America and IQ ....

My husband recently read the following quote in The Wall Street Journal's online Opinion Journal ... "Actually, studies have shown that a near-majority of Americans have below-average intelligence. But maybe they'll be dumb enough to believe Biden's flattery."

You can read the context of the quote via the link above. It's not the part about Senator Biden, nor the part about the Democrat candidates not trusting the American people which bothers me. The part of that quote which I find bothersome is ... "studies have shown that a near-majority of Americans have below-average intelligence". Really?? Oh My!! This must be because of Public Education!! Something must be done! After all ... don't we all live in Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon where ... "all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average."?

I firmly believe that most Americans feel this way. And there will be a number of people who won't read beyond the 2nd paragraph above before they'll go on a rant about how awful public education is and how we must fight this "below-average IQ epidemic!" In fact, a number of you who are now reading these words are probably shocked by the the FACT that a near-majority of Americans have a Below-Average IQ.

I capitalized FACT because it is a fact .... and will always be a fact ... no matter what party sits in the White House ... No matter what public education does ... No matter what mandates come down from congress .... No matter what anyone says or does, there will always be a near-majority of below-average intelligence people in America. Of course, there will also be a near-majority of above-average intelligence people in America, too.

After all .... just what makes something "average"? Think about that.

Ever since my husband came home with that quote, I have been tossing it at friends and family and acquaintances to check their reactions. All of them have been shocked. It seems that we truly do expect most Americans to be smarter than average. We can't imagine that fully 1/2 of our great country has a below-average IQ. But it is true.

I have also noticed that I have started paying attention to my interactions with people and mentally placing these people on the IQ Bell Curve in my mind. The results have been a bit depressing. Of course, myself, and my husband, and most of our friends are on the right side of the Bell Curve ... but during the Christmas shopping season, I encountered a large number of people whom I felt would test in on the left-hand side of the curve. I also encounter these people on the roads around Dallas-Ft.Worth, and often in the Editorial sections of the Dallas Morning News ... (but only if their opinions are different from mine.)

Where do YOU fit on the curve? Do you have any idea? There are a number of IQ tests available online, some serious, some just for fun. Since you are probably reading this BLOG online, go ahead and run a search for IQ Tests and take one yourself. Make sure you have lots of time as a good IQ Test might take an hour or more to do.

Instead of writing a big long article about IQ and its implications in our lives, I am going to write a series of shorter BLOGS with my thoughts and some research into IQ and Education policies, IQ and Racism, IQ and its competitor, EQ ... and anything else I come up with.

If you have any thoughts, please feel free to comment!

Lucinda Mackinnon is a retired Math teacher and current Owner and Chief Tutor of Math-Matters.

Texas Instruments ....

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending a program at Texas Instruments in Dallas. It was FREE and on a Saturday and it had to do with the new TI calculator called TI-Nspire. Here is a link so that you can get an inkling of what the TI-Nspire does .... and that is about all you will get .... an inkling. This new calculator is amazing ... add the software and a laptop and lots of training and practice and the potential in unlimited.



The session ran from 1-4:30 .... and that wasn't near enough time to even begin to understand all the possibilities of this tool. In fact, I spent a great deal of the time simply lost when it came to making my borrowed TI-Nspire do what the instructor wanted us to do! But I sure enjoyed watching him and watching the overhead and listening to the people around me.



In fact, I recall thinking that I wished a reporter from the Dallas Morning News had been there to report on the state of Math Teachers in the area. There I sat, on a Saturday afternoon, with 25-30 Math teachers ... some who had driven 250 miles to be there. Saturday .... a day which most teachers have off .... yet these teachers were there for 3.5 hours of training on a calculator which many of them don't even own! TI supplied the calculators for us to play with .... but we didn't get to keep them at the end (although we did get a nice T-shirt advertising the TI-Nspire and Math!) In fact, if I were still a classroom teacher, I probably wouldn't have been there myself .... you couldn't have paid me to go to a workshop on a Saturday afternoon ... I was very selfish of my weekend time before I started my own business and gave myself Friday's off. But I had seen online ads for the Nspire and I wanted to see what it could do! The workshop was FREE and I had a Friday off behind me and a leisurely Sunday ahead of me .... so why not go?


