It's Dumb To Tell Kids They're Smart 243
theodp writes Over at Khan Academy, Salman Khan explains Why I'm Cautious About Telling My Son He's Smart. "Recently," writes Khan, "I put into practice research I had been reading about for the past few years: I decided to praise my son not when he succeeded at things he was already good at, but when he persevered with things that he found difficult. I stressed to him that by struggling, your brain grows. Between the deep body of research on the field of learning mindsets and this personal experience with my son, I am more convinced than ever that mindsets toward learning could matter more than anything else we teach." According to Dr. Carol Dweck, who Khan cites, the secret to raising smart kids is not telling kids that they are. A focus on effort — not on intelligence or ability — says Dweck, is key to success in school and in life.
No no (Score:3, Funny)
Your children are precious and if unable or unwilling to achieve things for themselves we must institute a quota system in order that they can bring their unique life perspective to various public and private roles.
Re:No no (Score:4, Insightful)
"No, son, you're not smart. Everyone else is stupid, and they're interested in boring things, and they always take the path of least resistance. The path of least resistance is mostly safe, but if you want to be anyone you have to make your own way."
Re:No no (Score:5, Interesting)
Praise the kid for good ideas, but also ask your kid - how do you think this or that could be better?
To be smart means that you don't stop thinking of how things can be better.
And don't get angry at your kids because they take things apart - they learn from it. Pulling apart a cheap mechanical alarm clock to learn how it's made is part of the learning process. Unfortunately most modern devices are just bricks - there's nothing to learn from taking them apart.
It's also part of the learning process to know how hard you can pull a screw before it breaks. You can list and use all the torque numbers in the world, but sometimes having the right feeling for how hard you can tighten a screw - and how it feels when it's done right is worth a lot more than having an advanced torque-limiting tool.
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Unfortunately most modern devices are just bricks - there's nothing to learn from taking them apart.
Not true. There is still plenty to learn, just different things. Let your kids use your oscilloscope, logic analyzer, and hot air gun. Teach them how to Google IC numbers. They can still learn a lot by taking apart a modern alarm clock.
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There is a lot more for a 3-4 year old to learn from taking apart a 50 year old alarm clock than a modern digital one, that's what the 'parent' is getting at.
For a 3-4 year old, that is true. For a 9-10 year old, it is the other way around. They should already be familiar with gears, cogs, and shafts, and will learn a lot more by figuring out resisters, diodes, and integrated circuits. Then they will never again consider a PCB to be a incomprehensible "brick".
Re:No no (Score:4, Interesting)
Praise the kid for good ideas, but also ask your kid - how do you think this or that could be better?
Those are part of it, but really the report is just that Khan discovered something well-known in education.
Really, it is well known for everybody involved in motivation.
You get more of whatever you recognize.
Any school teacher can explain how when you point out the bad behavior, "Johnny, sit back down", you have rewarded the child. It may not be what most people think of as recognition, but it serves to reinforce the behavior.
When you recognize a child "You are smart", or "You are so fast", or other attributes that they cannot control, it can have many negative effects. One negative effect is the child can become complacent. They may think to themselves, I'm already good enough, I don't need to do any more. When that happens the child will quickly stop succeeding. Another negative effect is the child can become fearful. They may think to themselves, I don't know what I did to become smart, what if I'm not smart enough tomorrow? What if I lose it? I've seen this happen to several children who quickly break down.
Instead, educators are taught to reward effort when they see it. Publicly praise how Johnny has worked hard on the project. Comment about how it looks like Jenny spent many hours researching the detail. When you are uncertain, praise anyway, "It must have taken some effort to prepare all of this, good job."
Those families that encourage learning tend to also reward and encourage effort. There may be a few of the "you're so smart" complements, but there will also be statements like "Good job figuring those details out", "That looks complicated, it must have taken effort to understand", "You studied a lot", etc. Generally the focus is (and should be) on rewarding the effort and the completion of tasks rather than rewarding the natural state.
