Just as the research promised, this focused praise helped [the author's son] see strategies he could apply the next day. It was remarkable how noticeably effective this new form of praise was.Fascinating article—thanks for the post!
Truth be told, while my son was getting along fine under the new praise regime, it was I who was suffering. It turns out that I was the real praise junkie in the family. Praising him for just a particular skill or task felt like I left other parts of him ignored and unappreciated. I recognized that praising him with the universal “You’re great—I’m proud of you” was a way I expressed unconditional love.
Well, that's just simply not true. Saying it may seem satisfying, EB, in a bitter and jealous "Smart isn't so important, now is it?" way, but there is such a thing as 'smart', and it does have a real value."Perhaps there's an argument to be made that devaluing the intelligence of smart kids is good for society at large; I just wish that people would stop pretending that it's good for the kids themselves."Ethereal Bligh: It's good for the kids themselves because being "smart" in the way that we're talking about isn't all that much more actually valuable than being good at athletics. It's just not that important. It should be "devalued" because it isn't actually valuable. The sooner kids learn that, the better.
vronsky: I asked him instead, what parts of the game are you NOT good at? He looked at me like he had never thought of it before, then went down the list. I told him to concentrate on improving those areas and his strengths would take care of themselves. He looked at me like I was his sensei or something.Yeah, I mentioned that earlier- can't find it, but there was an interesting MeFi post I believe about this: about how most anyone could become world class at something, if they only had the patience, focus, and determination- and if they made sure to spend all their practice time focusing on the stuff they weren't good at. Most people, not just the 'gifted', will simply do the things they already know because it's safe and more immediately rewarding, and avoid new challenges or ideas- it's why when I was doing tech support years ago I could find myself talking to a heart surgeon who found the Windows 95 OS to be intimidating.
Ethereal Bligh: I communicate better with similar people and such people are more likely (but not necessarily) to share many of my values. But this sort of thing is true for other people with regard to many other characteristics, such as religious faith, or an active and athletic lifestyle, or extroversion, or wealth. The difference is that we don't commonly and unconsciously think of people who have an abundance of one of these other traits as somehow better and more valuable people. With "smartness", we do. And we shouldn't.You've certainly made your case there- people who are wealthier, or have a particular regligious faith, or who are fitter and prettier... they never qualify themselves as more valuable than other people. Pish tosh!
Ethereal Bligh: I have the sense that you and others are denying my assertion because you're like fish who cannot see the water they swim in. Being perceived as "smart" has profound and pervasive social consequences in our society. If it weren't highly valued, it wouldn't have such consequences.Well that's certainly... arrogant. You're kind of making a fool of yourself now, because you're seeming more and more like Langan- reasonably smart, but putting on airs and boasting of your intellectual superiority as a mechanism for making yourself seem smarter. And contrary to everything else you've typed, that seems to smack of a desperate need to sound and appear smarter than you fear you really are.
Ethereal Bligh: The two words [jealous and envious] have usefully very distinct meanings. That they have become synonymous in common language is a regrettable loss of utility. I'm pedantic about it because I'd like more people to be aware of the "correct" usage of jealousy because it's a useful distinction.I keep checking reference materials, and fail to see the useful distinction- and yes, you're being pedantic (overly concerned with unimportant details), and no, that's not desirable. The fact is the term jealous has a common usage that's similar to envious, and you knew perfectly well what I mean, so throwing a little hissy fit about a term I used that makes perfect sense to everyone who reads it including yourself is rather silly. Language is a tool for communication, you understood what I meant to say-, so I guess I did everything that I needed to do.
Ethereal Bligh: Whoever convinced you that being smart is a key to moral development was conning you.Jesus. Yes, I'm just some intellectual lightweight who was spoonfed notions like that. That, along with your other psuedo-intellectual blather, is ludicrous. You're just being an insufferable, pompous jackass at this point- and you're a maze of contradictions, my self-important friend. You prattle on and on about Aristotle and Nichomachean ethics, about your great voyage of self-discovery and how you're clearly operating at a level we mere fishies can't understand, yet you do so while trying to make the point that intelligence doesn't matter. You're acting in a way that's heavily reinforcing your own intellectual wankery, your own obsession with the life of the mind. Far from proving some kind of spiritual placidity or enlightment, you're simply buttressing everything you claim to be against. Sweet christ on a pogo stick- you're an even bigger mess than I am! :) Thanks for making me feel normal and well-adjusted for a change...
Maybe where it's really true is in that (still very large) portion of our culture that MeFi represents. The literate, high-school graduate, some college, white-collar swath. In that group there's a whole bunch of "above average" people with regard to intelligence, and within that group being "above-average in intelligence" is very poorly predictive of quality of life or achievement. But all those "above average" people almost obsess over this trait. Within that group, too, is where you find all these parents and relatives and teachers raving about how big of a deal it is and centering kids' whole lives on it.I think the problem here is not that MeFi is mean and addicted to ad hominem arguments (though a case could be made for that) but that when one overstates one's argument a bit for rhetorical effect, others leap on the vulnerable overstatement, the original commenter gets defensive and clings to it, and things spiral downhill. When you say "bend over backwards to defuse potential conflicts before they start," what you're talking about is really just being careful to state one's argument in as accurate and defensible a way as possible, and that's a good thing. It's hard to do, and I frequently trip myself because it's such fun to make a sweeping statement, but it's very much worth it, because it enables discussion to proceed in a rational and effective manner.
Finally, in the realm of the broader claim I have seemed to be making about intelligence in toto—that it's over-valued—I do think there's at least some truth to this. I can say with certainty that I think that it's vastly overvalued by those who consider themselves intelligent. I've spent much of my life around highly intelligent people and I've spent much of my life reading the words of highly intelligent people as they struggle to understand the universe and themselves.Your argument rings true with me in this way: I often struggle with being told that I'm intelligent. I usually just shrug -- I'm not too insecure about it -- but I find that's often taken as false modesty. Then, if I start talking about all the other important things that we obscure when we talk about "intelligence," that's often taken as an artful dodge.
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Last night he was trying to figure out 7^2 and decided to do it "the easy way" by taking 10^2 - 3*7 (why he doesn't have 7*7 memorized I can't explain). He was quite adamant that this was a valid method despite my demonstration that it gave the wrong answer.
The revealing part: He was only open to criticism once I revealed that I too have always wanted to get one square from another by a simple subtraction of the difference (you can get there by subtraction, but not quite as easily as he hoped).
posted by DU at 7:27 AM on February 13, 2007 [2 favorites]