Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums THINKING BIG About Gifted Education Sorry Strivers, Talent Matters

There's a very interesting opinion piece in the Sunday Review of the New York Times.

Research in recent decades has shown that a big part of the answer is simply practice � and a lot of it. ... Those findings have been enthusiastically championed, perhaps because of their meritocratic appeal: what seems to separate the great from the merely good is hard work, not intellectual ability.

Research has shown that intellectual ability matters for success in many fields � and not just up to a point.

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It's nice to read something like this piece in a publication with a readership as wide as that of the Times.

Interesting read, thankyou!

Interesting article, but I feel like it oversimplifies things a bit. With the possible exception of obtaining a patent, I am not sure that the things listed (earning a PhD, publishing a scientific article or literary work) are necessarily the best measures of anything we can call "real world" success. They are also not that exclusive anymore. See this article, for example.
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110420/full/472276a.html

Of course, it all depends on how you define success. Wealth? Prestige? Happiness? Perhaps you could argue prestige with these measures, but not the other two.

Also, I have mixed feelings about this article. What is their purpose in writing this? Because it seems like it could just feed into the ideas that we don't need to worry about PG kids because they'll be fine, and increase the social distance between them and "everyone else" creating an increasingly lonely position.

Good question -- I just posed this question to Dr. Meinz -- I'll post if I hear back.

I didn't get this impression at all. The piece noted the obvious importance of practice yet added that talent can have an effect on outcomes.

I thought the piece was important because it said, in major newspaper, that talent is real. I agree that it probably simplifies things, but it's not like they had much choice. The Op-Ed pages limits people to 750 words or so. There isn't a lot of room for nuanced argument in those kinds of bounds, so I'm not sure what you expect.

What's important (to me at least) is that the piece said something that's true, yet is unpopular these days: talent matters, talent is real, and it can affect your chances for success. Saying this out loud is huge.

It's also so obvious (to me at least). Yet our society doesn't seem to want to say it out loud unless you're an athlete. So instead we hear arguments like "all children are gifted" and "they all even out by third grade" and "you must be making your kid do constant math worksheets." At the beginning of the school year, my son had to fill out a True-False homework sheet for math class that included the statement "There is no such thing as a mathy mind." Bollocks! But teacher's correct answer was "True," and answering "False" was not, let us say, encouraged.

So I guess I'm a bit confused by why people here would seem to be suspicious of an opinion piece that finally says that talent --- particularly cognitive talent --- is real and can have real effects.

The sad part to me is that although talent matters, aka 'being different' matters...if you are different, you are screwed in our public school system. Perseverance is still key.

I think the problem is that talent is not enough. Look at Hiliary Clinton. Estimates put her IQ around 125. Gifted but not brilliant and people who know her say the same, but she worked really, really hard. She applies herself, she takes risks.

She pursues her goals. Someone asked what success was, probably pursuing your goals and reaching many of them.

I think that why practice outperformed talent in many studies, is that talent can get lazy. Isn't that why we are on this forum? So our kids are challenged, don't get bored in school and fall of the cliff of life?

Yes, agreed. I am hanging around here to find ways to keep my kids from falling off that cliff.

The school my dd5 attends has a saying, from their namesake, that Success=Education+Motivation+Perseverance

Which I think is about right. Talent can be added in there for extraordinary results, but still success can be obtained with the above recipe.

I agree with Val that it's a good article. Let me comment on this part:

"In a pioneering study, the Florida State University psychologist K. Anders Ericsson and his colleagues asked violin students at a music academy to estimate the amount of time they had devoted to practice since they started playing. By age 20, the students whom the faculty nominated as the �best� players had accumulated an average of over 10,000 hours, compared with just under 8,000 hours for the �good� players and not even 5,000 hours for the least skilled."

The implication is that practicing the most made the best players the best. I think that is partially true, but the reverse causation also exists. Talented violinists will progress faster than less-talented ones given the same amount of practice, so the talented violinists find practice more rewarding and do it more. In school, high-IQ students get more
out of academic work than low-IQ students do, so they may spend more time on it. Studying calculus or closely reading a Jane Austen novel does not reward even average-IQ people, so they rationally avoid doing so.

The article discusses the predictive ability of the SAT and correctly states that it is a quasi-IQ test. Because of large group differences found on the SAT (also found on the ACT, on Advanced Placment tests, on NCLB-mandated achievement tests, and on the NAEP) , most writers on education don't want to think about the g-loading of standardized tests.

