Too Many Kids Quit Science Because They Don't Think They're Smart 273
An anonymous reader writes: Carol Dweck, a psychology professor at Stanford, has done years of study on how students' attitudes affect their academic achievements. Her work began at the height of the "self-esteem movement," when parents were told to praise their kids' brainpower at every turn. But Professor Dweck found that praise for intelligence or talent — relatively immutable characteristics — only turned kids off of trying subjects they perceived as difficult, like math and science. Praising effort, perseverance, and problem-solving strategies works better. She also says, "There is such a thing as too much praise, we believe." Instead, she suggests engaging with kids about the process itself, showing interest and encouragement when they talk about how they did something.
They're probably correct (Score:5, Funny)
There. I said what we're all thinking.
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I have to wonder about children these days. When I was in school everyone studied mathematics, science, history, grammar and literature, and often a foreign language from primary/elementary grades through graduation. In high school the girls tended to outperform the boys in most subjects including mathematics and sciences. It seems children born after after 1979 have been coddled and told it is alright not to challenge themselves.
Re:They're probably correct (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:They're probably correct (Score:5, Insightful)
The addage, "the difference between the Master and the Novice is that the Master has failed more times than the Novice has tried," requires the person that becomes the master to have the latitude to fail during the education process without those individual failures costing them the right to advance, assuming that they manage to overcome those failures as they learn. That isn't to say that failure itself should be seen as a positive result, but if failure happens and can be overcome to demonstrate proficiency or mastery of the topic then the pupil should be able to continue.
It's not uncommon for those kids that are used to easy success without struggle to have quite a reality check once they're out of high school. Indeed, MIT even asks its applicants about their failures during the applications and admissions process; they want to be sure that a school full of kids that were valedictorians and salutatorians in their previous academic pursuits will not crack when they start struggling and failing there.
Re:They're probably correct (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed, MIT even asks its applicants about their failures during the applications and admissions process; they want to be sure that a school full of kids that were valedictorians and salutatorians in their previous academic pursuits will not crack when they start struggling and failing there.
It's even more than that -- MIT wants students who will accept a system, unlike some other top tier schools, where you're not basically guaranteed an A once you're admitted. Grade inflation is a huge problem at top tier schools, and it's really hard to deal with since any professor who tries to give "real" grades will suffer -- poor evaluations, and just the annoyance of dealing with dozens of upset students who are used to getting A's in everything since kindergarten, no matter what effort they put forth.
MIT has a unique and rather effective way of dealing with this: first semester freshman year is "pass/no record". Not pass/fail, but no record -- meaning if you get an A, B, or C, your permanent transcript only says " P"; if you get a D or F, the class doesn't even show up on your external transcipt, so no one outside MIT gets to even know you took the class and failed.
Aside from giving students a chance to learn through failing with no immediate consequences, it also allows a bunch of valedictorians and people with perfect SATs to realize many of them are no longer the smartest person in the room, and they're going to have to work harder. Perhaps even beyond helping the students' egos and "self-calibration" to a new environment, it also allows professors to "set a standard" without creating permanent consequences for new students. If you do get a student running to your office -- with tears streaming (or worse, threatening a lawsuit, and yeah those things do happen) -- saying, "But, but... I can't get a B on my test -- I have to get into med school!" you can just tell them to take a deep breath and try their best in the future, since this grade won't influence their permanent record.
Then by the next semester, many of the freshmen have failed or gotten a low grade somewhere, so they've realized they just won't be handed an A for showing up. So they either try harder or realize that their effort is just now going to get them a B or even a C. A little bit of failure honestly changes the entire culture of the school.
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Re:They're probably correct (Score:5, Insightful)
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What matters is what proof of capability you have in the end. The goal of grades is to let employers (or med school, or whatever) to rank applicants without bothering to test them themselves. Consequently, what matters to the student is the letter in the report card, not whether they know the course material. And that means if the most effective way to increase said grade is to intimidate the professor, or to cheat, that's exactly what the student will d
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MIT doesn't have class-rank. You're either good enough to graduate, or not. Remember, everyone coming in to MIT is already the creme de la creme, so you either continue to perform to MIT's standards, or you don't.
