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The Intelligence Myth – Why I cringe when someone tells me my child is smart

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Re: The Intelligence Myth – Why I cringe when someone tells me my child is smart

#41

Post by dkarl »

abootstrapper wrote: post #39

I was called “smart” growing up. Looking back I believe it was a huge disservice. School was generally easy for me, but I was afraid to ask questions to risk appearing “not smart.” I learned a hard lesson in college. Smart isn’t something you are, it’s something you can become, through perseverance, dedication, and grit. Luckily I posses those qualities. We don’t use the S word around our kids. And when strangers tel…

I think that's a function of the school system. I had access to "honors" classes and so forth, but they weren't that advanced or challenging, so there was a pretty low ceiling on what you could accomplish in school. Since kids couldn't distinguish themselves by accomplishing more or harder things, and there was nothing glamorous about grinding out a 99 versus a 98, the "smartest" kids were the ones who didn't have to work hard or answer questions. I remember sometimes I would pull out a blank sheet when the teacher started collecting assignments and try to finish it in before she got to my desk, because there was no other way for it to be an accomplishment. With the level of accomplishment fixed at a low level, the only way to prove you were more capable was by being flamboyantly undisciplined.

Re: The Intelligence Myth – Why I cringe when someone tells me my child is smart

#42

Post by [deleted] »

nicolethenerd wrote: post #4

There is a distinction between the pressure that comes from growing up in a "tiger family" and the consequences of growing up with the "smart" label, and I feel like the author is conflating the two. Personally, growing up with the label (but not the parental pressure) was one of the best things that could have happened for me and my education - the fact that others believed (whether true or not) that I was lightyear…

[deleted]

Re: The Intelligence Myth – Why I cringe when someone tells me my child is smart

#43

Post by chess93 »

nicolethenerd wrote: post #4

There is a distinction between the pressure that comes from growing up in a "tiger family" and the consequences of growing up with the "smart" label, and I feel like the author is conflating the two. Personally, growing up with the label (but not the parental pressure) was one of the best things that could have happened for me and my education - the fact that others believed (whether true or not) that I was lightyear…

I'm glad the label worked for you but it did not work at all for me. It kind of shoehorned me in to a personality type and limited my social options.

In all honesty I look back at my "smartness" as a kind of attention-seeking behavior where all I really wanted was the attention you got from getting the highest grade in the class or being the only one from your school to go to the ivy league.

To me, the smart label just means you are willing to sacrifice more than others to study/learn/build. Everything I have learned about people since starting college has told me that this is a net negative.

Re: The Intelligence Myth – Why I cringe when someone tells me my child is smart

#44

Post by astazangasta »

camdenlock wrote: post #12
zarathustraa wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Success is a social construct. Intelligence is a social construct.

Those are staggeringly enormous claims. Got any scientific evidence?

Claiming success is a social construct seems to me to be trivially true, not a staggering claim. Intelligence is less obvious since there is a vast literature around it, but, again, it is clearly a social construct; we must struggle to agree on a useful definition of intelligence, therefore it is a social construct.

I'm also not sure what "scientific evidence" would look like here. You seem to have had some sort of allergic reaction to the assertion of social construction and retreated instinctively to familiar but hollow epistemic grounds.

Re: The Intelligence Myth – Why I cringe when someone tells me my child is smart

#45

Post by hooande »

nicolethenerd wrote: post #4

There is a distinction between the pressure that comes from growing up in a "tiger family" and the consequences of growing up with the "smart" label, and I feel like the author is conflating the two. Personally, growing up with the label (but not the parental pressure) was one of the best things that could have happened for me and my education - the fact that others believed (whether true or not) that I was lightyear…

If you're really smart, you won't need someone to tell you that. It will be evident.

Once you realize you're playing a level up, you won't need encouragement from authority figures. You'll be trying to reach and surpass the greats, all on your own.

Re: The Intelligence Myth – Why I cringe when someone tells me my child is smart

#46

Post by thaumasiotes »

shripadk wrote: post #32
thaumasiotes wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Around a million students (10.43 lakhs in 2018) take up the IIT JEE exam and only around 10,000 qualify. > To prepare for this, you would have to spend countless hours solving and sleepless nights studying. And even after all that, your chance at success is 0.01%. Your numbers suggest 1%, not 0.01%. 0.01% of a million examinees would be 100 passing scores.

Ah sorry I meant to say 1% (I was thinking 0.01 in my head). Edited it. Thanks!

A more niche question: how does that biased 1% figure translate into selectivity at the level of the general population?

