Books and articles that emphasize the "non-cognitive" determinants of genius and elite performance are all the rage these days. (I put "non-cognitive" in quotes, because the line between "cognitive" and "non-cognitive" traits is much more blurred than popular journalists make out). A recent book on the topic (which has just been released in paperback) is David Shenk's book "The Genius in All of Us: New Insights Into Genetics, Talent, and IQ."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-barry-kaufman/is-there-really-a-genius-_b_845100.html
I think this article had good points and did a good job reflecting over the book. He addressed things in the book as well as things he disagreed with or thought were missing. I liked the fact that he mentioned that standardized testing does not fully comprehend ones abilities, because I am one of those people whose test scores do not reflect their overall abilities. Greatness comes from a lot of different things, like he mentioned in the book, and trying to condense it down into something small is kind of rediculous.
I think this brings up some interesting points. In this weeks reading it talks about self-actualization, which is when a person reaches their full potential. Perhaps this means that we could all be genius, if we really pushed ourselves to be.
I agree with Taylor, standardized testing has never been a strong point for me, but only because i get bored after so long, and am not good at keeping focused, I always got pretty decent scores. Perhaps if i really concentrated and forced through it I would have scored much higher than i had.
maybe I missed the point of this assignment but after reading the comments on this article I am amazed. Almost everyone said something about "I am a high IQ individual and" blah blah blah. Many people stated that having a high IQ made them lazy because they didn't have to work for anything and they were bored through school! First of all, how do these people know their IQ? Did they pay thousands of dollars to take the WISC? Are online IQ tests valid? Secondly, to bitch about a gift that they have... ridiculous. "I was bored." "I've never really had to work for my achievements" "I can't wait to have kids so they can be smart too".
How can anyone really know how smart they are unless they take an expensive IQ test, and even then the article states that standardized tests don't show our true capabilities.
I thought this article was interesting because it got me thinking. It brought up a great point that each person has a different way of achieving greatness whether they seemed to be born with it or it developed from excessive practice over time. Even though the article mentions that very few people are geniuses, I believe that each person has their own capability of reaching expertise in some sort of area whether it is in education or sports. I do believe that each person has something that they love enough to work for, each person being different. If a person works hard enough and makes the right decisions anything can happen. I do agree that many people who are experts or genius are born with certain traits that make it easier for them, but I also believe that others less fortunate are able to establish greatness as well.
I agree with you Megan. Everyone is different and take different paths to get to where they are. Some people have to work a lot harder in order to achieve the same things that come naturally to others. Although, I don't know if I agree if people are born with more intelligence than others or if it is something in their socialization? Some people are just naturally smarter and it comes easy to them, but how can we know if that is something that is "a trait you are born with," or a product of your environment. As annoying as it may be, it is a mystery that people have been pondering forever.
I am not sure how to comment on this. I really enjoyed how he critiqued the book in both its pros and cons. He seemed very objective in his analysis and I liked that. I guess I should just say that his final verdict was "not everything was taken into account and further analysis is needed," is kind of a vague analysis. That being said, I also liked how he ended it, saying that this further analysis is even more exciting to think about because it opens new doors to measuring and thinking about intelligence and greatness.
It sounds like he gave the book a pretty sound review. He agreed with bits and disagreed with bits. One part that I agreed with him about was that measuring greatness or expertise of any kind is a very difficult task to do. IQ tests to not do this any justice because they are simply a measure of academic greatness/expertise. It does not show how responsible, caring, self-driven, or awesome you are. It also does not measure differing areas of knowledge like Gardener's 8 areas of intelligence, I think that would be a more valid scale personally if we could make it into a simple test. Unfortunately, we are a very long ways from the perfect test.
I really liked this article. i liked the comparison between being good at athletics and being intelectually good. that there involved practice. This article adresses that there is a nature and nurture theory involved with any intelligence. The statement of you will never know your true IQ because it is able to change or evolve.
This was a rather inspiring article, especially when most students are feelings stressed about finals, jobs, relationships, jobs, and so on. Reaching "self-actualization" seems like an on-going process to me. I liked how this article compared being physically good at something to being mentally good. It's easy to relate to because in the media jocks are typically not so smart, but good at sports. Same as how "nerds" typically aren't the best at sports. I believe we are evolving to a greater total package. For example, athletes must maintain a certain grade point average in order to play sports and it is required (almost everywhere) for students to take p.e. in High School.
I do believe their is a "Genius" in ALL of us, just in different situations and topics of life. I know a lot of 4.0 students we consider "Geniuses", but they'll tell you in a heartbeat, "Yes I have a 4.0. English is my strongest subject, but I suck at math. It took me having a tutor to get me the grade I have." That was them just being smart and getting a tutor to help them obtain the A they needed to receive a 4.0.
I believe even special education students have "genius" in them. It may be in coloring between the lines, problem solving for simple tasks, or anything. Not even saying this to be funny, but between them and other special ed students they may be perceived as a Geniuses in that population. A lot of times we tend to think the world is smaller than what it is and it's just "What we know and see" and nothing else. But it's not. That are numerous worlds inside of the large world we all live in together.