I read the NYT article and interpreted it differently. The authors found that kids who scored in the top percentile on the SAT by age 13 were very likely to have successful long-term careers. To my eye, that doesn't prove necessarily that talent wins out over practice.
What kids take the SAT before age 13? Most do not do that on their own. Their parents sign them up for that, many of whom come from wealthy and/or educated families. You may simply be seeing a well-known association that you see with IQ- children from wealthier, highly educated families tend to have higher IQs.

In our district, everyone who scores at or above 95th percentile on standardized grade-level testing gets invited to do the Duke TIP's 7th grade talent search, and most who qualify do - almost all of those kids end up taking either the SAT or the ACT very close to their 13th birthdays (either before or just after), and it is not based on having particularly wealthy or involved parents. I'm sure lots of schools in the JHU catchment area do the same. I wouldn't say that practice alone would get you to the point where you could qualify for the SET.

Hoagies have recently been linking to this study, which also touches on why talent matters. I've only had a chance to skim it so far - the reference to talent is toward the end.

http://www.psychologicalscience.org...ing-giftedness-and-gifted-education.html

I guess I just don't see the "talent doesn't matter" as a legitimate position to take, so that may affect my reaction to this piece. IMO, people who say that talent doesn't matter are actually saying other things ("I don't want to admit you are smarter/better at something than me", "I don't know how to teach this kid", "I resent the fact that you can do something better than me with significantly less practice"). Of course talent matters, everyone knows this deep down. Most of the major developments in our society have been produced by people who were able to perceive the world differently than everyone else, not people who practiced alot. But those who won't admit this are just not going to be convinced by a piece like this and I worry that it would just make them more resentful or disinterested. That's all. But, honestly, perhaps it is also my own residual tendencies to hide my own talents, (not admitting to being the student who screwed up the curve on an exam, "dumbing down" my vocabulary, etc.). I just don't feel like an article like this being read by my teachers/peers/colleagues would have been helpful in any way.

But, as a social scientist, I also challenge the variables they provide here as measures of real world success.

"those who were in the 99.9 percentile � the profoundly gifted � were between three and five times more likely to go on to earn a doctorate, secure a patent, publish an article in a scientific journal or publish a literary work. A high level of intellectual ability gives you an enormous real-world advantage."

I do not see that as a logical leap. It sounds to me like the profoundly gifted are much more likely to max out the educational possibilities available, (perhaps in an attempt to avoid the "real world"?).

I think a more interesting outcome variable might be innovation in their fields. PGs should be more highly represented in this category by virtue of their abilities to think differently than others, rather than their ability to complete more school. This may overlap to the variables they list, but not necessarily. Much of what is published in academia is significantly devoid of creative thought and still tends to reward following rather than choosing your own path for a significant portion of your career.

(Please note, any unintended bitterness in this post is not directed at the article or any other posters here, but to the way this article hit a nerve with my own personal history. lol}

The quoted section in here is the key idea of the piece. And LNEsmom's commentary is the right color on it.

AS to the real world aspect. I work with about 500 software developers and there are only three people in the whole firm who can solve just about every problem put in front of them. I add in a few more people as they just do not get rattled and can calm people down so they can think as a team.

Everyone is very smart, but only a very tiny group provides the ideas that in a time crunch get everyone unstuck. And their ideas are very high quality. They also look ahead and try to design things that are easy to do and which have few unintended consequences and which satisfy many requirements, not just one.

AS one of these three, I know I see the world VERY differently. The hardest part is explaining the WHYs to people. Very often they just have to see it in action as they cannot visualize it. Another hard part of this is going through why something should NOT be done. People would rather eat that donut in front of them as you cannot convince them of the donut shop in the next room.

Longer term, the solution is to hire more PG/MG/HG people rather than "professionals."

As I mentioned before, the longitudinal study done about Hunter, by a Hunter grad, showed that yes, they did have academic success but not innovative success.

Innovation probably requires real world obstacles not chess strategies, because you have to include the human factors.

Let's take "securing a patent" out of that list.

Securing a patent is pretty darn easy.

They also have to place themselves on a different road. The road less traveled by.

http://www.bartleby.com/119/1.html

Innovation requires something else.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions

I would love to see a NYT opinion piece arguing something along these lines: that the gifted deserve the opportunity to "strive" too, and that this support has benefits not just for them but for everyone through the possible innovations they could provide if properly supported.

If only there were a "like" button in these forums . . .

The next day, the Times goes back to praising strivers with little academic talent but the "right" racial and socioeconomic backgrounds who are trying to get into top colleges:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/21/education/lets-get-ready-offers-help-for-college-admissions.html
Learning to Play the Game to Get Into College
By MICHAEL WINERIP
November 20, 2011

...

In case Nathaly is asked to describe herself in three words, she has picked them out: trustworthy, friendly and workaholic.