For example, if every eligible student takes the test and 1% of examinees pass, then the threshold for passing the test is being in the top 1% of the eligible population. If 30% of the eligible population at random take the exam, and 1% pass, then the threshold for passing the test is a little more lenient than the 1% figure makes it appear. But if some people identify beforehand that they are unlikely to pass, and don't bother -- say that the top 30% of eligible students all take the test, and the bottom 70% all don't -- then the threshold is much more strict then it appears; in the example, if 1% of examinees pass, then the passing threshold would actually be top 0.3%, not top 1%.

Re: The Intelligence Myth – Why I cringe when someone tells me my child is smart

#47

Post by ALittleLight »

abootstrapper wrote: post #39

I was called “smart” growing up. Looking back I believe it was a huge disservice. School was generally easy for me, but I was afraid to ask questions to risk appearing “not smart.” I learned a hard lesson in college. Smart isn’t something you are, it’s something you can become, through perseverance, dedication, and grit. Luckily I posses those qualities. We don’t use the S word around our kids. And when strangers tel…

I felt being called "smart" was a disservice to me as well. I think it depends on the attitude of the child though.

For me, when I heard it, it felt like a license to be lazy. Don't need to work hard, teacher already thinks I'm smart. I wasn't bothered by poor grades because I believed I was smart (that's my natural inclination anyway).

On the other hand, I think if people had told me they were worried about me failing, or that I was nth in the class, that would've been a powerful motivator for me and I'm confident I would've worked harder at school.

The complicated thing is that different strategies will do different things for different kids. Some kids might lack self confidence and need encouragement, while others (like me) may have too much self confidence and need push back or a wake up call. The problem is delivering encouragement to the over confident and a challenge to the under confident.

Re: The Intelligence Myth – Why I cringe when someone tells me my child is smart

#48

Post by lawn »

nicolethenerd wrote: post #4

There is a distinction between the pressure that comes from growing up in a "tiger family" and the consequences of growing up with the "smart" label, and I feel like the author is conflating the two. Personally, growing up with the label (but not the parental pressure) was one of the best things that could have happened for me and my education - the fact that others believed (whether true or not) that I was lightyear…

Growing up with the "smart" label was the worst thing that happened for me and my education. It made me lazy and I almost never got challenged. If I had grown up in a challenging environment I could've easily progressed years faster (in areas like math and programming) than I did. I didn't have any parental pressure, or pressure of any kind either.

It wasn't until middle of the University I learned that I actually had to work and study to understanding something.

Re: The Intelligence Myth – Why I cringe when someone tells me my child is smart

#49

Post by xtiansimon »

chess93 wrote: post #43
nicolethenerd wrote: post #4

There is a distinction between the pressure that comes from growing up in a "tiger family" and the consequences of growing up with the "smart" label, and I feel like the author is conflating the two. Personally, growing up with the label (but not the parental pressure) was one of the best things that could have happened for me and my education - the fact that others believed (whether true or not) that I was lightyear…

I'm glad the label worked for you but it did not work at all for me. It kind of shoehorned me in to a personality type and limited my social options. In all honesty I look back at my "smartness" as a kind of attention-seeking behavior where all I really wanted was the attention you got from getting the highest grade in the class or being the only one from your school to go to the ivy league. To me, the smart label ju…

>> ‘...look back at my "smartness" as a kind of attention-seeking behavior...’

Isn’t attention-seeking sort of hard-wired into all dependent animals? So, well. You’re normal there.

Re: The Intelligence Myth – Why I cringe when someone tells me my child is smart

#50

Post by darkpuma »

XMPPwocky wrote: post #19
nicolethenerd wrote: post #4

There is a distinction between the pressure that comes from growing up in a "tiger family" and the consequences of growing up with the "smart" label, and I feel like the author is conflating the two. Personally, growing up with the label (but not the parental pressure) was one of the best things that could have happened for me and my education - the fact that others believed (whether true or not) that I was lightyear…

> And more importantly, the fact that I believed it meant that I was able to operate free of insecurities or imposter syndrome that so many of my peers faced. How the heck did you convince yourself to believe it? As a "gifted" kid, what I learned very quickly was that adults will happily exaggerate minor talents (which one acquires primarily through just spending time on them, a task made markedly easier when everybo…

Maybe it reflects poorly on my character, but when I was a kid I and several other "gifted" kids turned receiving undue praise into a sport. We'd compete to find the laziest way (without lying) to receive praise specifically from the 'gifted instructor' meant to be supervising us. I think I won when I printed off a picture taken from the mandrelbot set (I did not write the renderer, I just screenshotted it) and hung the printout on the blackboard with the word "Fractal" written underneath it. The response to that was as though I had invented fractals (which of course I never claimed.)

It was a dumb game, but it taught me an important life lesson about how adults will believe what they want to believe. You don't even have to lie to people if they're willing to lie to themselves.

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