Home School Heartbeat Radio Program

In honor of this year's centennial celebration of the Wright brothers' first flight, Mike Smith continues his discussion with a look at their childhood on Home School Heartbeat.

Mike Smith:


Wilbur and Orville Wright were more than just brilliant engineers. In fact, you might just find that they look a lot like many of the people you know. As young boys, the two were constantly tinkering with their toys to figure out what made them work. When their father, a Brethren bishop who traveled often, brought them a rubber-band-powered helicopter, the toy was quickly broken. But in their first attempt at building a flying machine, the brothers immediately tried to make copies of the broken toy.


As an adult, Orville Wright made this comment about his childhood: "We were lucky enough to grow up in an environment where there was always much encouragement to children to pursue intellectual interests [and] to investigate whatever aroused curiosity."


While the brothers' engineering feat was one that we would expect of PhD's, neither Wright brother officially graduated from high school. Wilbur never collected his diploma because his family moved just before graduation. He did, however, opt to take more high school classes later so he could learn Greek and trigonometry. And during Orville's senior year of high school, he decided to study the subjects that interested him rather than the standard curriculum required for graduation.


The Wright brothers' lives demonstrate that successful and influential people are not necessarily those who follow traditional educational paths. And until next time, I'm Mike Smith.