I am fairly certain that I was the only retired Math teacher there, besides the instructor, who used to teach math, retired, and now teaches for Texas Instruments. I was absolutely amazed by the energy and the diversity of all these teachers. There were men and women, very young, very old, and all ages in between .... white, black, hispanic and asian ... Honors teachers and Credit Recovery teachers .... some from the suburbs, many from DISD, some from Private Schools, most from Public. It was a dedicated and energetic grouping of Math teachers. I was very impressed.


The questions flew .... conversations got off-task .... people played with the calculators and got more off-task .... we exchanged ideas ... talked about other TI products we enjoy using .... the instructor kept pulling us back to his lesson .... but we mostly veered off. Most of the questions we asked him were difficult for him to answer as our questions varied as widely as the demographics we represented. He did have a lesson planned ... but many of our questions had to do with something later in the lesson .... so he would say "I'll get to that in a few minutes." I'm not sure if he ever got to those answers because more and more questions were fired at him as we continued to play with the calculators.

But, for the record .... teachers are a difficult audience!

In the end, 3.5 hours wasn't near enough time for for us to learn the calculator, but we did get a glimpse into it's possibilities. A few days later I received an email inviting me to attend a 3-day conference in Dallas surrounding TI technology for the classroom and featuring the TI-Nspire. The registration fee covers the conference AND I will get my very own TI-Nspire CAS handheld and software .... along with lots of training! Here is some info about the Conference which is going to be held Feb 29-March 2, 2008 at the Hyatt Regency in Dallas. If you want to see what Math teachers around Texas are like when you get them together .... come check it out!

The Great Disconnect .... High School to College

I have been meaning to write this BLOG for weeks and weeks, but Steve Blow's column in Sunday's Dallas Morning News (11-11-07) finally brought matters to a head. Please take a moment to read Steve's column as he sets up the background for this Blog very well. Thanks, Steve.

So how is it that so many students who are required by law to pass Algebra One, Geometry, and Algebra II to graduate from High School still have to take remedial Math classes when they get to college?

First of all, only in the past year have students HAD TO take Algebra Two to graduate. Before this, students needed only to take 3 years of Math including Algebra One, Geometry, and one other Math. So ... by the time students got to college they were often 2-4 years removed from an Algebra Class. Regardless, they do need to know Algebra One and Geometry in order to pass the Exit Level TAKS test their Junior year. But come their Senior year, there is no Math requirement, and very few of your average students will opt to take Pre-Calculus. ((This year's HS freshman, however, will be required to take 4 years of Math and 4 years of Science to graduate.)) Ask yourself .... how much Algebra do you remember 2 years after taking the class?

Secondly .... and this is the crux of the disconnect .... Texas High Schools are required by law to teach the usage of and encourage the usage of Texas Instruments Graphing Calculators. TI-Graphing Calculators are required for the Exit Level TAKS Math test. Yet no caculator is allowed on the Accuplacer nor the THEA Tests .... the tests students are given for college placement. If the Accuplacer or the THEA think you might need a calculator to do a problem, one will pop up on the computer while you are taking the test ... a little 4-function calculator which is nothing like the TI-calculators these students have used for years.

Whether or not you agree with calculator usage in high school Math classes, they are a requirement by state law. Texas Instruments keeps creating newer and better versions of their graphing calculators ... the newest one being the TI-Nspire ... just click here and check out their ad. Try to understand what is going on in that ad. Calculator usage has been heavily integrated into mathematics textbooks and classrooms. Calculators are allowed on the SAT and the ACT and on all Advanced Placement Math tests. To tell a student they will not be allowed to use a calculator on a placement test for college math is to, if nothing else, put them at a psychological disadvantage. Having a calculator may not help them at all, but it is a form of security, a tool which they have been using for their 4 years of high school. I believe it is a major mistake to withhold calculators from students taking the Accuplacer or the THEA. And I believe this is a major reason so many students are placed into remedial Algebra classes.

Thirdly, and possibly most importantly, is the fact that the test is given on a computer. For some reason, people who take Math tests on a computer do worse compared to people who take the same test on paper. Every major test the students have taken up to this point ... SAT, TAKS, ACT, AP tests, etc .... have all been paper and pencil tests. I understand why colleges use computers to test and place their students, especially when the computer uses the results on previous questions to determine what question to ask next. Here is the issue .... students will not take the time to work out the Math problem on a piece of paper before clicking on one of the 4 choices. They think writing something down is a waste of time or a sign of weakness. They think they can do it in their head and they mess up. I know this because I am guilty of this very same thing myself. I get the SAT Question of the Day from College Board.com in my email every day. One day is a Writing question, the next day is a Reading question, and the next day is a Math question, then the cycle repeats. I ace the Writing and Reading questions without having to pick up a pencil or open a dictionary, but when I get to the Math problems I always have to dig out a piece of paper and a pen or pencil and solve the problems by hand. If I dare to do them in my head, I often make a stupid mistake. And I have a college degree in Mathematics.

