into the impact that one person can make on the world, or—in Saul Perlmutter’s case—the universe.
The excitement and press releases surrounding the Nobel Prize belie the fact that behind this incredible achievement were many challenges and even failures. Saul Perlmutter and the scientists who share the award with him persevered through setbacks and unanticipated research outcomes before reaching their groundbreaking discovery. Stick-to-itiveness and a deep passion to wonder, explore, and learn kept Saul and his team on the path to scientific greatness.
The same week the Nobel laureates were named brought the passing of visionary businessman and inventor Steve Jobs. To say that Jobs changed the world is no understatement. Along with millions of people worldwide, I reflected on Jobs’ incredible brilliance and all the ways in which he personally is responsible for the way I live. Perhaps some of us should resent him for intruding on our lives with devices that are too beautifully designed to resist. Given his broad and deep reach into the lives of millions of people worldwide, one can’t help but to wonder how a person develops the skills to be so wildly successful.
I learned a great deal about Jobs by reading his 2005 commencement address to Stanford graduates. Not a college graduate himself, Jobs highlighted key aspects of his journey towards becoming a successful creator and businessman. In trying to find direction after dropping out of college for financial reasons, Jobs took local classes that interested him. One was calligraphy, where he learned about design of typefaces, space, and the history of calligraphy. A few years later, when he started Apple Computers, this calligraphy course inspired him to add beautiful typography into the design of the first Macintosh, a foundational step toward Apple’s reputation for design elegance.
Nonetheless, Jobs was fired from Apple. He described this period as crushing—and surprisingly freeing. In his commencement address, Jobs said, “It turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could ever have happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods in my life.” Jobs went on to new ventures, like Pixar, and eventually returned to Apple to revolutionize computing as we know it. And as they say, the rest is history.
We can certainly learn from real-life geniuses like Saul Perlmutter and Steve Jobs. Common threads that connect these two visionaries are:
- a deep and life-long passion for learning
- learning from failure
- discovering new ways to solve problems
At Prospect Sierra, we actively encourage students to embrace learning for learning’s sake, persevere through failure, and find success after setbacks. Students can take risks and fail gloriously in the arts, in science, on tests, writing assignments, athletics, and just about every part of the curriculum. As long as they can reflect on their mistakes and apply what they learn, students develop perseverance and a mindset geared for success.
Katherine Dinh
Head of School