Rounding it out, for kids in sports you complement "Good job working hard at practice today" to reward the effort rather than "Good job at being so tall" which is something they cannot control.
Re:No no (Score:5, Interesting)
If you only ever praise effort instead of achievement you will wind up with a generation of morons that think they're great just for trying even when they never get anything done.
Let's try again...
rewarding the effort and the completion of tasks rather than rewarding the natural state.
Trying to reward "being smart" is ineffectual at best. Similarly it is ineffectual to reward basketball players just for being tall, or reward a junior player simply for being young, or reward a senior player simply for being senior.
Rewarding effort and completion are effective at teaching students that those (rather than the grades or being first place) are important. If being first place is the only thing that matters then means are unimportant: break the opponent's equipment, or even put your opponent in the hospital, to reach the goal of being first. If grades are more important than learning, cheat from your neighbor or hack the grade book so you can get the rewarded grade.
When the rewards focus only on the final scores you get children who value the wrong things. Once their life of cheating in school is done, it transitions to the real world into lying, cheating, and stealing to get other outcomes without putting in effort or completing work. Or, if they use those patterns in management to try to encourage others they will be confused about why those same patterns fail to produce positive results.
Real world example:
At one place I worked several years ago there was a team of 6 salespeople. Management wanted to get the most sales out of them, so they created a reward. They made a big poster and charted sales, the highest sales would get a paid trip to a fabulous resort plus some spending money. Most of the salesfolk instantly gave up. In the first week there was a clear leader: The senior salesperson was about quadruple everyone else. By the end of the first month the senior person polished off another deal; they were at over $200K three were between $50K and $20K, and the two intern-type grunts were around $5k each. The reason was obvious to several of us, the senior salesperson worked with management to build and sign the corporate contracts, the three medium-tier people had a collection of established regular customers, and the entry level noobs were stuck with cold calls. After three months the senior salesperson acted all thankful and grateful for the challenge, the attitude of 'better luck next time' to those who obviously never had a chance. When I talked with the mangers about it they were confused about why the interns were upset and why the more experienced workers weren't putting in an effort to win. They couldn't understand it because their own value system only valued the end goal and competition rather than effort, cooperation, and completion. Their challenge rewarded tenure rather than growth. Sales were down significantly over those months. The end result was less money for the business, reduced morale, and one of the salesfolk quitting over it.
A far better system would have been to set an ambitious combined sales goal, and all those who helped cross some boundaries get the reward. The tenured staff then has an incentive to help the beginners succeed, and everyone has an incentive to increase total sales. Instead of rewarding the natural and immutable situation of tenure, they could have rewarded effort and completion of sales. Everyone whose efforts contribute to the completion of the goal gets the rewards. These systems tend to work well as incentives. For example, "If we meet X we'll have a team party", or "everyone who meets goal X will get two days off." Those who have crossed the threshold typically then help their peers to also cross the threshold.
Rewarding "You sure are smart", or "You sure are tall", or "you sure have tenure" is just plain stupid. It might feel good to the person giving the reward and the person getting the reward, but to outsiders it is usually painfully obvious that the system is broken.
They always told me I was so smart... (Score:5, Interesting)
The funny thing is I was told all the time growing up that I was "extremely smart" and "gifted", when in reality, I didn't FEEL like I was.
Sure, I could do things with computers that few of the other kids could do, like program and build things. But I don't think I was "smart". I just LIKED doing those things, so I did them all the time, and thus became really good at those things.
Meanwhile, you could ask me to cook a meal at the time and I'd completely fail because I never cooked. I didn't enjoy it, and was thus lousy at it.
I don't think I was unusually "smart" or "gifted". I just got obsessed with computers and technology, so I got good at those things.
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I figured out I was smart as a kid.
I also figured out that intelligence was a liability, and I've still seen very few environments where that wasn't true, and all of those only well after childhood.
Re:They always told me I was so smart... (Score:5, Insightful)
I also figured out that intelligence was a liability, and I've still seen very few environments where that wasn't true, and all of those only well after childhood.