Also bear in mind, pass/no-cre
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Get in yer room and learn and do the homework, or its Five across the Eyes!!!
"Self Esteem" wasn't really even a concept discussed back in the day when you just had to go and learn at school. No one really suffered without that catering either...(the 5 across the eyes was a joke).
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Re:They're probably correct (Score:5, Funny)
When you were in school, Leibnitz hadn't yet invented his Calculus, so there wasn't as much STEM to learn.
I know, I'll get off your lawn.
Re:They're probably correct (Score:5, Funny)
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The AC above me is a perfect example of JustOK's point.
Re: They're probably correct (Score:4, Interesting)
Hasn't racial segregation just been replaced by postcode segregation?
Its getting more that way in Australia, with large variation in average scores of different schools.
Smart people in poor suburbs tend to send the kids to private schools (often Catholic), or get them into specialist programmes in non-local schools.
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Hasn't racial segregation just been replaced by postcode segregation?
Not exactly. They're the same thing. That's what busing was about.
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It's because of their culture. Being smart is "acting White" and they are shunned by their family and friends in the community. I have two great friends that chose science over social and they talk about how their culture is against being smart.
Ohh but we cant challenge a cultural fault like that , just like how it is taboo to point out how a religion is based on hatred.
Re:They're probably correct (Score:5, Insightful)
In the early 80s we were loading programs off tape drives and playing electronic football with four blips. You think smartphone interfaces would be too difficult to figure out?
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You had to build the feature set yourself. Quite a difference from a smartphone, designed for easy consumption of pre-packaged goods.
I remember building my own reset-button on the back of the harddisk, or looking at the joystick cabling from a failed joystick and trying to build something where you could press buttons to move things on the screen. And creating my own games because we didn't have downloads yet.
If you wanted to load tapes on the zx spectrum, you had to be ready with a screwdriver to adjust th
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Actually, the kids from 1975 are the ones who invented smartphones, PDF and the Internet.
Re:They're probably correct (Score:4, Informative)
Re:They're probably correct (Score:4, Insightful)
Try talking history and not know your dates. You needn't remember exact dates but knowing that Augustine lived around 360-430 and was not a contemporary of Aquinas (1225-1275) who was not a contemporary of Hobbes (born in 1588 - the year of the Spanish Armada) is important when in the field.
Knowing that Babe Ruth and Derek Jeter were not contemporaries is also import. Joe Louis did not fight Muhammad Ali who was not a contemporary of Mike Tyson. All these items (when people lived, when they were active in their respective sport) are facts - not critical thinking. Judging the relative merits of Joe Louis and Mike Tyson takes critical thinking.
Doctors memorize bones and muscles. It's important but rote memorization of these facts will not make them good doctors (and is probably not enough to graduate). Learning how to memorize helps one derive mnemonics - like the phone number 10-4-3-4-1-1-1. (Yes it's not a real telephone number) and then use that to help remember key facts. A US citizen should be conversant with the constitution even if they are not a constitutional lawyer. The Constitution has 7 parts (articles) each with different sections. The first article, which deals with the Legislative Branch, has 10 sections; the second article, which is concerned with the Executive Branch has 4 sections. The mnemonic 10-4-3-4-1-1-1 helps me remember, to mentally categorize key points about the US Constitution.
Will memorizing the constitution make me into a jurist ? No. But the effort of learning involves memorization.
Memorization is to cerebral activities what wind sprints and sit-ups are to athletes. It helps one become better and while sit-ups won't turn me into a world-class boxer or football it is a necessary part of becoming a world-class athlete.
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There. I said what we're all thinking.
I was self teaching myself Quantum Physics, I read every book the library had, in the end I decided I needed to do the math myself so had a Quantum Physics math book sent from some university.
I laughed when I saw the book it was just all math no text and so over my head, I'd never seen math like that even more amusing (to me) was the first pages were of corrections so people had done the math and caught many errors (read the book).
