Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Those who excel at math and those who don't

"We see our country moving away from a culture of hard work toward a culture of belief in genetic determinism. In the debate between “nature vs. nurture,” a critical third element—personal perseverance and effort—seems to have been sidelined."

I thought this was a very interesting article about how many people refuse to work hard at math (and therefore don't excel) because they believe they are innately bad at it.

http://qz.com/139453/theres-one-key-difference-between-kids-who-excel-at-math-and-those-who-dont/

I realized they were just attacking a strawman so I stopped reading.

Nothing really startling. You can't get to be great unless you have inborn talent but you don't need to be a maths genius to complete high school maths.

I find his thing saying the people who consider themselves failures get 85% vs those who consider themselves sucesses get 100%. What about those who got 30%? And if many people are getting above 85% the test is too easy. OK our pass mark is 50% not 60% but people very rarely make no mistakes. Unless the test is multi choice? Then maybe but they aren't used much here.

No, but if you need an IQ of 100 to master Algebra II that excludes half of the population, and an IQ threshold of 115 would exclude 5/6 of it. The ongoing American experiment of requiring all students to take a college prep curriculum (which would include Algebra II) meeting Common Core standards will be interesting to watch.

The article seemed full of wishful thinking and bad ideas to me.

I taught algebra II to my son last year. It's a hard course. Well, it is if you are't teaching from a watered down book that leaves out trigonometry and proofs and sticks to A-type (means easy) problems with few B- and C-type problems (if any).


But it's nice to know that Confucius was a neuroscientist, I suppose. Though you'd think the inhabitants of China would know that, too, rather than just the folks in Japan and Korea.

I agree with Bostonian and Val; wishing that everyone can do it if they try hard enough isn't the same thing as it being TRUE.

I agree with this too - but over many years of working as a math tutor for high school and younger students struggling with math, I've also seen a lot of very capable kids turned off on math by the message sent out by their elders (teachers, mentors, parents). They hear adults around them saying things like "You're just not a math person, neither was I" or "You'll never use geometry again once you're an adult" etc - and for a kid who is absolutely capable but has to work just a little bit to understand math, hearing messages like that can instill a mindset that they *can't* do it or that there is such a thing as a "mathy" person and they aren't whatever that type of person is. I absolutely agree that there are truly talented "math people" out there and that there are some people who are more capable than others and that some of us enjoy math more than others... but I also think as a society we don't realize how often we undermine our children's belief in their own capabilities when it comes to math. We probably don't see that much around these forums simply because we're parenting HG/+ kids and chances are math comes easily to most of them. It doesn't come easily to my MG dd - she struggles to learn math. But that doesn't mean she shouldn't continue to struggle her way through it, and it doesn't mean she's not capable of learning Algebra II. It just means that for some types of topics, she's going to have to work through it. Same for most of the students I've tutored - regardless of their IQ.

I have no idea what the IQ cutoff is for kids who can/can't do Algebra II. I'm not sure anyone's really done a valid study on that lol! But I do think that we, as parents of kids who are exceptionally gifted with intellectual ability, sometimes underestimate the potential for achievement in "average" ability students.

polarbear

I agree with that as well, Polarbear-- but I really, really, REALLY dislike the point at which kind encouragement and an expectation of success turns into "you must just not be trying hard enough yet" and victim-blaming.

Some kids really can try their VERY hardest and only be barely passing students in algebra and geometry.

It's not that anyone is telling those students that they can't do math-- it's that they really are struggling to.

Ok. Correction. I forgot what is required for high school maths over there. To get a pass in NZ high school maths you don't need to be a maths person. To do right up to year 13 probably does but that is not required.

Interesting discussion. I can see both sides of it. I think there are kids out there who are not capable of doing the work (although could some of this be because their background math instruction was so crummy?), and also many capable students thinking they can't do it. I also wonder how many Asian students take Alegebra II courses, trigonometry, etc. or if a good percentage of them (the ones under a certain IQ) get tracked into manual labor type courses. If it is just the more intelligent kids taking math, then of course it would make sense to tell them they need to work harder and also that they get "results" from those students.