Those are the right words, said Ms. Lichtman, the math teacher, who will be writing a recommendation for Nathaly.

Her first two semesters in math, Nathaly got an 89 and an 86, but then fell apart on trigonometry, exponents and logarithms. �Fractions, the pi thing, oh my God,� Nathaly said.

For weeks she stayed after school for help.

Few students hoping to go to an elite college would ask for a recommendation from a teacher who gave them a C. Few teachers would give a C student a strong recommendation. �You know, I didn�t care about the final grade,� Ms. Lichtman said. �Nathaly showed me a work ethic that will make her successful in college and life, that�s what matters.�

<end of excerpt>

She does not sound like 4-year college material to me. I agree with comments 1, 5, 11, and 60 at the NYT site.

Really? Wow. One C and she shouldn't go to college?

Well...to me, the point is that she stayed after school for weeks getting help with trigonometry, and she still got a C. What do the input and outcome say about her mathematical aptitude?

If trig is really too hard for her and math isn't her subject, she's basically shut out of engineering, economics, accounting, the sciences, and anything else using a lot of math. This leaves the humanities or the relatively easy majors like business and journalism. Either way, the job prospects aren't great and her debt burden may be very high.

I don't know if she's college material or not, but based on the very limited amount of information in the article, it bothers me that she and the adults around her are so focused on a BA as her best or only option.

Why should everyone go to college? Why do we assume that if students want to maximize their chances of being productive adults in good jobs, they should go to college? This outlook is insulting to plumbers, aircraft mechanics, and others. It also creates an arms race and cripples too many young people with too much student loan debt (which could ultimately be a disaster for our economy, which in turn is presumably why the debt can't be discharged after bankruptcy or death). I fear that we're creating a new hidden underclass by telling too many kids that college will land them in great high-paying jobs if they just work hard. I'd like to see real proof of this (and no, statistics about college graduates earning more aren't enough. How do 10-30 years of loan repayments change the equation? What about the lost years of earning? What about happiness and earnings of mediocre marketing managers versus really good plumbers? Etc.).

I also don't like the fact that questioning the go-to-college assumption is borderline taboo. Saying "maybe someone shouldn't go to college" isn't a way of insulting that person. It's just a way of saying "maybe there are options that would suit you better and won't land you in debt that you can't repay."

Of course, admitting that college isn't for everyone is also an admission that cognitive ability matters, and maybe that's what really strikes a nerve. I don't know.

I really, really agree with you Val. The insistence that every one must have a degree (and now, multiple degrees because everyone's getting degrees) infuriates me.

The problem is that employers now (unnecessarily) require a degree in many instances - even for basic service roles. I used to work for an organisation that had a large call centre. When we hired for customer service roles we were told we had to preference people who had a degree. These were for roles that were basically being polite to people and reciting information from a screen. There were very limited opportunities for advancement so it wasn't even that their skill would be utilised elsewhere in the organisation(in part because there was so little skill involved very few people developed the necessary skill sets to advance to other areas). This was standard practice in the industry. So people (in Australia at least) often do have to have a degree, just to get a look in.

The other side of that is that degrees have become very easy to get. I am currently completing an undergraduate degree after hating university when I first started and finding I liked earning money more (until I realised that I was bored senseless in the industry I found myself in and would need qualifications for what I want to do). 15 years ago when I started my first degree, you did your essays & you got your marks and sucked it up if they weren't what you wanted. You got a look at a practice exam and then had to make your own way on exam day seeing 'the real thing' for the first time. Now in the subjects I take for my major stream you are given 2 chances to submit an essay. You submit it, indicating the score you would like and if you don't get that score you can TRY AGAIN! We were given the full exam - word for word - for my final year subjects two weeks before the exam took place. This is one of Australia's top universities and it has a reputation for being a 'hard' subject (well... hard for Humanities . I couldn't believe it. How does something that is so easy to pass (so easy to excel at regardless of ability if you have the right,um... resources) have any value?

But what are people to do? When basic entry level service roles require a degree, people are going to want to get the best degree they can get. Fortunately here while we do have student loans they're not quite as problematic as you have in the States. Loans are provided by the government and a basic degree here might cost 15-20K. You have to earn over $44K a year before it's paid back via the deduction of 4% of your taxable income. PhDs are paid for by the Govt. But I guess then there is the potential for issues with the Government footing the bill for undergraduates degrees that will never be paid back because many of the people who get them are having to take poorly paid jobs.

I do believe in education for education's sake, but when grade one kids at my daughter's school are having several hours of tutoring a week in preparation for our selective high schools, which are in turn having to set up their own tutoring programs because kids are getting so much tutoring (to get into good universities) that they don't have time for their school work, something has gone wrong.

