Imagination v. intelligence

Yes, exactly. (Always appreciate your posts, Miklos.)

Curiousity will get you everywhere.

(I have to heavily edit my readings of "Curious George", and have in fact pretty much stopped... curiosity is a GOOD thing, not something that gets you in trouble and punished!)

Miklos, I do believe that teachers should have the prerogative of rewarding (in terms of class grade) all the demonstrated positive behaviors and qualities of students that cannot be measured in tests. I have two friends who, on the basis of tests, were classified as suffering from substandard intelligence. One ended up as dean of my university's School of Social Welfare and the other beecame a major scholar in his field and provost of a California university. As a child I checked off answers in the Iowa Test without reading the questions so that I could go outside and play while the "suckers" fretted over their exams. I was totally unmotivated; tests do not measure motivation; they seem to assume that all testees are equally motivated. Because of my test scores and the fact that I doodled during lectures, I was tracked as an art major. The three of us ended up with Ph.D.s and tenured university positions. Pardon the boast. I hope I am not among the many Ph.D. numbskulls I have known.

Well, JL. You just motivated me to search out Will Durant, the gentle philosopher:

Perhaps the cause of our contemporary pessimism is our tendency to view history as a turbulent stream of conflicts - between individuals in economic life, between groups in politics, between creeds in religion, between states in war. This is the more dramatic side of history; it captures the eye of the historian and the interest of the reader. But if we turn from that Mississippi of strife, hot with hate and dark with blood, to look upon the banks of the stream, we find quieter but more inspiring scenes: women rearing children, men building homes, peasants drawing food from the soil, artisans making the conveniences of life, statesmen sometimes organizing peace instead of war, teachers forming savages into citizens, musicians taming our hearts with harmony and rhythm, scientists patiently accumulating knowledge, philosophers groping for truth, saints suggesting the wisdom of love. History has been too often a picture of the bloody stream. The history of civilization is a record of what happened on the banks.

I had forgotten how much I admired this man.

I left my IQ test, or its equivalent, at seventeen, in order to go get a soda with a classmate (it was an all girls' school. She was either much smarter, or dumber...)
I left the last page blank, maybe a page and a half.
Odd for me, I was such a goody goody. I didn't take it seriously.

This in itself was an negative indicator of another sort, no?
Or perhaps a positive one of yet another.

This episode affected my class rank. My grades were at about #2 or 3 or 4, among ninety some, and my rank was, er, eighteen, or some such, quite a dip.

Not that I don't think, now, and even then, that whoever was 63rd or 47th was less smart. I guess I always distinguished smart from test scores.

Looking back, maybe it wasn't about that, maybe it was my D in religion at the beginning of senior year. Sadly, not for theological reasons, as that I simply flubbed the test. But...
that wasn't supposed to count in gradepoint.

Too late to ask about this stuff now. Shortly thereafter, at Mount St. Mary's College, I got 3 a's, let's say a b, and a d in theology. This was very unexpected, and I was so embarrassed I didn't inquire what I did wrong. It was also pre developmental doubts on my part. I didn't begin to wind my way out theologically until a few years later.

But back to tests - I can see why people want them. Make people account for all that talking! Why can't they multiply at fourteen?

But I also think tests in early years are naturally shallow, and that the propulsion to put all eggs in test baskets does cut out imaginative talk.

I see a lot of common sense, talked through knowhow from nowhere, being lost to generations.

I suppose I should mention I had an A in logic the previous semester.
Grrrrrrr.

Letty, and his wife, Ariel.

Osso, an A in logic?

"I balance the D in Theology with the A in logic to think of myself as a B minus, C plus sort of person", she says pedantically.

JLN, I graded almost exactly as you describe! Positive attitude, class participation, enthusiasm, helpfulness to other students, and self-initiated research beyond the classroom were all rewarded. To satisfy the schools, I kept a gradebook, but my "system" was byzantine (and coded). I was asked to explain it only once, and, I think because of its complexity, I was never asked again! One school where I taught kept both an honors Grade list and an honors Effort list. The students on the effort list were not always on the other sheet, but these were the students we teachers most admired and most enjoyed having in class. Occasionally, there would be a very bright kid who would have an "A" in a class, but with an "unsatisfactory effort" notation next to the "A". The U notation would keep one off the grade-based honor roll. This struck me as sensible. I'd much rather reward a student who worked very hard to earn a C+ than one who was talented enough to earn an "A", but did nothing beyond what was required. Of course, I didn't think that ANY "A" should be given to a student who wasn't working to the best of his or her ability.