So how do we bridge this gap between what is taught in High Schools and what is tested on the placement tests? First .... let the students use a calculator on the tests. If they don't know what they are doing, it won't help them. If they are used to using one, they will feel more comfortable having one nearby. Second ... students need to learn how to take a Math test on a computer before they get out of High School. A good time to work on this might be during that 4th year of Math being required for all High Schoolers. Also during this class teachers might want to reinforce some basic Math Skills ... adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing whole numbers and decimals and fractions BY HAND. By the time these students are Seniors they have been away from this type of Math for four or more years. It is also quite possible they never truly understood how to do these things while in Middle School, but with added age and maturity, they might finally truly understand.

Part 2 - The Unspoken "Elitism" of Mathematics ...

What is it about Math?

It often seems to be the subject that everyone loves to hate. And that attitude is generally acceptable to most people. The conversation goes something like this ...

Person #1 ... "I hate Math."

Person #2 .... "Oh yeah, me, too!"

Person #3 ... "Not me, I love Math!"

Persons #1 & #2 in unison ..."Ewwwwww ... what are you?? Some kind of GEEK or something?"

And everybody moves a little further away from Person #3.

Yet if you were to take Person #1 aside and ask him if he would like to be able to do Math and understand Math ... he would admit that, YES, he would LOVE to be able to do Math well. Same thing with Person #2. Same thing with almost everybody.

So where is the disconnect? Everybody would like to be good at Math, but not many people are. Think back .... when exactly did Math become a problem for you? Was it in 1st grade? 4th grade? Middle School? Was it Algebra or Geometry?

Almost every adult had to take Algebra and some form of Geometry while in High School. Very few took more than that. Why?

If you are one of those people who would like to be good at Math, but only took what was required of you in High School, I would like to hear from you. When did Math begin to be a struggle for you? Was it the Math or was it the teacher or was it because of issues in your life at the time? Maybe it was a combination of these things?

I have my own theories on this ... but I would like to know how things worked in YOUR case. Please feel free to comment on this post or you may email me at MathMatters@verizon.net.



(to be continued ...)

The Unspoken "Elitism" of Mathematics ...

Are you good at Math? How good at Math are you? How does the following question make you feel?


50. Which of these equations describes a relationship in which every real number x corresponds to a non negative real number?

A. y = 2x

B. y = 2x ^2 (2 times x squared)

C. y = 2x^ 3 (2 times x to the third power)

D. y = -2x

Does it make you want to sketch graphs and figure it out? Or does it make you want to run screaming into the closet?

It's okay .... come on out of the closet .... I'm not going to make you do this problem and I am not going to judge you in any way if you have no idea what it even says. I promise. (However ... if you do want to know the answer, please Click Here.)

My guess is that out of 100 people polled, at least 80 would bow-out or back away from this question. Roughly 20 would try it .... and of those 20 maybe 11 will get it right? Maybe?

But what I know for sure .... those who get it right would be PROUD. Proud of their ability to do Math. Proud to know more than about 89% of the general population. And many of the Proud would be Math Teachers.

Knowing how to do Math is a wonderful thing. In a way, it is kind of like knowing how to do magic. People who can do magic are very happy to perform it, but almost always unwilling to share their secrets. And sometimes the performance of a Math problem looks like Magic to many ... only not near as entertaining as, say, sawing a Math teacher in half and then putting him/her back together again.

How many of you have ever tried to do a Math problem, been unsuccessful, and then heard someone say, "I can't believe you don't know how to do this! You should have learned this in Sixth Grade!" Okay, Okay put your hands down. Now ... how many of you have had a Math teacher say that to you? And how many of these Math teachers looked smug/disgusted when they said it?

Okay ... Okay ... put your hands down. And please stop imagining your Math teacher being sawed in half.

Yes ... there is a feeling of pride in being able to do something that "most people" cannot do ... being able to do something that actually scares most people. And sometimes there is a feeling of wanting to keep your secrets close, so that you are one of the few who can do it and do it well.

