Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Recommended Resources What is intelligence, is everyone gifted?

Okay I found her, she was a professor at Hunter College in Education, Rena Subotnik. She created the Center for Gifted Education there but she is no longer there she is now the Director of Gifted Ed Policy at the APA (serious credentials!).However, I could still only find the study of the 1947 graduates and what they were doing. I couldn't find anything which compared the two incoming classes. Super frustrating as I have now read some of her stuff, very interesting and would like to see this. On the up side did read about the CGE at Hunter and they seem very connected to HCES so I am surprised that the parents are so frustrated. Do the elem kids have that much trouble when they get to HS?


the article which that quote came from mentioned clustering and chunking as the key to achievement and that Subotnik's studies of Westinghouse and Julliard people focused on the connection with mentors who kept them on task, the Westinghouse people went to college and typically abandoned their focus. Really interesting stuff. (back to the original post finally!!) How to be a genius

But I just stopped looking to post because you know what else showed up in my google search: THIS THREAD!!!! That was very disconcerting. After the discussion about facebook and twitter I still did not realize that the individual threads would show up in a google search!!!

DeHe

That's how I find things I know were mentioned here - google them! (add site:davidsongifted.org if you only want hits from here).

so this is sad, I am replying to myself!!! LOL

Actually I just thought of answer to my post and Ren's original point so I thought I would just do this rather than edit it. I was thinking about how I felt coming out of a regular school and then going to a gifted school, to me it was heaven - meeting my peers, not changing my behavior, finally being challenged and interested.

So perhaps the kids coming in at 7th grade have been so bored or so starved for work at their level that they soak it up like a sponge whereas the K kids are always received instruction fit for their needs so the drive is removed? Although the argument we are all working under is that finding appropriate instruction is a good thing, so it would interesting to see if meeting needs diminishes focus or desire?

I think I will stop talking to myself now!!
DeHe

These kinds of stories bother me, especially because of the assumption that anyone with an IQ over 130 who doesn't win a Nobel prize is somehow failing to live up to their "genius." Yeah, right. All you need for a Nobel is an FSIQ of 157! Poof! There it is! I just invented a cure for death because I'm so incredibly brilliant!

I'm going to add a second gripe about new stories about children with IQs of, say, 160. These stories seem to require use of the following terms:

* Genius

* the next Einstein

* so brilliant that...

Look, I know that an IQ of 160 is really high. But by my estimates, if the rarity is about 1:30K, we have 10,000 people with IQs at least this high running around the US right now, and over 200,000 in the world. Plus, there have been many others since, say, Newton's time. Sure, 200,000 in six billion isn't a lot. But it's a lot of people compared to, say, Nobel prizes awarded or great novelists or even the broader first authors on major Nature/Science papers.

I guess this stuff shows how poorly understood IQ is, especially by the general population (and/or the people who write this stuff).

Val

Sorry Dottie, I got the info from Rena herself. And then I talked to a mother who has a child (now in 3rd grade at Hunter) and she told me that there was a general concern at Hunter because they have noticed the phenomenom themselves as the orginal elementary students are not the top in the class when the new blood enters in 7th grade. They lack a drive. So much for the challenge theory....;)

Personal hypothesis here. First metaphor. There is this nervous woman in the neighborhood who got a dog in the spring. Cute little puppy. The dog attacks other dogs, despite being about 20 lbs. Everyone thinks it is just getting this nervous energy from the owner.

If DD had got into Hunter I would have had a pretty laissez faire attitude about her education. Since she didn't, I have been obsessive and now doing the CTY for math. She has to be getting that crazy anxiety from me on some (please let's stick with some, few) level. Maybe making her feel a little more competitive and ambitious about her learning. I notice that she wants more math at school. She hates when it is "babyish".

I know she is not thrilled with grade 1 curriculum. But art is art, she is learning Spanish at her school (they started in K so she is catching up), and chess. She has to write book reports every week on books she chooses, so that is how she wants to do it. And she has her supplemental programs of Mandarin, Science at the museum and piano. Plus her gymnastics and ballet. And she does the latter two at major competitive centers.

And she knows doing the accelerated math online is harder and different. Hopefully this is a kid that will go after what she wants. And perhaps is different than the kid she would have been if she got into Hunter. Now, back to topic. Would her intelligence be different? Would the neurons be connected so differently that her IQ would actually be different?

My personal hypothesis is they would be and I think the competitive edge with its adrenalin push when you get excited about something and push changes your behavior and the resulting ambition.

Ren

I have noticed this at my dd's school too. (Not gifted, but private.) I did an informal survey and realized all the students who are working up a grade level or more in math are transfer students.

There are different ways to look at this problem and what it comes from. On the one hand, it's possible that preschool test-prep mania in New York contributes to it. If a non-gifted child ends up in a class for gifted students, the learning environment wouldn't necessarily be appropriate, and learning would suffer. For me (could be just me) school should be about a creating an appropriate learning environment for each student.

On the other hand, I think it's important to remember that high achieving isn't necessarily gifted. And just because you're gifted doesn't mean you're going to be a super-high achiever. This is okay. It also goes back to my post in this thread about "genius" --- namely, just because you have a high IQ doesn't mean you have some kind of obligation to become a famous <insert occupation> and that you haven't lived up to your potential if you don't.

Some people have a drive to do something significant, and that's great. And I think that drive is a quality that's internal: it can't be put there because of parental wishes or because of a teacher's opinion about potential, or anything else. Others can nurture it or damage it, but no one can put it there (and, sometimes, no one can take it away).

It occurs to me that leading "contented lives" (as was said earlier in this thread and in other places) could, in a way, be a situation that's easier to attain if you're gifted. And that's okay too.

Just my maunderings...

Val

You have honed in on one of my pet peeves. Are we saying that you need to do something noteworthy that gains public attention to be successful and live up to that "genius potential"? Just because someone is leading a contented, "ordinary" life doesn't mean that they aren't doing something extraordinary. I assume many of these "contented" geniuses are finding creative solutions to problems at their schools, places of business and their communities. These ordinary things don't get published or recorded. They don't garner the attention of the Nobel committee but they still have value.

Yes. I am with Nautigal. Everyone could be gifted with something, such as reading, running, shorthand, cooking... intelligence is inclined to the ability of learning. I think gift is connatural and intelligence acquired.

Just adding to the Hunter anecdotes. A mother I know, whose daughter just entered K, told me that she went through Hunter elementary and high school. So this would be 30+ years ago, before the prep testing mania.

She went to Tufts. I asked her if she applied to the Ivys and she said no because she didn't she was smart enough. She said the kids who entered Hunter HS and didn't go through the elementary seemed really smart and she didn't feel as smart and therefore didn't even apply. Just an add-on, this woman was also the grand-daughter of very well known New York politician, who struggled as an African american, became a lawyer and then involved in politics. So the family culture was one of ambition.

Ren