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    Originally Posted by susandj
    I have to say that a lot of the conversation about "future leadership" strikes me as pretty silly. My son is very gifted, but is not now, and likely will not ever be, a social leader. Maybe he will come up with a major innovation in science, maybe he won't. I'm quite certain he won't be a CEO of anything.

    I whole-heartedly agree. One thing that drives my crazy with a lot of these studies is that they define success as achieving notable status in your given profession.

    FWIW, I haven't read Smart Boys but I did read Barbara Kerr's Smart Girls. I found myself arguing with that book constantly, particularly how she defined success. I also felt that the cultural references were outdated in terms of opportunities open to women.

    Wren #101975 05/11/11 12:48 PM
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    They were happy, gentle, prosperous ethical people with nice families. �Their goals had changed over time. �The author left me wondering if she considered their lives successful. �I wholehearted consider those outcomes successful.
    That is not to say that a exceptional education is the only way one can achieve a similar outcome by the age of fifty. �I do think it offers itself to the study of how we think nurture and a quality education affects our children's futures. �Maybe we could believe that a good education contributed to their becoming happy, gentle, prosperous ethical people with nice families. �It does reinforce the belief that once you have given your children the best education you can you must turn the reigns over to them. �By saying giving them the best education you can I do not mean just the highest achieving academics you can offer them, I mean the combination of the best of what is important to you, be it academic and factual, spiritual and interpersonal, or tolerant and respectful. �This is the legacy that you pass down to your children. �After a certain point they will claim their right to make their own decisions. �Their life will take it's own direction. �While they're young we have the opportunity to create options for them and by doing so we pass down their spiritual and intellectual inheritance.


    Youth lives by personality, age lives by calculation. -- Aristotle on a calendar
    Wren #101978 05/11/11 01:24 PM
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    Hi Bostonian,

    I want to say it is Rena Sobotnik. I actually talked to her. She had gone to Hunter for elementary and high school and wondered why no one from Hunter did anything extraordinary. So I didn't read the research, I heard from the researcher. I was on a committee for the NY Gifted and Talented Conference, which got dismantled....another story and why NYS gifted is a mess.

    Anyway, the study made an impact at Hunter as I was talking to a mother of a grade 1 student when dd was 4 and she spoke to me about the parental concerns that the study showed.

    You know that saying that if you don't know real sorrow, you never know real joy? Perhaps you just can't motivate yourself if the path is always cleared. Like DD told Hunter she didn't want to go, her OLSAT was awful for the K admissions, when the spots are wide open. So she had to take the OLSAT again and she got into the district G&T but not the citywide accelerated. She is learning the difference because I made her take the OLSAT again, so she could have a shot. And tried for the Special Music School since the first year she refused to do 3 out of the 4 things they asked her to do.

    Here is her anxious mother trying to get her the "right education". Then she gets a piano teacher last year who teaches at Special Music school who desperately wants her in and we try again. So the whole process.

    This year we do the OLSAT again and hope for a spot -- and I can push for a spot. DD knows she had to take the stupid test again to try for a spot.

    That all takes it toll on a kid's psyche of trying and trying. Hence, that makes them try harder when they don't get what they wanted. Although I really wished Hunter had taken her and she had cooperated more, in the long run, maybe she is striking a path through a denser wood that makes her fight more for what she will want in the future. Who knows?

    Ren

    Wren #101984 05/11/11 01:50 PM
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    Originally Posted by Wren
    Hence, that makes them try harder when they don't get what they wanted. Although I really wished Hunter had taken her and she had cooperated more, in the long run, maybe she is striking a path through a denser wood that makes her fight more for what she will want in the future. Who knows?

    Ren

    I agree and would add that I think people are most likely to put for their best efforts when they're fulfilling their own visions (as opposed to someone else's vision for them). So a person with a vision to for how to create a great piece of software will probably be more motivated by his own vision than someone who's just working toward his boss's vision for the software.

    Last edited by Val; 05/11/11 02:00 PM. Reason: Clarity
    Wren #101987 05/11/11 02:03 PM
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    Originally Posted by Wren
    La Texican, I am wondering about your meds again.
    . I'll relocate this one here so as not to distract form the other thread. I get the cheap meds- margarita and a flintstone vitamin. laugh mamma's little happy pill is just for the Malibu bunch.

    I think it can only help matters if you help your kid's learn how to notice what makes them happy. Even when their life path changes course and they come up with wildly divergent goals from their previous ones, if they �know� how to recognize what situations/environments/friends make them happy, strong, and are good for them they'll be alright.


    Youth lives by personality, age lives by calculation. -- Aristotle on a calendar
    Wren #101992 05/11/11 02:27 PM
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    Originally Posted by Wren
    Hi Bostonian,

    I want to say it is Rena Sobotnik. I actually talked to her. She had gone to Hunter for elementary and high school and wondered why no one from Hunter did anything extraordinary. So I didn't read the research, I heard from the researcher. I was on a committee for the NY Gifted and Talented Conference, which got dismantled....another story and why NYS gifted is a mess.

    Anyway, the study made an impact at Hunter as I was talking to a mother of a grade 1 student when dd was 4 and she spoke to me about the parental concerns that the study showed.