Intelligence isn't a liability. Trying to tell other people they are wrong all the time is a liability. Telling people, "I am smarter than you, so you are wrong" is a liability.
Intelligence isn't a liability, but the interpersonal skills you developed around your intelligence might be. (If you're so smart, you should have figured this out by now. Maybe you need to work harder).
Definition of Irony (Score:5, Funny)
You literally just did this with your own post. You told the parent he was wrong, and then implied it was because he wasn't smart enough.
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It is, actually. You don't often see such an efficiently self-demonstrating explanation. ;)
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You literally just did this with your own post. You told the parent he was wrong, and then implied it was because he wasn't smart enough.
WHOOOOSH!
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Trying to tell other people they are wrong all the time is a liability. Telling people, "I am smarter than you, so you are wrong" is a liability.
I'll have to take your word for it; I wouldn't know since I never did any of that.
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phantomfive is being a douchebag.
I've never considered intelligence a liability, so I'm curious why you do. Could you elaborate on specifically why you think this, give some examples, etc.?
Effort education can be done very wrong (Score:2, Interesting)
I met a kid that transferred from one of those "grade on effort" rather than "grade on accomplishment" schools. They rewarded kids for how hard they tried, not how well they did, and the kids did exactly what any self-respecting sociopath would do: they pretended to try hard.
This kid was raging at her teacher for giving her an F on her spelling test. She kept saying "i tried as hard as I could, and the teacher KNOWS I am a bad speller!" But (as far as I know) the kid had not spent a single minute of her
Re:They always told me I was so smart... (Score:4, Interesting)
I also figured out that intelligence was a liability, and I've still seen very few environments where that wasn't true, and all of those only well after childhood.
Intelligence isn't a liability. Trying to tell other people they are wrong all the time is a liability. Telling people, "I am smarter than you, so you are wrong" is a liability.
You don't have to tell people you are smarter directly. I spooked the hell out of a girlfriend who had a crazy 3 on 5 off (with other kinks in the pattern) schedule because, after 2 weeks, I had it figured out and when we were making plans for something next week, I told her when she was working and when she was free: "how'd you know that?" "Well, you're working tomorrow and it's time for the 4 week long break..." "I only know my schedule by looking it up..." "Oh...."
People who perceive you are smarter (whether you are, or not) will often treat you as a threat. http://abcnews.go.com/Business... [go.com]
Icahn has called CEOs the survivors of the corporate world, but says it's the "survival of the unfittest": "[The CEO] would never have anyone underneath him as his assistant that's brighter than he is because that might constitute a threat. So therefore, with many exceptions, we have CEO's becoming dumber and dumber and dumber."
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You don't have to tell people you are smarter directly. I spooked the hell out of a girlfriend who had a crazy 3 on 5 off (with other kinks in the pattern) schedule because, after 2 weeks, I had it figured out and when we were making plans for something next week, I told her when she was working and when she was free: "how'd you know that?" "Well, you're working tomorrow and it's time for the 4 week long break..." "I only know my schedule by looking it up..." "Oh...."
Once you realize that being smarter doesn't make you better, then you'll be fine.
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Because, the "everyone is equal" notion seems patently false. Some people are a lot healthier than others, some people are a lot more altruistic than others, and some people are a lot more intelligent than others. Some people are much better at delivering value to their fellow man than others.
If someone is more altruistic, or smarter, or a better leader, or prettier.........none of that makes their wants, desires, and happiness any more valid or important than the next person's.
Think of it another way: a common way of measuring someone's worth is to see how much money they have. It lets them buy nicer things, we even call it 'net worth.' But in the eyes of the law, and in terms of the pursuit of happiness, they don't deserve any better treatment or deserve to be any happier just because they
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You don't seem to be answering the question. I asked what makes a person "better."
I did. Read what I wrote again, but this time understand. I explained why you are no better than I, and why I am no better than you.
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It's wasn't. You're not.
I know.
you miss subtext almost as much as your own hypocrisy.
I'd really like to know where the hypocrisy is.
