Live data from Hacker News

Standing Still Predicts School Success Better Than IQ

npr.org

31–39 of 39 posts

Re: Standing Still Predicts School Success Better Than IQ

#31
post #25
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, people who disagree can best cooperate if they emphasize accuracy in their statements -- thus quickly finding the areas of agreement and disagreement. That you thought the statement "good executive function is a better predictor of success in school than a child's IQ" was the most important part of the article is a valid opinion I can respect. That you found the standing-still experiments an interes…

The original headline is disagreeable to me. Most of the content of the article is disagreeable to me. It is not a neutral article. There is no simple neutral way to post it.

Actually, by altering the headline to your own taste, you introduced further distortion, which does not facilitate neutral discussion regarding the article itself, which is the actual topic, and should be treated with respect as one. While the article may be biased, introducing further bias does not help the readers's judgment, so the best headline to post would actually be the original headline; you let the reader decide whether it is disagreeable to them or not.

Re: Standing Still Predicts School Success Better Than IQ

#32
post #21

The problem is much bigger than merely children's toys. In general, our society is progressively less imaginative, and merely consuming what we've inherited from our past. This is why a lot of entertainment is based around destruction: cutting humor, violent action/horror films, most video games, pop music (angry rock, gangsta rap). The hacker community has an advantage here, since we are so used to using our minds.…

In what range of years do you think most of the imagining was done?

Re: Standing Still Predicts School Success Better Than IQ

#33
post #4
post #2

From this headline it sounds like this is an article about the lameness of schools, but actually it's a very interesting article about the importance of self-discipline.

The part I put in the headline is what I thought was most interesting. Most of the rest seemed to consist of saying that lack of obedience in modern children indicates something is wrong with them. And finding things to blame this on, like toys. I don't think the issue was self -discipline because the example of how they studied it was about whether the children would stand still when someone else told them to.

lol. i'm with you curi. this article just wasn't ostensibly boneheaded enough

in my case, my james bondian self-discipline, my exceptional always-in-flow-like concentration (nevermind when i'm actually in flow,) and my einsteinian think-in-nature cognition did nothing for school because i didn't care for it to begin with

does standing still indicate self-discipline? maybe, if the particular subject cares enough about the situation they're in. who's to say that test in the 1940's didn't result that way because of the children's obedience, making the test a poor determinant of self-discipline?

if a child is more likely to obey, they're more likely to be labeled "good executive functioning" by testers regardless of their relative self-discipline, and more likely to do good in school by that metric. hence, obedience may have just as much or more to do with school performance than actual self-discipline

i bet many children today don't even know the concept of "obedience." they obey, but it doesn't have a cultural significance for them. which would consequently mean the study done recently is freer of the effects of obedience and therefore more likely (but by how much?) to be measuring self-discipline by its lonesome. but in any case, the proposition that the difference is due to toys or playstyle doesn't seem likely to me. not as likely as obedience does :)

another sad thing in all this is that ADD often corresponds to particular personality types. i'm introverted and my mind always speeds along like it's on crack. if i was extroverted, that energy would force external motion and i would basically be some sort of technical spongebob. i'm guessing the MBTI types most often marked with ADD are ENFP and ENTP (which happens to be the prototypical entrepreneur)

why is that a problem? because personality types don't change. they're what people are. well, with chemicals they can change temporarily, which is the sad thing

Re: Standing Still Predicts School Success Better Than IQ

#34
post #33
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The part I put in the headline is what I thought was most interesting. Most of the rest seemed to consist of saying that lack of obedience in modern children indicates something is wrong with them. And finding things to blame this on, like toys. I don't think the issue was self -discipline because the example of how they studied it was about whether the children would stand still when someone else told them to.

lol. i'm with you curi. this article just wasn't ostensibly boneheaded enough in my case, my james bondian self-discipline, my exceptional always-in-flow-like concentration (nevermind when i'm actually in flow,) and my einsteinian think-in-nature cognition did nothing for school because i didn't care for it to begin with does standing still indicate self-discipline? maybe, if the particular subject cares enough about…

thanks. replies like this one make me glad i posted this.

Re: Standing Still Predicts School Success Better Than IQ

#35
old fashioned play involved mimicing what the children saw in the adult world on a much simpler level. What do you do when you want to understand something? You make a simplistic model of it and go from there. Are the children of today not doing this and thus not building an understanding of the world? Is WoW and MySpace the same thing?

Re: Standing Still Predicts School Success Better Than IQ

#36
post #19
post #16

Awful headline. One of multiple exercises in a 1940s test of 'self-regulation' involved standing still. Children in 2001 don't obediently stand still as well. Separately, the article notes (without referencing source) that "good executive function is a better predictor of success in school than a child's IQ". The custom headline going from 'standing' to 'school success' is tenuous extrapolation that, if the reporter…

It is not a bad headline, it is an opinionated headline (based on text from the article). I understand that you disagree with my point of view. Please understand that I disagree with yours, too. The "tangential direction" you are complaining about is the reason I posted the article. I would not have posted it otherwise. You should be glad that people who disagree can still be helpful each other, rather than complaini…

One of the factors that lead Reddit to become unreadable, in my opinion, was the proliferation of editorializing headlines.

When the headlines begin presenting ideas that are too large a subset or superset of the actual contents of the article, it becomes difficult to judge what articles one actually want to reads.

Re: Standing Still Predicts School Success Better Than IQ

#38
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you missed the most interesting aspect, not about obedience or toys specifically, but that attempting to control, regulate and educate children has severely hampered their ability to control, regulate and educate themselves. "Essentially, because children's play is so focused on lessons and leagues, and because kids' toys increasingly inhibit imaginative play, kids aren't getting a chance to practice policing…

It seems rather unfair that you got upmodded so much, and curi's post 2 layers above got downmodded below 0. curi states a personal opinion, which is valid as one. You say curi missed the most interesting aspect -- from your POV (and obviously shared by others). I disagree with you about what is the most interesting aspect, but I don't think your point is uninteresting, but neither would I think you missed the "most…

yeah. you might also be interested to look at my thread history to see some of the other stuff i get downmodded for. a few are: a question about what dates someone meant, a comment that lotto odds are public knowledge (questioning the point of the post which asked about what the odds "really" are), a "+1 informative" joke that's at -9 for some reason.

edit: btw this thread wasn't a representative example. disagreeing with pg increases downmods. if it'd been someone else it might not have happened.

and i was getting some downmods by people who didn't like the link or title but who can't downmod the submission itself so downmod comments intead.

Re: Standing Still Predicts School Success Better Than IQ

#39
post #36
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not a bad headline, it is an opinionated headline (based on text from the article). I understand that you disagree with my point of view. Please understand that I disagree with yours, too. The "tangential direction" you are complaining about is the reason I posted the article. I would not have posted it otherwise. You should be glad that people who disagree can still be helpful each other, rather than complaini…

One of the factors that lead Reddit to become unreadable, in my opinion, was the proliferation of editorializing headlines. When the headlines begin presenting ideas that are too large a subset or superset of the actual contents of the article, it becomes difficult to judge what articles one actually want to reads.

The original headline editorialized.
Post reply on HN