    You know that saying that if you don't know real sorrow, you never know real joy? Perhaps you just can't motivate yourself if the path is always cleared. Like DD told Hunter she didn't want to go, her OLSAT was awful for the K admissions, when the spots are wide open. So she had to take the OLSAT again and she got into the district G&T but not the citywide accelerated. She is learning the difference because I made her take the OLSAT again, so she could have a shot. And tried for the Special Music School since the first year she refused to do 3 out of the 4 things they asked her to do.

    Here is her anxious mother trying to get her the "right education". Then she gets a piano teacher last year who teaches at Special Music school who desperately wants her in and we try again. So the whole process.

    This year we do the OLSAT again and hope for a spot -- and I can push for a spot. DD knows she had to take the stupid test again to try for a spot.

    That all takes it toll on a kid's psyche of trying and trying. Hence, that makes them try harder when they don't get what they wanted. Although I really wished Hunter had taken her and she had cooperated more, in the long run, maybe she is striking a path through a denser wood that makes her fight more for what she will want in the future. Who knows?

    Ren

    That's her, except that the last name is spelled "Subotnik". Quoting the interesting profile of her http://www.apa.org/ed/schools/gifted/focus-researchers-subotnik.pdf

    'After Rena arrived at Hunter, my office became the site
    for her next research project. Each morning �I would arrive
    and two seventh grade boys would be at my conference
    table, poring through battered tin boxes of file cards,
    writing down the names and addresses of former
    students at the Hunter College Elementary School.
    Donna Shalala, the then President of Hunter College,
    had given Subotnik seed money of $5,000 to do a
    replication study of the Terman longitudinal studies
    with graduates of the Hunter College Elementary
    School, to see what they were doing now.

    Subotnik explained the rationale and findings for the
    study: �I used the graduates from 1949 to 1959 because
    those groups were most likely to have been admitted
    based on IQ. (The first class of HCES graduated in
    1949 and the class of 1960 and beyond for a while were
    admitted using various experimental criteria). The
    graduates were in their late 30�s to early 50�s. I used
    Terman�s mid life questionnaire as a model for my
    research instrument. I discovered that the graduates
    were not especially eminent or renowned, in spite of the
    high IQs and opportunities. There didn�t seem to be the
    kind of drive exhibited by these wonderful people to be
    significant contributors beyond their own community.

    �This research affected me in two ways. One was it
    made me realize viscerally that IQ was not a sufficient
    predictive variable in relation to eminence or great
    creative productivity. It also made me realize that I
    wanted to use whatever gifts I had to make a mark on
    the field.�'

    <end of excerpt>

    As self-appointed Defender of the (IQ) Faith, I will point out that no mention is made of a control group of children with similar IQs who did not go to Hunter. "Eminent or renowned" compared to what?


    Wren #101997 05/11/11 04:12 PM
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    Well the problem with a control group is that you are talking about NYC. Do you take a control group from private school with similar IQs, public schools -- but how do you find out their IQ?

    With the Terman study, you had people who he had rejected in his group that went on and won Nobel prizes etc or something.

    Hunter would have rejected all kinds of kids, but no records remain. That is what you need. What happened to the rejected?

    Ren

    Wren #101998 05/11/11 04:33 PM
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    Originally Posted by Wren
    Hunter would have rejected all kinds of kids, but no records remain. That is what you need. What happened to the rejected?

    Ren

    If I understand you correctly, there was no proper control group. If there's no proper control group, how could she draw conclusions from the study? The author of the paper can't claim she couldn't get the data. It's a real shame, but if it wasn't there, how can she say anything about the effects of a Hunter education with any confidence?

    Did Terman have proper controls?


    Last edited by Val; 05/11/11 04:36 PM. Reason: Clarity
    Wren #102018 05/11/11 10:47 PM
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    Read this and see if the digested stats here are what you need:
    http://depts.washington.edu/cscy/pdf/AllRiversLeadtotheSea.pdf
    This contains old data from the 1970's and early 1980's compiled for a dissertation in the 1990's. �It compares NATS non-accelerated national merit scholarship finalists, QUALS students who qualified for the early enterance program but who decided to proceed to highschool instead, and EEP'ers Early Entrance Program participants. �This document contains the resulting statistics from a follow-up eight page fourty-seven question quiestionaire.


    I retrieved the link that I mentioned above from the following link�in a round about way. �I googled a document listed on the following page.
    http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/eric/faq/gt-early.html
    There are more studies listed at the bottom of this page. You may Google them by name to find out what they are. �The one which I described above �is "All Rivers Lead to the Sea" which can be found at the bottom of the Google results of a search for that phrase. �I don't mind looking up the other documents but I will wait until you review the first link. �I will wait to read the responses posted here to see if I'm on the right track for the intent of this thread. �


    Youth lives by personality, age lives by calculation. -- Aristotle on a calendar
    Wren #102022 05/12/11 03:58 AM
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    That was very resourceful La Tex. Thanks.

    I have been always been pro 1-2 years early college, since that was my experience. I noticed the girls thought it was important to live near their parents even after they were in the workforce.

    I think that might be key. My kid probably wouldn't consider that, as I didn't. And my issues were that I got too involved socially and partied way too early. And those are my concerns for DD. If she were more introverted, I would feel more confident. But that aint the case.

    Ren

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