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...what DOES make someone better? [...] In what useful and practical sense of the word is everyone "equal?"
He didn't say equal, he said not better.
Consider: is i > 1? Is i 1.
The world is not composed strictly of totally ordered sets. There's absolutely no reason that, just because some people are stronger than others, smarter than others, nicer than others, etc., that anybody is better than anyone else.
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Not that I'm saying I'm better than people who are wrong. Everyone is wrong sometimes. But, the key is ignorance vs stupidity, and what we are talking about when we say "better". If I tell a person that they can't put cans in the microwave and why, and they learn it because they were just ignorant before, that'
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Not that I'm saying I'm better than people who are wrong.
That's good.
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People who perceive you are smarter (whether you are, or not) will often treat you as a threat.
Unless you make sure *they* reach their goals and know that they did it because you helped them - unobtrusively, not rubbing their nose in it, coaching them as much as you can. As a freelancer/contractor (thus: non-threatening) this has helped me get a lot of repeat business because the clients *like* me. Even up to the CxO level. It's also a matter of knowing your weaknesses: I'm not going to encroach on any CxO area because that's not where my ambition lies.
I did see one very smart guy getting the boot fr
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Mmmm.... no. Anything that makes you stand out in any way whatsoever is a liability, since it makes you a target. Intelligence is especially bad since it marks you as a potential future rival but won't boost your current ability to defend yourself.
Childhood is a jungle, and children are beasts.
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Intelligence isn't a liability.
It certainly can be. With schools aiming for the middle or least common denominator, intelligent kids get bored and don't live up to their potential. The kid that is motivated and has to struggle is far ahead in this system than the kid that is intelligent, finds everything easy, and gets bored with it all.
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Intelligence can be a liability when you are surrounded by people who continuously spew a stream on nonsense from their mouth holes. When you know every word coming from someone's mouth is utter bullshit, lies, misunderstandings, or misdirection, it's not appropriate to blame poor social skill when you treat that person like a worthless piece of shit.
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When you know every word coming from someone's mouth is utter bullshit, lies, misunderstandings, or misdirection, it's not appropriate to blame poor social skill when you treat that person like a worthless piece of shit.
If you're smart, you'll figure out a way to handle that situation and turn it to your advantage.
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I've figured I was smart when I was sent to a special school that only accepted people with high IQ.
It was arguably the worse year of my life.
If you're ever offered to do this for your kid, think twice.
Re:They always told me I was so smart... (Score:5, Insightful)
I had the opposite experience. For the first time in my schooling years, I felt like I fit in, and I developed my social skills and found new confidence in myself. I was very happy to be there.
Like they say, every kid is different, there's no universal formula to explain what will work and what won't.
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On the contrary, it should hurt your social skills significantly. In real life you can't have the luxury of not interacting with normal people.
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Sure you do. In real life, I interact with four sets of people:
1. My friends, who I get to choose, subject only to the limitation that they also have to choose me as a friend.
2. My coworkers, which I don't totally get to choose, but I can choose a profession that is inaccessible to people who aren't above average.
3. People I exchange goods and services with, like retail cashiers, repairmen, waitstaff, etc.. They can run the full gamut, but I honestly don't have to spend a lot of time with them. Unlike
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It's not usually that difficult to pretend you're a dumbass if smartness is truly a liability. In the absence of a reliable intelligence test, usable by idiots, it can only be a liability if it prevents you from being entertained by something that entertains dumber people
Re:They always told me I was so smart... (Score:5, Interesting)
I had a similar experience. I excelled at math, science, computers, anything like that. I maintained good grades and was consistently at the top of my class. I was always praised for being smart and my future with a great job and a nice house was all but assured. After graduating college with an engineering degree and a 3.8 GPA, I was practically unemployable. I was either told I had no experience or was seen as a flight risk. So here I am on the backside of thirty, stuck in a dead-end job making drunken posts on the internet about how much I hate 3D printers and Space Nutters. Hell, it even got me banned from FARK.
