News: Jaden and Willow Smith Are Too Cool for School

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(Angela Weiss/Getty Images)

Teen stars Jaden and Willow Smith have always been precocious.

But did you know the cool teenage kids of Will and Jada Pinkett Smith are also wise — or at least, for their age, they're confident that they are? Just 16 and 14, respectively, the Karate Kid actor and the Whip My Hair singer waxed philosophical about education, newborn babies, and... well, we don't quite know what else they were talking about in a new joint interview with the New York Times's T magazine. Both were promoting new music released last month, but the conversation turned to many other subjects.

For example, when asked about how they'd improved as artists, they ended up talking about emotions.

"Caring less what everybody else thinks," Willow said, "but also caring less and less about what your own mind thinks, because what your own mind thinks, sometimes, is the thing that makes you sad."

Jaden followed up with, "Exactly. Because your mind has a duality to it. So when one thought goes into your mind, it’s not just one thought, it has to bounce off both hemispheres of the brain. When you're thinking about something happy, you're thinking about something sad. When you think about an apple, you also think about the opposite of an apple. It's a tool for understanding mathematics and things with two separate realities. But for creativity: That comes from a place of oneness. That's not a duality consciousness. And you can't listen to your mind in those times — it'll tell you what you think and also what other people think."

Here are four things we learned from the odd interview:

1. Both Smith kids have very strong opinions on traditional schools. Like a lot of kids, they are not fans. Unlike a lot of kids, they are home-schooled. (Although they previously attended a private school founded by their parents that adhered to an unorthodox teaching method created by L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, until the school shut down in 2013, according to ABC News.) Jaden first shared his stance on the subject in a tweet last year that said, "If Everybody In The World Dropped Out Of School We Would Have A Much More Intelligent Society," and he was just as adamant in T.

Jaden: Here's the deal: School is not authentic because it ends. It's not true, it's not real. Our learning will never end. The school that we go to every single morning, we will continue to go to.

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Willow: Forever, ‘til the day that we’re in our bed.

Jaden: Kids who go to normal school are so teenagery, so angsty.

Willow: They never want to do anything, they’re so tired.
Jaden: You never learn anything in school. Think about how many car accidents happen every day. Driver’s ed? What’s up? I still haven’t been to driver's ed because if everybody I know has been in an accident, I can't see how driver’s ed is really helping them out.
Willow: I went to school for one year. It was the best experience but the worst experience. The best experience because I was, like, “Oh, now I know why kids are so depressed.” But it was the worst experience because I was depressed.
2. Willow writes her own novels. Jaden explained that she's done it since she was 6. Creative right? Except she does it because she doesn't like other books. "There're no novels that I like to read so I write my own novels, and then I read them again, and it's the best thing," she said. At least she's reading something...
3. They've thought a lot about babies and breathing. A lot. In fact, the siblings could probably host a panel discussion entirely focused on it.

Willow: Breathing is meditation; life is a meditation. You have to breathe in order to live, so breathing is how you get in touch with the sacred space of your heart.

Jaden: When babies are born, their soft spots bump: It has, like, a heartbeat in it. That’s because energy is coming through their body, up and down.

Willow: Prana energy.
Jaden: It's prana energy because they still breathe through their stomach. They remember. Babies remember.

Willow: When they're in the stomach, they're so aware, putting all their bones together, putting all their ligaments together. But they're shocked by this harsh world.

4. Their goals are about a lot more than stardom in movies and music.

Jaden: I have a goal to be just the most craziest person of all time. And when I say craziest, I mean, like, I want to do like Olympic-level things. I want to be the most durable person on the planet.

Willow: I think by the time we’re 30 or 20, we're going to be climbing as many mountains as we can possibly climb.

Alrighty then....

Read the full interview in the New York Times's T magazine.