New Wordpress Version

Test post! I just finished upgrading to the latest version of Wordpress, which means there may be jankiness and -gasp!- comments are re-enabled.

Oh, and I’m leaving for Ireland in about 36 hours. Wish me luck and lots of beer.

I’m going to need it.

Reexamining My Education

Once upon a million years ago, I wrote this blog post [muchlessthanthree.com] detailing a very interesting passage in Murakami’s fantastic book Norwegian Wood. To paraphrase, it talks about how the belief that they have talent can lead young people to squander it: when things come too easily, the desire to put forth effort to accomplish goals wanes.

Reading today’s post on Bill Harris’s blog Dubious Quality [dubiousquality.blogspot.com], I came across an interesting article from Scientific American, ‘The Secret to Raising Smart Kids’. Here’s an excerpt (interestingly, the same excerpt posted on Dubious Quality):

Our society worships talent, and many people assume that possessing superior intelligence or ability―along with confidence in that ability―is a recipe for success. In fact, however, 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.

The result plays out in children like Jonathan, who coast through the early grades under the dangerous notion that no-effort academic achievement defines them as smart or gifted. Such children hold an implicit belief that intelligence is innate and fixed, making striving to learn seem far less important than being (or looking) smart. This belief also makes them see challenges, mistakes and even the need to exert effort as threats to their ego rather than as opportunities to improve. And it causes them to lose confidence and motivation when the work is no longer easy for them.

Praising children’s innate abilities, as Jonathan’s parents did, reinforces this mind-set, which can also prevent young athletes or people in the workforce and even marriages from living up to their potential. On the other hand, our studies show that teaching people to have a “growth mind-set,” which encourages a focus on effort rather than on intelligence or talent, helps make them into high achievers in school and in life.

I find articles like this very interesting, since I came from exactly the situation the author describes for ‘Jonathan’. I was told when I was young that I was ‘gifted’ and sent to gifted classes. I never had to do homework or study until a couple of classes in high school (I’m looking at you, Dr. Estes) and all the attitudes described in the article were quite prevalent in me: I lost confidence and motivation when something took effort, I had a hard time filling in my weak spots, I was fearful of challenges. (I was also something of an antisocial dick.) I eventually took a hard look at my attitudes and my proudest accomplishments – and came to much the same conclusions as the three decades of research in this Scientific American article. It’s nice to be vindicated, and I hope that today’s kids get a more ‘growth-focused’ attitude. I sincerely wish I had.