I wish no one ever set me up to fail. by telling me I am smart, giving me such high expectations. I wish someone would have slapped my 4-year old head and said "good grades don't put food on the table, go get a real job!"
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was either told I had no experience......stuck in a dead-end job
At least you have experience now
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It's extremely easy to find work in the engineering fields even if you have shitty grades.
It appears you just suck at applying for jobs and selling yourself.
With Linkedin today it's even easier. I get contacted by headhunters for high-paid jobs on a daily basis.
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Yes, it's his fault for not exercising an ability to predict the future.
He didn't believe good grades were enough because his thinking was deficient, he believed it because the people with the responsibility for teaching him about the world actively misled him.
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Yeah. And now look at you. Slashdot. Saturday morning.....
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I didn't need anyone to tell me I was smart. I figured it out myself. As you say, I was "smart" at the subjects I loved and not so much at others. Now, as an "elder", I tell those coming up If you want to be rich and-or famous, develop your talents. But if you want to be happy, work on your weaknesses: Become round.
BTW, If someone had told me life could be so good at 71 years, I'd have had more courage in my youth.
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I got enough feedback when I was young that I was unusually smart that I did eventually accept it in a provisional way as part of the social reality. (As in, it was a pretty consistent part of how people responded to me.) I also got a lot of very mixed feedback about it - from my standpoint, I did well in academics mostly because I enjoyed the topics. (All of them. Which mostly left me with the sense that I wasn't particularly good at anything.) But it took me quite a while to find a social group,* I was al
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How smart you are depends on whose Kitchen you are standing in at the time. Sub Shop for kitchen and you get the idea. Put a BBQ chef in a bakery and watch the failure.
A movie I really enjoyed about not telling students how good they are is "The Paper Chase" A student feels pressure to not flunk out as a failure. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt00... [imdb.com] Older film, great drama.
Re: They always told me I was so smart... (Score:2)
Unfortunately, since it took so long for me to encounter something that required me to actually work, I didn't learn to do that until far too late. I had plenty of time to run around being a smart little asshole, and later on, pl
So, I'm doing it wrong (Score:2)
...when I tell my cat she's cute.
Re:So, I'm doing it wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
A cat's purpose in life is to wage psychological warfare upon you; it's only right and proper that you retaliate in kind.
Dogs are for companionship. Cats are to keep you on your toes.
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Cats do as they please, just get used to it. It doesn't matter what you say to them, they are the ultimate animal of don't giving a damn about what others think.
They only care about things that are really uncomfortable as a result of their own action - like slipping on the bathtub edge and falling in might keep them from doing it again.
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Dogs are cute cats that are also dumb. Encourage your dog with a growth mindset and one day he may be a cat.
So... (Score:2)
What about Confidence (Score:5, Interesting)
But if you don't puff up your offspring with enough praise early one, how will they have the iron-cast confidence to windbag their way to the top in todays bullshit world? Again, what use is true intelligence if you don't have the bellicosity to shout down all gainsayers?
Re:What about Confidence (Score:5, Insightful)
But if you don't puff up your offspring with enough praise early one, how will they have the iron-cast confidence to windbag their way to the top in todays bullshit world?
You didn't read the articles. The point uncovered in the research is that telling kids they are smart gives them less confidence (presumably because they are afraid failure means they are not smart, so they are afraid to try).
When you are raising kids, and he accomplishes something, you have two options (actually more, but these are under consideration here):
1) Say, "you succeeded! You must be so smart!"
2) Say, "you succeeded! You must have worked hard!"
Eventually your kid is going to fail, because we all do, know matter how smart we are, and kid #1 is going to say inside himself, "oh, I am not smart. Maybe if I don't try next time, no one will notice." Kid #2 will say inside himself, "oh, I failed. Maybe next time if I work harder, I will succeed."
Re:What about Confidence (Score:5, Interesting)
Unless kid #2 in fact had tried very hard but still failed, and says to himself, "Even my best attempt was not good enough. Next time I won't try so hard; that way, if I fail, I can just claim/believe it's because I didn't try my best." There are many ways to try and protect one's confidence in the face of failure.