So over my head I couldn't even begin to "do the math" I'd never seen math so
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Was that because it's actually complex, or because the notation reads like an ancient Egyptian curse translated to Greek? Because that seems to be the first problem of pretty much every mathematical explanation of physics I've ever seen: they insist on using greek letters to denote both variables and operands, rather than English words. As a result the average person can't read the formula, and thus can only comprehend it as a pictogram.
Imagine if the textbook was wri
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What would you expect, pictures?
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Somebody mod up.
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Western music and music theory, the word augmentation (from Late Latin augmentare, to increase) has three distinct meanings. Augmentation is a compositional device where a melody, theme or motif is presented in longer note-values than were previously used. Augmentation is also the term for the proportional lengthening of the value of individual note-shapes in older notation by coloration, by use of a sign of proportion, or by a notational symbol such as the modern dot. A major or perfect interval that is widened by a chromatic semitone is an augmented interval, and the process may be called augmentation.
wah??? you click links and it gets worse and worse.
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That sums up the problem with math on wikipedia pretty well. It uses established notation but doesn't explain the notation. This continues in a perpetual circle reference which means that it impossible for someone not familiar with the notation to understand what it says, even if the math itself is extremely simple. Completely useless if you just want to get a basic understanding of something.
Yeah, but there's a wiki for it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mathematical_symbols
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Mathematics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_letters_used_in_mathematics,_science,_and_engineering
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Hard work beats talent every time.
Except... (Score:2)
Except when talent works hard. Then talent beats hard work every time.
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For all those who were thinking that.
Did you get into science from smarts alone, or was it from a lot of work?
Sure science came easy to me, but I was interested in it before hand and spent a lot of time outside of formal class leading science. So when I took the classes they were an easy A. But it wasn't about me being Smarter then the others but the fact I have invested more time into it.
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The thing is, these kids actually have some wisdom, unlike the Dunning-Kruger sufferers that are so dumb that they think they can to anything. STEM fields are only right for a small group of people, others will never be good at it or happy with it. Not a nice thing to say, and I apologize, but it is an accurate thing to say.
Pfft. (Score:5, Insightful)
Who the fuck cares.
Nobody is going to give them a job anyways.
Re: Pfft. (Score:5, Insightful)
As a science grad I wish I had been smart enough to pick up a trade instead of buying into the whole "smart enough for science" thing.
Re: Pfft. (Score:5, Interesting)
I've got biochemistry PhD. And I had to leave the USA to find work. But if I had one wish, it wouldn't be to have chosen a different career, it would be to have never been born. I used to think that if I suffered enough as a child then I would be happy as an adult. Then I thought that I must have done something horribly wrong to have such a miserable life as an adult. Finally, I realized that life is just generally miserable for most people no matter what they do. It really doesn't matter what career you have unless you somehow get lucky and end up a member of the tiny hereditary ruling class.
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Actually, you can get lucky in other ways. I work for a small but very high-end IT consulting business and I am very happy with my work and my boss. And my PhD helps tremendously, not only with the subject matter, but also with technical writing and presenting technical stuff to customers. Of course, a lot of this job is psychology as well, and it is absolutely critical for good results. What helped me there is the teaching experience I acquired during my PhD and before.
But sure, this installment of the hum
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Actually, I know several mathematicians, and they tell me that demand is there and apparently has been constantly for the last century or so. Of course, demand starts not below a good MA and a PhD is a definite plus. Mathematicians have had constant good but not great job opportunities for the last century or so. The thing is that nobody but a mathematician can replace a mathematician.
As to science-jobs, that depends a lot on the specifics. Pure science has had an unfortunate downturn in demand, but if you
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shouldn't have got
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Gotten is a perfectly fine, if a little archaic form of the verb "to get".
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Correct usage, if maybe a little puzzling to a speaker of simplified English (a.k.a. US English).
