Profoundly gifted children will tell you what they need, either overtly or through their actions, if you have the courage to listen.
On April 26, 1984, Lakeland Senior High principal Denny Dunn set off a shock wave when he admitted a seven-year-old girl to his school. In the Reaganomics-dominated culture of the early 1980s, educational theory required an unyielding age-based progression in public and private schools. The internet was not yet available, and home schooling was the exclusive purview of the Religious Right.
Against this backdrop, Dunn’s decision was a nuclear bomb, igniting a firestorm of controversy. Across the airwaves, Phil Donahue and Paul Harvey hosted pundits and experts while housewives called in to complain that the country was going to hell. In living rooms, boardrooms and school districts from coast to coast, stormy debates erupted on everything from women’s roles to the responsibilities of the educational system. A movement was happening, though no one was sure where it would lead.
In the center of the blast sat one little girl, the seven-year-old whose one-in-ten-million IQ lit the match. Overnight, she became the poster child for controversy. I am Lisa Frack Fritscher, and I was that girl. TICK-TICK-TICK: INSIDE THE MIND OF A CHILD GENIUS is the 90,000-word memoir of my experiences as the symbol of a changing cultural zeitgeist.