Not that I disagree with the basic premise here, that it's better to praise kids for effort (something they can control) than intrinsic talents.
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Unless kid #2 in fact had tried very hard but still failed, and says to himself, "Even my best attempt was not good enough. Next time I won't try so hard; that way, if I fail, I can just claim/believe it's because I didn't try my best."
That's a hypothesis, but in the actual studies it didn't seem to happen.
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Don't be so quick to make blanket statements. I was of the "unsatifactory results => must try harder" mindset all through undergrad despite triple majoring and graduating in 4.5 years.....So, that's my anecdote where "doesn't seem to happen" actually did.
btw, you didn't give enough details here to compare to the study. There are two ways to motivate a kid (more than two, but let's consider these):
1) When he succeeds, say, "good job! You must have worked hard!"
2) When he fails, say, "Lousy! Why didn't you work harder?"
Can you see the difference? Positive reinforcement is important, but it's also important to let kids know they are acceptable, even when they fail. Because once again, we all fail.
Re:What about Confidence (Score:4, Insightful)
"oh, I failed. Maybe next time if I work harder, I will succeed."
And this is why we have so much people working too hard and filled with stress, because they hope to "succeed".
The idea is to replace "I can do it because I'm smart" with "I can do it if I put more effort".
Frankly, both of these are beliefs, and dangerous ones at that !
What happens when you realize that you cannot do it, no matter the amount of effort ?
Why not simply encourage curiosity and open-mindedness, instead on focusing on results ?
Is the result so much more important than the way to do things ?
Re:What about Confidence (Score:4, Insightful)
And this is why we have so much people working too hard and filled with stress, because they hope to "succeed".
To counteract that problem, make sure your kids know you will love them no matter what happens.
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To counteract that problem, make sure your kids know you will love them no matter what happens.
The problem is that kids want to fulfill hidden orders.
Let's suppose that you reward them for doing a given task, while you tell them that you'll love them even if they fail.
Given their point of view, they might believe that finishing a task must be rewarded (you encourage extrinsic motivation), or that the task is not important as long as you don't hate them (you provide a false sense of security that everything will be fine as long as you are here, what happens when you won't be there ?).
But the most impo
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The problem is that kids want to fulfill hidden orders.
Right, so you still need to give them guidance, and let them know you'll be sad if certain things happen; but that's different than having them think you won't love them.
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Well, maybe Hitler's parents should have sat him down at some point and expressed their disapproval.
"Hitler, my son, I disapprove of your constant use of Godwin's law. Now say you're sorry."
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Is the result so much more important than the way to do things ?
Sometimes yes. You don't want a surgeon that is not at least bit focused on the result. Or a bridge engineer.
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Telling a smart kid they are smart is good for confidence. Telling a dumb kid they are smart sets them up for failure.
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Telling a smart kid they are smart is good for confidence. Telling a dumb kid they are smart sets them up for failure.
That's an interesting hypothesis. Unfortunately, the studies mentioned in the article don't support it.
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this is how video games work (Score:2)
you might have a hard part it will take hours of practice to pass and you get a nice cut scene as a reward
i do the same thing with my kids. i'll help them with video games but after a while make them figure it out themselves. and they get a nice reward after they figure it out
Still not adding up (Score:2, Interesting)
If this is true, why do psychologists continue to focus so much on IQ? Why do they insist there is a strong, undeniable link between IQ and success that must be catered to? Why has funding for students who, as they say, "are merely bright, but not gifted" entirely disappeared in favor of a fully mainstream approach? Why are the hard working students who achieve but who are not obvious savants lumped in with the merely average, and worst, the probably hopeless (whatever the reason)?
Is this real science, or f
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If this is true, why do psychologists continue to focus so much on IQ?
I don't know what psychologists you're hanging out with, but the field has moved on at least twice from IQ in the last 30 years. Which isn't to say IQ is worthless, it still measures of ability.
Is this real science
Yes.
