The Secret to Raising Smart Kids

Hugh Pickens writes "Scientific American has an interesting article on the secret to raising smart kids that says that more than 30 years of scientific investigation suggests that an overemphasis on intellect or talent leaves people vulnerable to failure, fearful of challenges and unwilling to remedy their shortcomings. In particular, attributing poor performance to a lack of ability depresses motivation more than does the belief that lack of effort is to blame. One theory of what separates the two general classes of learners, helpless versus mastery-oriented, is that these different types of students not only explain their failures differently, but they also hold different "theories" of intelligence. The helpless ones believe that intelligence is a fixed trait: you have only a certain amount. Mistakes crack their self-confidence because they attribute errors to a lack of ability, which they feel powerless to change. Mastery-oriented children think intelligence is malleable and can be developed through education and hard work. Challenges are energizing rather than intimidating offering opportunities to learn."

Comments

Creativity The Only Thing That Matters

[curmudgeon99]

Well, though intelligence is important, it is not the most important. That position would be held by creativity. And that ability is not something you can teach. It has to be developed based on curiosity and the ability to make many mistakes without giving up.

Recall that Thomas Edison needed to try 3,000 different filiment elements before he came up with carbonized bamboo. That's creativity. While the IT industry has seen rote tasks easily offshored, the design and invention is the hardest to offshore. Why? Because the Indian and Chinese cultures are not like the American one, which prizes invention and creativity.

So it is not enough to raise smart kids. You have to raise them to be creative risk takers. Failing that, you have a bunch of automatons.

Re:The secret to smart kids?? easy...

[stud9920]

Heck most think that parenting is the school's job.

"Parent" is not a verb. Stupid Americans. "Parent" comes, via the French language, from the Latin "parens". Itself coming from the verb "parere". I am not enough of an Latin etymologist to tell if it comes from *parere/pareo : to be obedient to, obey *parere/paro : prepare, raise, furnish/supply/provide or *parere/pario : bear, give birth to, beget (each makes sense) But clearly, it comes from the verb "parere", which would be something like "to pare" if it had propagated to Modern English. Putting a -ens generally is a way to make up a substantive from a verb which will specifically refer to the performer of the action. Examples: ferere (to bear) --> ferens (bearer). Ex. Christopher = Christos Ferens = the one who bears Christ exponere --> exponens Anyway, it is plain ridiculous to take a verb, make a substantive out of it, and make another verb out of it that means the same thing as the original verb. Someone who fishes fishes is called a fisherman or a fisher, yet his job is not called "fishermanning" nor "fishering". Someone who farms is a farmer yet you don't call his job farmering. Someone who insures people is an insurer, yet he is not in the "insurering" business. The only way "to parent" would be an acceptable verb is if it was not about raising children (performing the action) but about making one a parent (making the object a performer of the action). Fuck you, language rapists. What's next ? Should we call people who perform the action of "parenting", "parenters" ? And I have not even begun about the intrinsic ridicule of this pop-psycho-babble world outside of its linguistic mediocrity.