I never graduated from elementary school
I never graduated from elementary school. I went into high school at tells yeshiva when I was only 10 years old. The next oldest guy was probably 4 years older than me, and most of the rest were about 8 or 10 years older than me. I used to have to fight to get to play ball with them. Again it was not a pleasant way of going to school. I was always good at studies, although when I started going to high school, I spent more time trying to get away with stuff than to actually learn and accomplish. My father always used to say to me that from the time he stopped homeschooling me I started going downhill, and he was probably correct.
— from Expanding Your Range (Growth/Change/Education/Learning/Habit) · GB oral dictation
In the book
And never forget the point of all of it: it is not the learning itself that is crucial, but the actions the learning brings about — not study but practice is the main thing. [Here is a place for my own story of school — and I will say a little of it plainly, because you should know your grandfather was no natural scholar.] I grew up on the third floor of a nursing home, homeschooled, with almost no other children around; I went into high school at a yeshiva when I was only ten, fighting just to be allowed to play ball with boys twice my age. I never graduated elementary school, and my father liked to say that from the day he stopped homeschooling me I started going downhill — and he was probably right. […] [Here is a place for my own story of school — and I will say a little of it plainly, because you should know your grandfather was no natural scholar.] I grew up on the third floor of a nursing home, homeschooled, with almost no other children around; I went into high school at a yeshiva when I was only ten, fighting just to be allowed to play ball with boys twice my age. I never graduated elementary school, and my father liked to say that from the day he stopped homeschooling me I started going downhill — and he was probably right. I tell you this so you understand that everything I know, I had to learn the long way, by reading and by paying attention, and that I am still at it: I study with any grandchild who wants to learn with me, and many of you call me every Friday. […] I want you to inherit one belief above almost all others: you are never a finished product. I am living proof of it. I grew up homeschooled above a nursing home, with few friends and fewer advantages, and I never even graduated elementary school. Nothing I know came to me easily or early. — Expanding Your Range (Growth/Change/Education/Learning/Habit)