Well, I agree with points made by both of you, Val and Giftodd, although I do feel that words were being put in my mouth. I NEVER said everyone should go to college, I simply said that this girl who was primarily on the honor roll in college track courses throughout high school but earned a C in ONE class should not automatically be told she is "not college material". As you rightly point out, Val, we have no idea whether she is or not. I do think, however, that if she came from one of the white, upper middle class families that make up the majority of that school, getting one C would not elicit the same response.

Also, I clearly argued in the previous discussion that I believe talent DOES matter, and anyone who says it doesn't is being disengenuous. However, unless you are suggesting that she did not earn the grades she made, I don't think the fact that she works for what she learns rather than sailing through high school effortlessly means that she lacks the cognitive ability to be successful in college. As the previous discussion pointed out, ability is important, but so are other factors like motivation and persistence.

While I agree with the concerns about overindebtedness and the lack of support these days for well paying vocational occupations, I disagree with your statements, Val, that devalue a liberal arts education. Yes, they may pay less than majors that require comprehension of trigonometry, but they are still often a better alternative to working multiple low wage jobs with no benefits, which is increasingly the only thing a high school diploma is preparing anyone to do. Heck, my DH barely took any math in college and has experienced quite a bit of professional success and income. And he was also told in high school that he was not college material. And then there's my dad, also told he wasn't college material, who did become an airplane mechanic but went back to school as an adult to obtain a BA and is now a retired school teacher who had a positive impact on the lives of a lot of children and inspired my own appreciation of the value of education and a lifelong love of learning.

I think there are very real concerns with how both employment and education has been developing in the last few decades. We are seeing an increasing polarization between high paying and low paying jobs and because education is not funded fairly in our country there is an increasing class gap combined with a dwindling of employment options that can support a family without a college degree. IMO, the inherent inequality in public education should be the prime focus, but little public policy or discourse addresses this systemic problem in any meaningful way.

Sorry LNE - I was agreeing with Val re her comment that there are problems with the idea that everyone should got to college, rather than responding to your comments. My apologies for the confusion.

I do think there is A LOT value in humanities (I think I have gone on at length about that elsewhere here so I won't bore people again!) It concerns me that there seems to be an idea that humanities disciplines are 'easy'. Take philosophy (somewhat self interested as this is my major). Edward Tenner mentions the following in an article in the Atlantic titled "Is Philosophy the Most Practical Major" : "Philosophy majors also score highest among disciplines in verbal reasoning and analytical writing on the GRE aptitude test." and "In one survey, working conditions for philosophers outranked some other prestigious fields like aerospace engineering and astronomy" (full story here http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/10/is-philosophy-the-most-practical-major/246763/)

While I have no doubt that there are many disciplines in the humanities where you can probably get by without being the smartest cookie in the jar, I would argue that most are really only fully understood by having a capacity for divergent thinking and, well, by being smart (and you're unlikely to be very successful in any of those fields career wise without those attributes).

Wow- the comment about not being college material because of one C is just flat wrong. I was a lazy MG kid. Used a semi photographic memory and a great memory retention for spoken word to just get by in school( frustrated my parents). I also was one of the top athletes in the country and was recruited by every University that had a soccer team- yes I turned down Harvard( my Mom cried). This C/B student got into a top university due to sports- coasted in colleges with less than a 3 point-(never really studied-ever!) took 3 languages to get out of serious math( took logic as my one math) and have been very professionally and financially successful. Math does not equate success. I also graduated with a degree in International Studies( a lot of different liberal arts) I now run financial numbers with ease- have no use for trig or calculus- never took it and never will. I have relatives that were more studious and mathy and guess what- no where near as successful( at least according to a typical assessment of looking at financial success as the benchmark). Part of it is when it counted I have a drive and they don't, when I choose to apply myself I tend to accomplish what I focus on. So i probably did not look like college material when i was young but 2 degrees later from 2 different top universities, I would disagree. I think the individual is the only one that can tell if a college degree will benefit them and how they plan on using it. If they are lazy and plan on being lazy in their career- it is not going to help as much as someone who is driven and hungry to accomplsh things with their life and only they can define what success looks like to them. Someone may look at my life and say I am not successful because I work too much and would prefer to be paid less and have more free time. ( there is part of me that would agree :))
I do think education is always a good thing- HOWEVER- Only an individual can assess how much debt they are willing to take on and is the cost benefit analysis is worth it. A C is not a college deal breaker- trust me I had plenty and have done just fine
Brandy

I also think that she is disqualified from sciences. I think if she pursued one of the para medical professions, like OT, PT etc, she could do very well for herself in life.