Mathematicians are often this way. Maybe not intentionally, but many Mathematicians seem unwilling to share their special talent with the general public. You either know it, or you don't ... and if you don't, too bad for you. Or maybe many mathematicians are the type who can do it well, but are unable to teach it in a way the general public can understand?

Everybody knows somebody who can do Math really well, but who cannot teach it worth anything. Often it is your architect Dad, or your engineer Uncle, or your honors achieving Sister. They can do it ... and do it well ... but they simply cannot explain it to you.

Enter Math teachers. It is their JOB to explain Mathematics to you in a way that you can understand. It is their job to teach this generation of high schoolers Algebra One and Geometry and Algebra Two and Pre-Calculus and Calculus and so on! And teach it they do. And teach it and teach it and teach it.

Yet colleges are still complaining that students don't know any Math. And 40,000 students didn't graduate from Texas High Schools in 2007, mainly due to the TAKS Math Test.

What is it about Math?

To be continued ...

In Praise of .... Schooling ....

Being in the business I am in these days, it is very easy to step on toes. Or to be "judged" as stepping on toes.

I am a Private Math Tutor. I tutor in my home in Lewisville and I see students Mon-Thurs. from 9:00am-9:30pm.

My students come from many different educational philosophies. I tutor/teach Homeschoolers, Unschoolers, Private Schoolers, Public Schoolers, and College students. I also tutor/teach students studying for their GED, SAT, ACT, or trying to pass a Math Test at work. My evening hours are dedicated to the Public and Private Schoolers .... my daytime hours go to everyone else.

I love Math. I love teaching Math. I love working with people who want to know Math. I honestly do not care what educational philosophy my students come from. That being said, I sure can get myself in trouble! So let me make myself perfectly clear .... ALL Philosophies of Education have their wonderful points. ALL Philosophies of Education have their problems. NONE are Perfect!

I taught in the Public School System for 22 years. My son is now a Senior at Lewisville High School, having spent his entire educational career so far in Lewisville Public Schools. And I dedicate my evenings from 4:30-9:30 Mon-Thurs to Public Schoolers. Yet .... I have recently been told that there is a rumor going around the Lewisville Independant School District that I am "anti-Public Schools". Hmmmm ....

Homeschoolers were afraid to trust me because I taught in Public Schools. I am still working on overcoming that. I know Math. I can teach Math. Math is not religious nor political (at least it shouldn't be). Math is totally objective. The most subjective part of Math would be an opinion of what should be taught in an Algebra One course. I have taught several Homeschoolers. I think their biggest issue with me is my fee.

Then there are the Unschoolers. What? You have never heard of "unschooling"? Google it. Read up on it. I think you will find it very interesting.

Here is the bottom line .... Home, Public, Private, Un ... SCHOOLING. Make sure your child gets an education. It is a tough world out there and it is up to you to arm them with as much education as you can get for them. If you don't think they are learning Math, let me help them. If you want them to learn more Math, I can help. If you want them to learn to LOVE Math ... I can even help with that.

Heck .... I can even help YOU like MATH. Look me up!

Education Quotes I like ....

"I touch the future. I teach." -Christa McAuliffe


"I have learned silence form the talkative,
Toleration from the intolerant,
And kindness from the unkind;
Yet ... Strange,
I am ungrateful to those teachers." -Kahlil Gibran


"One hundred years from now, it will not matter what kind of car I drove, or what kind of house I lived in or how much money I had in the bank, but the world may be a better place because I made a difference in a child's life." -Author Unknown


"One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of a child." -Carl Jung


"Whether you think that you CAN, or that you CAN'T, you are usually right." -Henry Ford


"I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world." -Albert Einstein


"The person who sends out positive thoughts activates the world around him positively and draws back to himself positive results." -Norman Vincent Peale


"A teacher is the candle that lights others in consuming itself." -Giovanni Ruffini


"A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops." -Henry B. Adams


"Failure is instructive. The person who really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as from his successes." -John Dewey


"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence." -Albert Einstein


"Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from weak minds." -Albert Einstein

Some Interesting Sites ...

I have interests in Math and Physics and Universal Questions ... and these are some things which I find to be very interesting .... be sure to click the Back Arrow after visiting each site so you can come back here ...


Powers of Ten and the Universe ....

Imagining the 10th Dimension ... be sure to watch the Flash presentation ... it is fascinating ...