When I was an undergraduate, one of my classmates asked our Spenser teacher, a Mr. Cain, how his grading system worked. The clear inference was that the questioner's marks were too low. There was a long silence; then, Mr. C. replied, "If you receive a 90, you might take yourself out to dinner. If you receive a 95, there will be a note on your essay asking you to see me about having it published." He was serious, and, I believe, almost all of us enjoyed working with a guy whose standards were so positive. He was, also, available for office conversation five days a week. A good example!

so many ways of thinking as well - I am hopeless with anything mathematical but spatial/linguistic and I'll fly through - so IQ test results will vary according to the balance of the questions in it.

Others have other strenghts.

Osso you were very tough on yourself expecting excellence in everything! I was lazy I'm afraid and quite happily accepted my low maths marks , putting the effort into the stuff that interested me (school reports often said 'Vivien works hard at the subjects she enjoys' - oh the parental lectures!). I would have called you an A student in the things that mattered to you Osso and never mind the others!

Vivien, that is exactly so. All anyone really has to do is find out what they are good at--the things that matter--and what they love to do. Chances are they will like what they do well, and do well at what they like. Omnicompetence is both rare and unnecessary for the good life.

and if you are too good at everything not necessarily a nice or a popular person!

Miklos, if grades are intended to be predictors of success--and I think this is the general intention--then it follows that effort (and perhaps self-discipline) should be rewarded since it is a requirment for success.

Its interesting that this thread has turned to teaching and school experience.

It must be difficult to teach; there always seems to be some new-fangled idea that teachers have to follow through on.

When I started school I knew how to read. My mom was told that I read "wrong" and she was asked not to read to me anymore.

But she didn't have to read to me anymore - I already knew how to read - and so read I did, still the "wrong" way, I guess.

By the time I reached high school I really forged my own path through the English department. My wonderful teachers would allow me to sit in the back of the class and read whatever I wanted as long as I continued to turn in my assignments and pass the tests.

"Wrong" had become somehow good.

There were some things I simply couldn't learn. I'd always done fine with math but geometry was impossible and I never progressed any further than that.

Art class made me miserable but I loved photography.

Chemistry made we sweat but biology was a breeze.

In college I really learned to appreciate my parents (maybe that is really what you're supposed to learn in college). "Study what you love and what you want to learn" said they. A semester of nothing but theology and animation? "Why not!" Hmmmmm..... how about a semester of David Hume, photography, and an English class devoted to Gilgamesh and Alice in Wonderland? "Perfect" they'd cry.

Every student should be so lucky.

1percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.

Ive taught a lot of really bright scientists , who , with their fresh phDs in hand, went off to teach or work for some industry. Then every so often , a few get an idea, and pursue it to a successful end. Where does plain old ability to work hard fit in?

Well, the boomerang came back as intended.

Did we really discover anything about imagination and intelligence? Or did we just define ourselves.

Yeah, Farmer: effort and self-discipline.

Ossobuco, The very fact that you can remember specific grades from school and college speaks to the dangers inherent in the attitudes we were taught to have towards grades when we were younger. They stick in our minds because we were told, falsely, that individual marks had significance. Now, they mean even less than the near-nothing they meant back then, but we still remember them. It was a cruel system of indoctrination. But you have transcended it and made it irrelevant. Bravo, Ossobuco! As the Murphys said, "Living well is the best revenge."

Ah, the Wizard of Menlo Park, farmerman. He was a clever person who piggybacked on the inventions of others.

Self discipline, JL? I've often wondered what that meant as well.

I have always considered myself a "worker bee" so I have utmost respect for effort and plain old hard work.

Personally, I've found that being given a list of tasks to complete, an outlined list of expectations, gives me more time to daydream.

I've never been overly ambitious and I've never been motivated by money. I think that theres a lot to be said for us drones. A job is a job - do it and move on to something you want to do.

The fact that I love my job and that my job is the only thing I ever wanted to do is the only secret to any success I might enjoy.

Ahhh, Letty. I always try to show back up. This week is stupid busy. I'm moving the studio to a new location and I'm feeling a bit brain-numb.

Sweet topic going here!