I know people who got the BA, couldn't get a job, then back and did nursing. Stil jobs in nursing.

Probably off topic, but had to put in my plug :-)

I tell everyone I can that a BSc in Nursing is a great idea for someone who knows they want a BSc but is not sure what they want to do with it: 3-4 year program, graduate with a degree that enables you to apply for many other programs/graduate degrees/advanced practice (I have friends that went on to medical school) and, at the very least, you are guaranteed to have a well-paying job at the end. Not many degrees that you can take straight from high school and be ready for your career immediately after graduation. And not many fields out there where there are so very many opportunities for employment. I took the long way around with a BSc first, then the BScN... but I happily went on to my MN and I have the amazing, rewarding (and well-paying) career that I always wanted!

Back to your regularly scheduled debate.

I miswrote. I thought she wasn't disqualified from some sciences because of the math. Wouldn't want her going into Physics, but as I mentioned, the para medical is good.

But my point was that this girl is a long way from lazy. As I mentioned, she worked very hard on math, yet still ended up with a C because (by her own admission) she just didn't get it. This is very different from being lazy and getting a C.

This girl obviously works very hard and has the potential to do well in life. I fear that may be squandered by sending her off to do a BA when she might do better in other areas like nursing, allied health, and any of dozens of other career options that don't require a BA. If this statement isn't true of her, it certainly is of thousands of other kids who end up in debt with BAs they don't use.


I agree about education being a good thing, but only if it's appropriate for the individual. For example, an education at the Art Institute of Philadelphia would be wasted on me because I have no talent for art. If spots are limited (and they are at the elite colleges this girl wants to attend), the spots should go to the students with the most aptitude.


Sorry; I wasn't trying to say that you meant that everyone should go to college. I also agree that we shouldn't devalue the liberal arts (I went to a liberal arts college). But at the same time, this girl isn't from a wealthy background, and there was no mention of what she wants to study or what she wants to do later. I'm going to stand by my assertion that the article didn't give me confidence in her mathematical aptitude, which means that her BA-type options are limited. It really bothered me that no one (including the girl) was talking about her goals beyond getting into an elite college. What's she going to study? What are her ideas for what she wants to do after graduation?

At the same time, you saying that we wouldn't be questioning things because she's not white really bothers me. Sorry, but this is such a typical and frustrating response in higher education discussions. I question the wisdom of sending any student off to get a BA without providing a lot of information about other options, and have made that position clear on other threads. Wren and Kathleensmum made great suggestions: allied health and nursing. Nurses can get a job anywhere in the world and can go on to do about a zillion other cool things. This is great!

If she had been a white kid, I would have written the same thing, and this is what drives me nuts about the education debate in this country. Questioning whether or not someone who isn't white should go to college always (always) results in references to racism or classism. My questions aren't about where her parents came from. They're about the fact that in spite of a lot of studying, she can't understand "fractions and the pi thing, oh my god" and that her SAT scores were so low. To repeat: she's obviously hard-working and capable and it just bothers me that everyone around her just seems to be focused on getting into an ELITE COLLEGE over any other option.

I'm frustrated because our country is pushing thousands upon thousands of students into BAs without providing other options or having a set of serious talks about paying off student loans. I've already started this conversation with my eleven-year-old.

If you question the conventional wisdom, you're accused of being classist, racist, or whatever. This tactic obscures the real issues in the debate.

I would disagree with the assertion that because she is not adequately prepared for advanced math in high school, she is unable to attend an elite college and does not have the intelligence to succeed in competitive programs. the article says nothing about the quality of the education she received prior to enrollment in the suburban high school. A poor quality foundation in early math instruction is extremely difficult to overcome later.

Similarly, the SATs remain a barrier for some highly intelligent students from impoverished backgrounds for reasons that no one has been able to parse out completely.

As the mom of a profoundly gifted African American male, and the wife of am African American who grew up in extreme poverty, I know first hand the obstacles to success that must be overcome in this country if you are not born into privilege. While differences in ability and talent and intelligence clearly exist, there is also a significant opportunity gap in this country that holds back many highly intelligent and driven people, and advantages other people who are not as intelligent or driven.

I'm utterly stunned at the notion that a student who works hard but still gets a C in high school math must not be "college material." The description of this girl's experience is a lot like mine was in high school math (except she demonstrates much more perseverance and diligence than I did). In time as life went on I mastered the math I needed to, but remain fundamentally not a "math person."