Sucks to be you (Score:2)
Had a guy in my office a couple weeks ago. Cleans chimneys. This year he's going to clear about $500k after expenses and taxes. I just designed a 3000SF garage for his and his wife's cars. Had another guy a couple of months ago who does insulation. He's building a 12,000 SF home I helped design and just consulted with him on three large barn buildings for his growing exotic bird collection.
Seriously, the money really is in the trades - mostly because all the "smart" people are doing 9-5 for big companies a
This. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This. (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, geez, are we back to "teach self esteem" and "participation trophies"? We need to teach some self-discipline and determination - if we don't teach kids to keep going especially when it seems hard, how are they going to find success as adults? A proper "positive self image" is the result of success. You do the hard things not because you think you're great, but because you don't give up.
What you advocate leads to college grads who don't know what to do when no one hands them a great job at graduation, so they can only complain instead of persevere.
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You seemed to have missed the point.
There's good praise and bad praise.
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Unfortunately, a lot of the school system is allergic to science - so it is hardly surprising the can't teach it.
Everyone aknowledges some footballers are top rate, and some are not even so-so, but it is no
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I don't believe you read the link, or read any similar studies for that matter. The "precious snowflake" issue is due to psychologists claiming what you are (or seem to be). Praise alone makes the person. While self perception is important, it's not the only factor.
It's not praise alone that makes people smart, it's accomplishments and praise for those accomplishments. When Johnny fails a math test and the parent's say "Great Job Johnny, at least you tried" the person is praised for failure. What lesso
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The inappropriate praise issue has already been mentioned, but there is a related one: giving children choices -
The hereditory ruling class puts enormous emphasis on passing on communication and decision making skills - that is why it is a hereditory ruling class. It is not the genes.
If the parents are barely able to tell the kid "shut up and play" what chance does the kid have against those whose parents insist the kids use correc
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I am not saying that having good family connections does not help, but it is certainly not the biggest factor in making progress, T
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I am not saying that having good family connections does not help, but it is certainly not the biggest factor in making progress, The people who say that are almost all parroting what they heard in the socialist circles they grew up in
The people who say that is the truth. It's been proven that the most relevant criteria for success is who your parents are.
who you know can hold you back every bit as much as push you forward, if not more.
Uh, duh? That's just a different way of saying the same thing.
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Your initial point is fine: people rise to the expectations others have of them. Low expectations give lower results.
Your conclusion is flawed, however. My conclusions would be that we need to have higher expectations of kids, and if they fail, no problem - but they need to work at achieving the expected outcome (a good grade). I always tell my son that I know he's smart, but that it just means that for him, the lowest expectation for his grade is an A. If it doesn't work out that way, we look at what went
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I don't believe that. At all. If you are a regular, mentally healthy and smart person, you will experiment and carefully observe results, but avoid expecting to succeed or fail.
We Totally Got it Right This Time (Score:5, Insightful)
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Psychology professor proves that parents retarded their children's development by listening to psychology professors. But totally has the right answer this time.
Pick your poison. You've got the sources you need to distrust because of their long history of being wrong or the sources you need to distrust because of their long history of claiming not to be wrong.
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Most parents would do great if they only let go of their ego and the proxy competition through their children. They want their children to be smart and successful and end up setting unrealistic standards and goals that makes children feel like failures when reality isn't that easy. And negative feedback on how they're falling short only makes it worse. Don't inflate their ego, don't crush it. Take your children for what they are, motivate them to do better. Show them that through effort they can improve. Re
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Well, according to some Psych professors, most psych professors are psychos. Not all.
The study I want to see... (Score:5, Funny)
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Sounds about right. And the small minority of the population that recognizes the BS the politico-clowns are doing just get the same one vote as everybody else.
Biased summary (Score:2)
"Too many kids..."
That implies there's a "right" number of kids sticking with science. Does the submitter mean that we need more eternal post-docs who can't get real funding?
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That implies there's a "right" number of kids sticking with science. Does the submitter mean that we need more eternal post-docs who can't get real funding?
