Spoiler Alert: Smart Kids Become Successful Adults 256
itwbennett writes "Researchers from the University of Edinburgh set out to test the long-held assumption that kids who performed well in school at a young age carried that early success through to adulthood. And prove it they did! Specifically, 'Math and reading ability at age 7 may be linked with socioeconomic status several decades later.' Early success even correlates 'over and above associations with intelligence, education, and socioeconomic status in childhood.'"
Successful adults? (Score:3, Insightful)
First define successful adult. Success means different things to different people. I know a lot of people with no more than an 8th grade education that are successfully supporting their families and are genuinely happy people.
Re:Correlations (Score:3, Insightful)
Open articles.
Ctrl-F "Controling"
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Close tab.
Nothing of value.
(They did start another study for control for genetic factors, but those aren't the most important)
Re:On the other hand... (Score:4, Insightful)
"If the purpose of our life is not suffering then our existence is the most ill-adapted to its purpose in the world."
Need for good teachers (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Religion in schools need to be cut. Replace Religion with math and science, math and science promote logic, God promotes making up stories because we want to.
2) Teach math and science harder, really push them as corner stones of education, if students aren't getting the concepts increase class length. I would say by grade 5 you should be comfortable with variables.
3) Every day should have a gym component where kids are FORCED to participate,
4) Science class should contain hands on experiments and labs. If you can't test it, don't teach it.
5) Find a way to make homework interactive, not just copy question out of a book.
6) Computer Programming should become a mandatory class starting in grade 4, get kids playing with visual languages, they massively help you learn and work out logical problems that be applied in other areas.
7) Music class, make kids learn instruments or at least get involved with Music, this will allow there creative abilities to expand.
8) Don't let the kids sit more then 1 hour at a time, make sure they're moving around and getting involved in the class.
Those would be the initial adjustments I would make, I'm sure it's not perfect but it's a FAR better system then one currently in place.
Re:No shit sherlock. (Score:5, Insightful)
Need for good parents (Score:4, Insightful)
Parents should spend time with their kids and be available to help.
Bad headline, as usual (Score:5, Insightful)
Headline: ...Smart Kids Become Successful Adults.
Article: Math and reading skills correlate with success even more strongly than intelligence.
Correction to Title (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, the article says the exact opposite of the title. The title should say
Spoiler Alert: *SUCCESSFUL* Kids Become Successful Adults
because the article says:
These findings imply that basic childhood skills, independent of how smart you are, how long you stay in school, or the social class you started off in, will be important throughout your life," say Ritchie and Bates.
Re:On the other hand... (Score:5, Insightful)
In my hometown the percentage of kids on meal assistance at their schools is so high ...
Sorry, but "being on meal assistance" does not in any way whatsoever imply "does not get enough to eat."
In fact the opposite is true: obesity rates are negatively correlated with income, and kids at the very bottom of the poverty scale are the fattest.
America has a serious nutrition problem, but we certainly do not have a systematic hunger problem, and claiming or implying that we do is just diverting attention from the actual problem.
Re:On the other hand... (Score:5, Insightful)
The purpose of life is generating more life - it's the only way it has arrived here, by replicating itself. *Your* purpose may be not suffering, but that's uncorrelated with the adaptation of life to existence.
Re:Performing well in school... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:False. Intelligence is a myth. (Score:3, Insightful)
Making large salaries is not a privilege, but quite a burden on time and health.. They are earned just like any other. The money's nice, but for anyone besides the multimillionaires, it's a lot of work. Instead of two 8 hr shifts in two crappy jobs, it's one 16hr shift at one crappy job, salaried so you're on it 24/7 until you retire, get fired for losing it to passive aggressive office politics, or die.
The problem is that leftists have convinced the culture that the lifestyle of a $100k/year salary is just as 'privileged' as someone with 50million in the bank.. The latter could retire at any time and live in luxury for life, the former can't.