Fortunately, most of life isn't a test of well roundness, even ability in all areas. Rather, we need people with strengths in different areas (writing, public speaking, organization, foreign languages, the arts, etc.) Yes, in this current economy students with strengths in math and science may find an easier road. But, it isn't like the bad economy suddenly eliminated the need for all careers that aren't about math. For students who are raised with great affluence and indulgence it may be hard to contemplate life on school counselor's salary, but that doesn't mean we need them any less. And, I will say if I was a high school student struggling in math I'd prefer to have a grown up version of this girl as my counselor rather than someone who says college is off the table for me because I got a C.

OT and PT both require a Master's degree for licensure, with statistics and physics as undergrad prerequisites for admission to most programs. Even 2-year RN programs require college algebra and statistics. It is very difficult to go into any applied science field without having a decent grasp of mathematics. The inability to grasp college algebra despite intensive study and tutoring is what kept my stepmother from becoming an RN (and thank goodness for that, but that is another story...).

ETA: I doubt the girl in the article would even enjoy a job where she had to use her worst skill on a daily basis. There are lots of careers and lots of degrees that don't really require math and science in the day-to-day work. Just because she doesn't want to reveal what her SAT scores are doesn't mean they are awful. She might be one of the ones in the program who has verbal scores in the 600s and just has perfectionistic tendencies, or she might judge herself by her classmates who are scoring in the high 700s.

I know people who are not good in math and got BSc in nursing. One got her masters. I think different states have different requirements.

Actually, it says that she's been attending the schools in Newton since second grade. ("Since second grade, she has [been riding a bus] to Newton, a well-to-do suburb with top-quality schools.")


I agree, and would add that these problems/obstacles affect a lot of intelligent people, including those who don't fit in well because of the way they think, women, atheists, and so on.

I want to re-emphasize that I have no idea about whether or not a 4-year BA degree is her best option. What bugged me about that story was the focus on elite colleges and that no one seemed to be talking about all the other options available to her. Maybe they are and this information didn't get into the article. But leaving it out just adds more fuel to the everyone-must-go-to-college! fire.

Most importantly, I believe that our society over-emphasizes getting a BA to the point where we're yoking people to six-figure student loans for educations that don't always help them develop their talents. Many of them will still be paying off those loans when their own kids are teenagers. This is just wrong. Telling people that there are other options, and that one of these options may be the best way to develop their talents is not only a good idea, it's also treating the student (and his particular talents) with respect.

The saddest thing about all of this is that many young college students are acting against their own best interests. Remember that more than HALF of students drop out of four year colleges, many with big loans waiting to be paid off. And these statistics don't count community college dropout levels (which seem to be higher).

Added: for some stories about student loans and the costs of education, read through the comments on this blog entry.

I would say most career paths have no need for trig and she could be successful at elite colleges without math as one of her top skills. Math is not the determining factor for eligibility for a top college.

It's not only the C grade, it's that she appears to have trouble with elementary school math:

'Her first two semesters in math, Nathaly got an 89 and an 86, but then fell apart on trigonometry, exponents and logarithms. �Fractions, the pi thing, oh my God,� Nathaly said.'

If she really cannot handle fractions, for example computing
1 5/8 - 2 6/7 by finding a common denominator, she does not deserve a high school diploma. Fractions are a topic of 5th and 6th grade math. Exponents and logarithms are 8th grade math.

Her verbal skills are also mediocre:

'The things the SAT measures.

To get a good score, a student must read and write quickly. Nathaly doesn�t. Her AP Spanish homework takes her a couple of hours a night. �When I read, I go very slow,� she said. �There are a lot of new vocabulary words I stop to look up to make sure I fully understand.�

How much does it matter in real life if a person reads half as fast, but spends twice as much time studying?'

In real life, if you typically take twice as long do something as your coworkers, you will be let go.

Actually, in real life there are quite a lot of different jobs that require quite a lot of different skills. Some jobs reward working really fast, in others accuracy is more important than speed. We also should not assume 17 year olds are fully formed - some students learn very different study skills in college.

Some jobs require skills well tested by bubble sheet math, science tests, but most probably don't. There is not one right way of thinking - we need people who approach tasks differently.

We don't know what this student's scores are by the way. I've met students with 95% tile composites who thought they'd "failed" it because all of their friends scored higher. At any rate, if you seriously have never met people who have done well in life despite average or mediocre SAT scores it is time to broaden your social circle.

She sounds like a very diligent perfectionist, imo.

There are many parents on this very site dealing with gifted kids with slow processing speed etc. We do not impune the intelligence of those kids. Why should we do so with hers?

Based on the description in this article, I would expect this hard working honor roll student to continue to work hard and make good grades in college. She will go to class. She will go to office hours (!). She will probably be at home studying nights and weekends while her classmates are out partying, drinking, playing video games, whatever. And will probably get better grades than most of them.

To suggest she has any less right to be there than they do by virtue of being a hard worker who is dedicated to learning is just plain ridiculous.