No company wants a merely bright hard-working person, they want a genius, they worship that genius.
This is definitely not true lol, companies mainly want someone who can get the job done for the smallest cost. That's why we have outsourcing, etc. The only ones seeking raw intelligence are research labs, and even they tend to want a PhD or evidence that you actually know things.
I prefer to believe what is in this article in the same way that I prefer to believe in Free Will,
If you actually want to find out,
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If you actually want to find out, instead of 'believing,' then go read the actual studies, for that is where knowledge is to be found.
I am not a psychologist, where do I find such things? Even the responses to my post are all over the place. I'm not doing a "citation please" troll, but all I have found in my searches is very contradictory evidence and in PRACTICE IQ is the gating factor in most texas school districts, and several others I've looked at. IQ continues to be seen as the gold standard practice,
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I am not a psychologist, where do I find such things?
Start by reading the article.
in PRACTICE IQ is the gating factor in most texas school districts,
Texas school districts are decades behind the latest scientific research? Shocking.
I disagree about what companies want, at any given time I am usually employed by one of the top end tech companies
Your experience is not representative of the mean.
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Which isn't to say IQ is worthless, it still measures of ability.
Only in the US. Where it is mostly just a self fulfilling prophecy.
I would argue not only is that IQ as it is currently measured is worthless as it does not measure what it set out to. But also that the fundamental assumption behind it is also flawed.
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Which isn't to say IQ is worthless, it still measures of ability. Only in the US.
Really?
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If this is true, why do psychologists continue to focus so much on IQ? Why do they insist there is a strong, undeniable link between IQ and success that must be catered to?
Because there is a strong, undeniable link between IQ and success. Unfortunately the second article is partially paywalled, but I don't see anything in it that asserts otherwise. Do not misconstrue the following excerpt:
A focus on effort — not on intelligence or ability — says Dweck, is key to success in school and in life.
One could read that and jump to the conclusion that this means that intelligence is not related to success. But that is not what it is saying. It is merely saying that if you butter-up an intelligent person, they will be more likely to fail. That is not the same as saying that IQ is not
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If this is true, why do psychologists continue to focus so much on IQ? Why do they insist there is a strong, undeniable link between IQ and success that must be catered to? Why has funding for students who, as they say, "are merely bright, but not gifted" entirely disappeared in favor of a fully mainstream approach? Why are the hard working students who achieve but who are not obvious savants lumped in with the merely average, and worst, the probably hopeless (whatever the reason)?
Psychologists said that over 50 years ago but they do not say that all anymore. There was a famous experiment where the kid's IQs were tested and later on after 20-30 years their success measured. The higher IQ were no better off than the average IQ. In fact, a randomly selected group of kids were as successful as the high IQ group.
Psychologists actually say there isn't a strong link between IQ and success. There is a minimum IQ (which is fairly low) and above that IQ everyone has an equal chance. The mos
Smart. Dumb. Doesn't matter. (Score:5, Interesting)
Success is about being in the right place at the right time with the correct skill set to take advantage of the situation. Hard work is the way you maximize your skill sets to that should you find yourself at the intersection of time and place you take advantage of it. The thing is, not only can't that intersection be anticipated, it can't be identified even when it's happening. Only in hindsight can you look back and realize where the critical moment was when your success actually started. Sadly, most people can't even do that. They believe that climbing the mountain of success was solely the result of having applied their skills and hard work, never realizing that - as the result of fortuitous time and place of their application - they were actually running down hill from that point on.
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Don't forget knowing the right people. In my experience, that matters a lot more than what you know or what you're capable of doing.
Nothing wrong with telling you kid they're smart (Score:2)
Just don't sing their praises and make sure they understand it's only one component of who they are and can easily be out-balanced by bad traits. Or, similarly, as it once told my daughter "Remember, a pretty bitch is still a bitch."
The goal should be guiding them towards being a decent and well-adjusted individual.
Tell your kids they're smart (Score:2)
You forgot about the importance of "self esteem" and feeling that you can do something.