False dichotomy. Physics is good because it has lots of applications. When getting my pilot license, the other student pilots that didn't do science couldn't pass the aerodynmaics tests. Those of us who loved science took science as electives didn't have trouble. Cg of a helicopter? That's standard force balancing. Fuel range? Easy math, sometimes with some unit conversion. People who "hate" science end up needing it, and not having enough. It's not about people going into science as their primary
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my kid (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm doing the same with my kid. I grew up in the middle of all this. My parents basically told me I was a genius from the time I was a toddler. The result? I didn't even try. It was all beneath me. I got out of high-school with a C average. Luckily I actually was smart enough to do very well on the ACT after I realized maybe I'd screwed up my grades.
My kid gets praised for effort. Telling someone they are smart is no more beneficial than praising them for being handsome, or tall. It's something they have no control over and cannot improve. So why praise it? Praise something they can control, perseverance.
Re:my kid (Score:5, Funny)
Wow! What an awesome comment. You're so smart!
Re:my kid (Score:5, Funny)
Wow! What an awesome comment. You're so smart!
I'm also quite handsome!
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Someone told me that Golden Retrievers are a particularly smart breed of dog.
I replied "You shouldn't say that: you should just say that they try hard"
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Someone told me that Golden Retrievers are a particularly smart breed of dog.
I replied "You shouldn't say that: you should just say that they try hard"
Everyone who knows dogs, and/or has had them in their lives, knows that golden retrievers are about as smart as a box of rocks. Smooth rocks.
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Border Collies all the way. I have one... but they are smart like serial killers... so they have their downsides as well. :-p
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It was all beneath me.
To be fair, the busywork they assign in school is beneath everyone; it's just trash.
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It was all beneath me.
To be fair, the busywork they assign in school is beneath everyone; it's just trash.
Busywork = money
That's all there is to it. You can be the smartest person on earth but if you don't have the gumption to get up in the morning and drag yourself to your boring job you'll just end up being a very smart person living in a cardboard box.
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Busywork != education, which is what schools should be providing. But in our money-obsessed society, it's seen as much more important to pump out corporate drones, regardless of any long-term negative effects this has.
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I found my parents' praise over my intelligence just pointless. I haven't continued the tradition with my children. Not that I don't praise them, just that I don't go out of my way to praise them over intelligence when it is irrelevant. My oldest is in school and more practical praise doesn't seem to give him any more interest in school tasks than I had.
I agree. I should also point out that, it's not like I don't tell my kid he's smart. I just don't go out of my way to do it. If he says something like "I can't do this! I can't figure it out!" then of course he gets "Yes you can, you're very smart!" but it's followed with "You just have to put the effort in." The key to success is application of your skills. Intelligence is a fulcrum that maximizes your effort. You need effort no matter what, intelligence just increases how much work gets done with that eff
This was known at the time (Score:5, Interesting)
This was known 20 years ago, but it's take 20 years for the change to make it to public knowledge.
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Well, quite frankly this is obvious to a smart, perceptive person, to this has probably been known for thousands of years.
Hold the phone. (Score:2)
You have to actually study things that might be difficult in order to learn?
Good enough ... (Score:2)
So, basically ... you're good enough, smart enough, and dog gone it, people like you, then?
You also have to be careful you don't start rewarding mediocrity just for the sake of it ... because it's not necessarily good to just praise them for nothing.
Not everyone agreed with the self esteem movement where everything they did was awesome, even if it wasn't.
Because they didn't always understand that in the real world there's seldom a cookie for a half assed job.
spare the rod, spoil the child (Score:4, Insightful)
Speak roughly to your little boy
and beat him when he sneezes
he only does it to annoy
because he knows it teases.
[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D... [wikipedia.org] ]
Every child should read Alice in Wonderland. It's not easy reading, but they will get it. It presents a complex world that is not easy for young Alice, but she has pluck and forges ahead. It is an adventure that requires courage and confidence and a tremendous example for young people- boys and girls.
Challenge your children. Give them Poe, Swift, R.L. Stevenson, quality scifi, etc. Give them fine music & jazz, fine art and the opportunity to create art, give them geography, history, dinosaurs and bioscience. Don't numb their brains with superhero TV & games.