When I was in college, I did some substitute math teaching in my old high school for the head of the math dept. Some classes were to students in the grade 12 math which was the basic math for a high school diploma, the students that did not expect to go to college or were not going to use math in college.

I remember the lessons on fractions. Yes, grade 12 math on fractions. The other grade 12 math was calculus -- for those who could do math.

What I remember is struggling with how to teach these kids since it seemed difficult and then I hit on something that worked and they got it easily and were very proud of themselves. Math is something that they just needed a different way to explain it. Not that they were going to move on to calculus but sometimes they just need a path that works.

Ren

My experience is quite the opposite... the individual who takes twice as long is praised as a hard worker, while the one who breezes through tasks with higher-quality results is constantly being pestered by management, because his far more efficient work performance leaves him with too much time to browse gifted forums on company time.

Or, loaded up with tasks and do 10 times as much work as anyone else while also providing the solutions for others who are "dead in the water."

Add in some managers afraid to work with you because you will get in their business. And its not good.

Or senior execs afraid to assign people or tasks to you because you will get things done with the same people they could not get anything done with before.

Or vendors who have to have their noses put on the problem to get them to actually fix their stuff.

Or people who love to work for you because you praise them, give them clear direction, check their work, let them take time off for their family, don't mind if they surf the web as long as they deliver, don't pester them with crap, and work just as hard as they do.

Another article from one of the co-authors. If the SAT is an intelligence test, and if college study requires a certain level of intelligence, then people with low SAT scores should not be in college, even if they are "strivers".

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebat...tter/the-sat-is-a-good-intelligence-test
A Good Intelligence Test (The SAT)
by David Z. Hambrick
DECEMBER 4, 2011
New York Times

...

The SAT captures more than a narrow range of skills, important only in the first year or two of college. Large-scale meta-analyses by researchers at the University of Minnesota have found that SAT performance is as good of a predictor of overall college grade point average as it is of freshman grade point average, and Vanderbilt researchers David Lubinski and Camilla Benbow have documented that the SAT predicts life outcomes well beyond the college years, including income and occupational achievements.

Furthermore, the SAT is largely a measure of general intelligence. Scores on the SAT correlate very highly with scores on standardized tests of intelligence, and like IQ scores, are stable across time and not easily increased through training, coaching or practice. SAT preparation courses appear to work, but the gains are small � on average, no more than about 20 points per section.

This debate is ultimately about intelligence and its modifiability � and the question of whether it is fair to use people�s scores on what is essentially an intelligence test to make decisions that profoundly affect their lives. If that makes us all uncomfortable, that�s just too bad.

<end of article>

Here is a summary of a scientific paper by the same authors:

http://www.psychologicalscience.org...the-importance-of-general-abilities.html
Psychologists Defend The Importance Of General Abilities

�What makes a great violinist, physicist, or crossword puzzle solver? Are experts born or made? The question has intrigued psychologists since psychology was born�and the rest of us, too, who may secretly fantasize playing duets with Yo Yo Ma or winning a Nobel Prize in science. It�s no wonder Malcolm Gladwell stayed atop the bestseller lists by popularizing the �10,000-hour rule� of Florida State University psychologist K. Anders Ericsson. Using Ericsson�s pioneering work�but omitting equally prominent, contradictory, research�Gladwell�s book Outliers argued that given a certain level of intelligence and a bit of luck, virtually anybody can get to Carnegie Hall�provided they practice, practice, practice.

In a new paper in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science, psychologists David Z. Hambrick of Michigan State University and Elizabeth J. Meinz of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville disagree strongly. �We don�t deny the importance of the knowledge and skill that accrue through practice,� says Hambrick. � But, we think that for certain types of tasks, basic abilities and capacities�ones that are general, stable across time, and substantially heritable�play an important role in skilled performance. � Such basic capacities are a component of talent, Hambrick and Meinz believe.

The authors� work involves a particular basic measure of cognitive ability: working memory capacity, the ability to store and process information at the same time, which correlates with success in many cognitive tasks, from abstract reasoning to language learning. In one experiment Hambrick and Meinz tested 57 pianists with a wide range of deliberate practice under their belts, from 260 to more than 31,000 hours, to see how well they did on sight-reading�playing a piece from a score they�d never seen before. Those who had practiced more did better. In fact, practice�even specific sight-reading practice�predicted nearly half of the differences in performance across the subjects. But working memory capacity still had a statistically significant impact on performance. In other words, regardless of amount of deliberate practice, working memory capacity still mattered for success in the task. The psychologists surmised that the capacity influences how many notes a player can look ahead as she plays, an important factor in sight-reading.

