31–40 of 63 posts
That's the problem, I think. It seems too many parents encourage artificial achievement that can be quantified, like grades or ribbons, which keeps kids from truly exploring what they are capable of doing.
Some children are quite smart - possibly smarter than some adults will ever be. Most are not as smart as the average adult, however, and some will never be. None of this is really surprising? Whether one is dealing with an adult or child, there's no need to make assumptions about intelligence. I mean, some kids can spell and proof read better than adults, or at least type out the word "airport" correctly :)
26 years ago I wrote a BAT file ("kristen") for the household MS-DOS computer, which would play Christmas carols whenever my two-year-old daughter typed her name on the keyboard and pressed the return key. She learned quickly to switch the system on, wait for the boot sequence to complete, and play music All By Herself. It was a revelation: kids as young as that don't have eye-hand coordination enough to scribble rec…
Works for speech too, so I'd summarize it as "kids lacks interfaces". A neuroscientist said there's an adult/infant impedance mismatch, that caused wrong theories to develop. Kids would fail repetitive logic tests because asking the same question twice would be interpreted as being wrong so they tried another answer which made them look random. * sigh
While I fully agree that we underestimate kids, I've got to say that my three-year-old spent a gleeful half hour riding up and down escalators back in March, and was sad when we said he had to stop. Little kids can be surprisingly smart and still be amused by simple, repetitive things that would bore adults out of their skulls.
Pretty much all I've ever wanted to do is walk down an up escalator (and vice versa) at just the right pace that I don't move. Then run a bit faster, slow down a bit, etc. All my earthly ambitions boil down to this.
26 years ago I wrote a BAT file ("kristen") for the household MS-DOS computer, which would play Christmas carols whenever my two-year-old daughter typed her name on the keyboard and pressed the return key. She learned quickly to switch the system on, wait for the boot sequence to complete, and play music All By Herself. It was a revelation: kids as young as that don't have eye-hand coordination enough to scribble rec…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Works for speech too, so I'd summarize it as "kids lacks interfaces". A neuroscientist said there's an adult/infant impedance mismatch, that caused wrong theories to develop. Kids would fail repetitive logic tests because asking the same question twice would be interpreted as being wrong so they tried another answer which made them look random. * sigh
Do you have a link, paper or book recommendation for those wanting to read more about how kids "fail" repetitive logic tests as you just described?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I still get a small thrill from stepping onto a particularly long escalator (eg the one at Angel tube station in London, which is the 3rd biggest in Western Europe), but then again, my partner often says I'm essentially a five year old trapped in an adult's body.
There is an awesome one at Tokyo Station (Chuo line?) Up about two stories, then horizontal for 10 meters, then up another two stories. Ya, I could spend hours on that one....
and/or watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbZ7jrMe4t4
this too! http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&...
Parent of a 4 and 1 year old here. Kids can be surprisingly smart and "dumb" at the same time. Their rote intelligence can shine if problems are presented in ways they can easily comprehend them but even simple emotional intelligence tasks ("if I kick my sister it hurts her the same amount as it hurts me when I get kicked") stump them. This confuses adults (myself included) and sometimes makes us expect more from the…
While I fully agree that we underestimate kids, I've got to say that my three-year-old spent a gleeful half hour riding up and down escalators back in March, and was sad when we said he had to stop. Little kids can be surprisingly smart and still be amused by simple, repetitive things that would bore adults out of their skulls.
Pretty much all I've ever wanted to do is walk down an up escalator (and vice versa) at just the right pace that I don't move. Then run a bit faster, slow down a bit, etc. All my earthly ambitions boil down to this.