Too many kids eschew math, because they think they're not any good.
I say... tell them they're good.
"You're pretty smart for a kid, keep studying and you may have a great future. Keep up the good hard work though, if you aren't careful, the average students can still catch up with you and leave you in the dust."
It's hard to be rich (Score:2)
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The problem with telling kids they are smart... (Score:2)
Another misleading title (Score:2)
One of the main secrets to raising smart kids is setting high but achievable standards and providing life experiences where they can succeed.
Here is an example. When I was a cub scout leader our boys made model rockets. We also taught them how to use trigonometry to calculate how high the rockets went. With calculators, it was easy for them to master something that many adults would assume only smart ki
Being Educated Mentally Retarded (Score:2, Interesting)
I was misdiagnosed as mentally retarded when I was kindergarten due to hearing lost in one ear that wasn't diagnosed until years later. I traveled around the county in little yellow school buses, and puking my guts out every morning from motion sickness, to attend special ed classes. For six years in a row, I blew out the evaluation exams on the genius side of the scale and told each time that it was statistical fluke.The school system made three times more money from mentally retarded students. From the fi
Don't call me smart ... (Score:3)
I'm very good with computers. I've been messing with them since 1978 and I was in on the digital revolution.
It's also my career and it's been good for me. I give back by helping people with these TV typewriters.
When people tell me how smart I am, I'm quick to ask them to please withdraw the remark. Beside creating a wedge between me and them, it is simply unwarranted.
I ask them what they do. Of course, whatever it is, I can't do that. I'm an expert with computers. If I were on THEIR turf, I tell them, THEY would be the smart one.
I'm not smarter than anyone else.
For computers, I'm certainly most experienced than most.
Screwy (Score:2)
This is just one more form of totally screwed up political correctness. Based on her logic you shouldn't say please or thank you either. Bogus.
makes sense (Score:2)
There is likely more to the conclusions than that.
1) Humans are not logical. You can't take one solution and apply it to another similar aspect of humanity.
2) Humans are chaotic fractals. Broad trends make them all nearly the same but some demographics may exist that do not nicely fit into expectations (psychology relies upon it;) aside from that, small details are as random as snowflakes (and still not likely without fractal like patterns on another level, which is why I used snowflakes as the metaphor.)
Ju
Didn't matter what my parents said (Score:4, Interesting)
From the time I was born, my parents lied to me. By the time I was 10, I realized that adults where full of shit when they talked to kids.
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I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the "growth" that they are referring to is the "growth mindset":
http://www.austinclub.cz/dorp/... [austinclub.cz]
http://www.mrscullen.com/image... [mrscullen.com]
http://scholar.google.com/scho... [google.com]
The short version of the "growth mindset" is: "the children who believe that their brain grows in response to effort/stimulus have a tendency to perform better at cognitive tasks". The alternative to a "growth mindset" is frequently self-defeatist ("I'm not smart enough to do math", "I'll never get it", "I
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Re: You don't need to tell a smart kid they're sma (Score:2)
It hurts me to watch /. slowly die like this. Used to be only the editors sucked, but I never came here for the articles but for the discussion. Used to be, there would be a zillion well thought and documented responses illustrating all angles of a topic. I found this site to be an excellent forum to expand my understanding of issues surrounding a topic through informed, rational discourse. But the quality over the last few years has just trended ever lower and lately the quality of comments have just gone
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If anyone knows where all the smart contributors went please consider throwing me a link.
http://soylentnews.org/ [soylentnews.org]
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They figure it out on their own
This is one of the differences between intelligent and unintelligent people. Intelligent people are more likely to judge their own skills.
1. There was a study performed where they assigned people various tasks to perform in isolation. Then the researchers asked them to weigh how well they did compared to the general public. In the absense of information, the more intelligent people assumed they did average or below. The less intelligent people thought they did above average. The bad news about this is
Re: This is stupid advice (Score:2, Insightful)
Import talent from abroad? Yes, it definitely works. You only need someplace to dump stupid americans into, to make room for the talented immigrants.