Challenging another �experts-are-made� contention�that beyond a certain threshold, intelligence makes less and less of a difference in accomplishment�the authors cite a study by Vanderbilt University researchers that looked at the math SAT scores of people with PhDs in science, technology, engineering, or math. Those who scored in the 99.9th percentile at age 13 were 18 times more likely to go on to earn a PhD than those who scored better than only 99.1 percent of their teenage peers. �Even at the highest end, the higher the intellectual ability�and by extension, the higher the working memory capacity�the better,� says Hambrick.

�Some would consider this bad news. We�d all like to think that basic capacities and abilities are irrelevant�it�s the egalitarian view of expertise,� Hambrick says. �We�re not saying that limitations can�t be overcome.� Still, no matter how hard you work, it may be what you�re born with or develop very early in life that �distinguishes the best from the rest.�

I'm pretty sure that if I practiced enough, I would get a perfect (or near-perfect SAT score).

I base my personal theory on my experience with the GMAT and LSAT, which I prepared for, compared to the SAT, for which I did not.

Is the SAT still considered a valid measure of general intelligence? I know that Mensa stopped accepting it as such when the test was redesigned around 1994.

This is interesting research but

http://www.down-syndrome.org/research-highlights/2120/
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~readingbrains/George_Psychonomic_5101.pdf
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3101523/

the research does indicate that anyone that takes music lessons, particularly piano or strings, has increases in working memory. I heard in the lecture that IQ was raised 6-7 points, across the whole group, compared to the control group after just one year of piano or string lessons.

Now, just taking lessons doesn't mean you become a YoYo Ma. But training does make a difference. I heard my DD7 commenting on a art sculpture, using comments about form and color I didn't know existed at 7. I did not develop my eye for art until I was 19 and I remember the moment sitting in the Modern when it happened. She gets it already because of exposure, not because she was born with it. Though being visual spatial does help.

That she was born with.

Ren

The SAT II replaced the SAT I at that time.

It seems reasonable that various activities and enrichment programs could cause gains on IQ or other tests. But are the gains lasting in the absence of continued practice? The answer seems to be no, except in a very limited set of circumstances (related to adoption in infancy). Here's one example. Here's a summary of some other information.


Hence, I don't really agree with the use of the term "raises IQ," because it implies permanence where none appears to exist outside of one well-defined area (adoptions).

Anecotal example of talent:

My DS9 could distinguish different dinosaurs that were in the same family when he was two, just by looking at their skulls (NOT scaled to size). He could even tell me why he knew they were different (e.g. "his snout is longer, so he's..."). No one taught him that; he just noticed it. He notices errors in stuffed animals ("He's a reef shark, not an xx shark; just look at his teeth."). And he does this kind of thing all the time, just because he notices the details.

This ability seems to be due to genetics, not practice. My husband and I are both very good at faces. I'm the kind of person who categorizes different facial types and can tell twins apart because of differences in the way they smile or their bone structure. Some of my cousins are the same way.

Likewise, a two-year-old who can teach himself to read is relying on talent. Practice obviously makes him better, but he needed to have a minimum amount of talent just to get started.

I'm of two minds about the SAT, etc. being IQ tests. Given that they test specific knowledge (e.g. geometry, vocabulary), they're achievement tests. It seems reasonable that if you're testing innate ability, you should ask questions that rely minimally on knowledge. Yet, given that you have to be able to remember a lot, they're IQ tests. Plus, those passages on the verbal section can be very difficult to understand and students don't have much time to digest them, so there is some IQ testing there. But...the SAT and GRE general tests don't go past around 2.5-ish standard deviations from the mean, so if they're IQ tests, they have a low ceiling and a high floor. I think of them as being primarily good discriminators of levels of averageness (LOA [LOL ]).

I am kind of puzzled, because working memory is usually considered a poor measure of g (although it probably correlates better with achievement). Why is the article using it as the marker for high IQ? It has also proved more trainable than other measures.

And I do not personally consider the ability to sight read to be what makes a great music performer. It helps, sure, but no real piano/violin/... player would step on a stage with an unknown piece. Unless (and that wouldn't surprise me) the article does a piss poor job of reporting the paper, I would consider the research behind it to be poorly designed.

I think that music lessons can help with your ability to LISTEN and to FOCUS. Those are skills that can be improved and can be applicable beyond the narrow realm of music.
We got my hearing impaired son into piano lessons a little over a year ago. He has become a better listener, able to pick up which key is played, etc. He has become a better, more global listener. He can't hear any better but he can pay better attention.

What's the old canard?

Talent hits the target that no one else can hit.

Genius hits the target that no one else can see.

Isn't that the crux of the Striver issue?