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How do you spot a genius?

blogs.scientificamerican.com

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Re: How do you spot a genius?

#41

Post by yorak »

kiba wrote: post #14
bromang wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this might help improve performance (though probably the effect will be much smaller than you think), but it doesn't explain the comparative weakness of american PISA results.

Why not? Sleep deprivation and long summer vacations will add up over time.

Because: Finland? We have 2 month summer vacation in elementary school (189 work days/year). The school days seem to begin around 8.30 am. And we were long time the best country in PISA rankings (currently ranked 3nd after a city state of Shanghai and South Korea).

What many people who try to model the success of Finnish education system fail to see, is that Finnish society is highly equal. This is true between genders and especially between individuals from different social status and background. We work hard to give high quality education for everybody, no matter the cost.

This is the reason why sometimes I wonder how the projects that aim to export the Finnish school model to the countries like Saudi-Arabia can succeed, if the profound problems with the inequality deep in respective societies is not addressed first.

The PISA measures averages and it is in cutting the lower performing tail of the distribution where Finland excels.

Re: How do you spot a genius?

#42

Post by SIULHT »

walshemj wrote: post #39
RockofStrength wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree - kids need intelligent role models. The modes of entertainment kids engage in (tv, movies, videogames) do not glorify intelligence - books are much better for that.

Well taking just TV Stargate had several very intelligent characters as role models Sam, Daniel, Jonas, Rodney and Jeannie. and NCIS has Abby and Tim. And the BBC's new sherlock also has a hyper intelligent character.

times are a-changin'

seriously though, being geek has become cool

contrast steve urkel with blah blah it's all those shows i don't watch but probably the ones you mentioned.

Re: How do you spot a genius?

#44

Post by JoeAltmaier »

tnuc wrote: post #6

I read this article as "My children are gifted and the government should fund/educate them and forget about all other kids." From the article: >America ranked 31st of the 56 countries that participated in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) study, which assesses the academic skills and knowledge of 15-year-olds. So how exactly is nurturing genius kids going to help that? Shouldn't education for ev…

Mediocre education for all? In a socialist way that makes sense. But won't people with bright kids and money, opt out? Or would you force them to dumb-down their kids experience so your utopian view is satisfied?

We'd all be better served by encouraging the best of us, even at the expense of those less able. Not PC, but undeniably true.

Re: How do you spot a genius?

#46

Post by throwaway1979 »

kiba wrote: post #5

This failure has consequences. America ranked 31st of the 56 countries that participated in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) study, which assesses the academic skills and knowledge of 15-year-olds. Two "easy to fix" reasons why our school sucks: Summer vacation and sleep depriving school schedule. Sleep is necessary for learning, but high school students don't get enough of it because their bio…

Really have to disagree with summer vacation. Motivated students need time to learn and explore. While Newton's account is slightly controversial, he invented Calculus when he was at home from school (school had shut down due to the plague). I've always got more work/studying done during vacation times. Less holidays would have crippled my exploration.

Re: How do you spot a genius?

#47

Post by snogglethorpe »

yorak wrote: post #41
kiba wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? Sleep deprivation and long summer vacations will add up over time.

Because: Finland? We have 2 month summer vacation in elementary school (189 work days/year). The school days seem to begin around 8.30 am. And we were long time the best country in PISA rankings (currently ranked 3nd after a city state of Shanghai and South Korea). What many people who try to model the success of Finnish education system fail to see, is that Finnish society is highly equal. This is true between gende…

Seriously ... summer holidays are pretty universal; it's not like countries generally considered to have very good educational systems don't have them.

China, Korea, Japan, all have 6-8 weeks of summer holiday; the U.S. seems to have somewhat more on average (of course in all of these countries there's some local variation), maybe 8-10 weeks, but that doesn't seem enough of a difference to have any dramatic effect.

The U.S.'s problems with education are cultural: American culture does not value education. School scheduling is mostly irrelevant.

Re: How do you spot a genius?

#48

Post by ckluis »

anonymoushn wrote: post #13
ckluis wrote: post #2

Summary: genius is a complex relationship of ability & accomplishment and is both a nature & nurture issue.

jenniewong, you seem to be hellbanned. I assume this is for your submissions rather than for you comments.

I've only submitted like 2-3 articles. None of them were related to me and at least one was in direct response to another article I read in the top.

Although, most of my comments aren't exactly award winning poetry - I would hope that they show some level of engagement on here. How do I de-hellban?

Re: How do you spot a genius?

#49

Post by CrankyPants »

timr wrote: post #37
CrankyPants wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not my experience. The gifted classes I attended were far better than the regular ones, and allowed me to study some JHS and HS-level material. The major failure in my education happened during that wasted period between elementary and college.

There's a world of difference between "gifted" classes, and classes that cover more advanced material. You'll notice that I said I would prefer AP courses over gifted education -- there's real value to allowing all qualified students to take advanced coursework. The situation gets messy when you try to segregate "gifted" kids into special education from a young age. Of the kids who ended up in AP courses with me high…

Sorry I wasn't clear. These were classes set aside for so-called "gifted" children. Not just classes that covered more advanced material. (Though they did.) Nearly everyone in there was really, really smart. I'm sure many kids fell through the cracks and weren't selected, but other than the odd inclusion of some musically gifted children who quickly fell behind and dropped out, we didn't really have any false positives.

That said, I totally agree that all students who can and are interested in advanced coursework ought to be able to benefit from it. I don't really understand why elementary school isn't more like college. If a 3rd-grade student reads at a 9th-grade level, but only does math at a 3rd-grade level, why compromise his experience?

And, as one who had teachers who couldn't always answer my questions, I don't really think asking one person to teach many types of subject matter is always a good idea, either.

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