There is more to education than job training. There is life. Give them a head start. Love them.
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Give them fine music & jazz, fine art
What music and art is "fine" is an entirely subjective opinion, so this is a meaningless statement. Personally I find a fair proportion of jazz a turgid cacophony. Why would I subject my children to that?
Give them whatever they enjoy and whatever will expand their horizons.
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Personally I find a fair proportion of jazz a turgid cacophony.
He did say fine music and jazz, clearly implying a distinction.
Not Enough Fear (Score:2)
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Very funny. Except that Einstein emigrated to the US in 1933. In 1905 he lived in Switzerland.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A... [wikipedia.org]
You don't praise them for being smart but (Score:2)
You don't praise them for being smart but for trying hard.
If they think they are smart and the new material hard, they assume they are not smart enough. And you can't get smarter.
If they try hard and the new material is hard, they assume they have to try harder. And you can always try harder.
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You should also praise them for achievements, otherwise they may think that faking effort is enough. (I know, a lot of white-collar jobs involve faking trying hard, and politics is basically 100% of it, but any decent person will that have eat their soul in the long run ...) Of course, the achievement should be seen relative to skills and talents, so the trying hard is an important part.
Cynical view... (Score:3)
Too Many Kids Quit Science Because They Don't Think They're Smart
The problem is, too many of them are right.
Time to re-post the classic (Score:2)
Doesn't help that most of the people... (Score:2)
... teaching it are clueless and the textbooks are written by people that have somewhere along the way missed the objective of the text... which is to teach young people science.
The emphasis is on "teach" not list fucking facts, tell them to write them down, and say "there will be a test on THOR's Day". That is what they so often do and it is no wonder everyone gets bored and passes out. Do more experiments. Do more labs. Do more projects.
The problem with projects? They're more expensive. They're messy. The
The worst thing you can do. (Score:2)
If they are told that they are smart, they will get a mind-set that says: "I'm smart, I don't need to work at this."
A wealthy friend of the family once told me: "There are two ways to become wealthy: out smart the other guy. The rest of us out work him."
Re:The worst thing you can do. (Score:5, Insightful)
A wealthy friend of the family once told me: "There are two ways to become wealthy: out smart the other guy. The rest of us out work him."
Most people who are wealthy have wealthy parents. It is overwhelmingly the most common way to become wealthy. Virtually nobody makes it to "the top" solely through hard work. Wealthy people always extol the virtues of hard work, but the truth is that there is no amount of hard work will necessarily make you successful. There are too many people waiting with outstretched hands to take advantage of you, or feet waiting to trip you — mostly to assure that you don't threaten their success in this negative-sum game.
News Blast: Most Kids are Average (Score:2)
News blast! Most people are average. Smart is not what really matters. We want intelligence plus smart. If you don't know the difference then figure it out.
appropriate quote? (Score:2)
Miss Tick sniffed. “You could say this advice is priceless,” she said. “Are you listening?”
“Yes,” said Tiffany.
“Good. Nowif you trust in yourself”
“Yes?”
“and believe in your dreams”
“Yes?”
“and follow your star” Miss Tick went on.
“Yes?”
“you’ll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren’t so lazy. Good-bye.”
Terry Prattchet - "The wee
Hey (Score:2)
Define "too many"
I have a different hypothesis (Score:2)
Too many kids quit science because of the way in which it's taught. High-school science classes quickly leave the practical realm for the hidden/theoretical realm, for want of a better word. This hidden realm contains the deeper concepts but the average high-school student doesn't have the resources to play around with the knowledge e.g. electron microscopes, spectrometers, or particle colliders. Kids are being required to regurgitate equations on command or memorize biological taxonomies. That's major
kids can learn calculus? (Score:2)
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That has been the standard of the human race for a long, long time. It is the occasional smart person that drags the rest a tiny bit forward.
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Actually, math jobs are not that hard to get, but you need to at least get to MA level and you need to be good at it.