Realtivity Slide Show .... Must be able to see Photobucket Shows ...

Night and Day ... world map showing darkness and light over the Earth ... be sure to explore other ways to view the map on this site ....

Mathematics Portal ... Gotta love Wikipedia

Stephen Hawking's Universe ... Pretty much what it says .....

I will add more to this soon ....

All the Good Things ....

I first saw this story in Reader's Digest ... it made me cry then.

Then I saw it in the very first "Chicken Soup for the Soul" Book by Jack Canfield ... and it made me cry again ...

And this past Tuesday I read it out-loud to my 6th and 7th grade students at BridgePoint Academy ... and it choked me up twice ...
.
I guess it is safe to say that this story strikes a chord in my soul ...

ALL THE GOOD THINGS

by Sister Helen P. Mrosla

He was in the first third grade class I taught at Saint Mary's School in Morris, Minn. All 34 of my students were dear to me, but Mark Eklund was one in a million. Very neat in appearance, but had that happy-to-be-alive attitude that made even his occasional mischievousness delightful.
Mark talked incessantly. I had to remind him again and again that talking without permission was not acceptable. What impressed me so much, though, was his sincere response every time I had to correct him for misbehaving: "Thank you for correcting me, Sister!" I didn't know what to make of it at first, but before long I became accustomed to hearing it many times a day.

One morning my patience was growing thin when Mark talked once too often, and then I made a novice-teacher's mistake. I looked at him and said, "If you say one more word, I am going to tape your mouth shut!"

It wasn't ten seconds later when Chuck blurted out, "Mark is talking again." I hadn't asked any of the students to help me watch Mark, but since I had stated the punishment in front of the class, I had to act on it.

I remember the scene as if it had occurred this morning. I walked to my desk, very deliberately opened my drawer and took out a roll of masking tape. Without saying a word, I proceeded to Mark's desk, tore off two pieces of tape and made a big X with them over his mouth.

I then returned to the front of the room. As I glanced at Mark to see how he was doing, he winked at me.

That did it! I started laughing. The class cheered as I walked back to Mark's desk, removed the tape and shrugged my shoulders. His first words were, "Thank you for correcting me, Sister."
At the end of the year I was asked to teach junior-high math. The years flew by, and before I knew it Mark was in my classroom again. He was more handsome than ever and just as polite. Since he had to listen carefully to my instructions in the "new math," he did not talk as much in ninth grade as he had in the third.

One Friday, things just didn't feel right. We had worked hard on a new concept all week, and I sensed that the students were frowning, frustrated with themselves--and edgy with one another. I had to stop this crankiness before it got out of hand. So I asked them to list the names of the other students in the room on two sheets of paper, leaving a space between each name. Then I told them to think of the nicest thing they could say about each of their classmates and write it down.

It took the remainder of the class period to finish the assignment, and as the students left the room, each one handed me the papers. Charlie smiled. Mark said, "Thank you for teaching me, Sister. Have a good weekend."

That Saturday, I wrote down the name of each student on a separate sheet of paper, and I listed what everyone else had said about that individual.

On Monday I gave each student his or her list. Before long, the entire class was smiling. "Really?" I heard whispered. "I never knew that meant anything to anyone!" "I didn't know others liked me so much!"

No one ever mentioned those papers in class again. I never knew if they discussed them after class or with their parents, but it didn't matter. The exercise had accomplished its purpose. The students were happy with themselves and one another again.

That group of students moved on. Several years later, after I returned from vacation, my parents met me at the airport. As we were driving home, Mother asked me the usual questions about the trip--the weather, my experiences in general. There was a light lull in the conversation. Mother gave Dad a sideways glance and I simply said, "Dad?" My father cleared his throat as he usually did before something important. "The Eklunds called last night," he began.

"Really?" I said. "I haven't heard from them in years. I wonder how Mark is."
Dad responded quietly. "Mark was killed in Vietnam," he said. "The funeral is tomorrow, and his parents would like it if you could attend."

To this day I can still point to the exact spot on I-494 where Dad told me about Mark.

I had never seen a serviceman in a military coffin before. Mark looked so handsome, so mature. All I could think at that moment was, Mark, I would give all the masking tape in the world if only you would talk to me.

The church was packed with Mark's friends. Chuck's sister sang "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." Why did it have to rain on the day of the funeral? It was difficult enough at the graveside. The pastor said the usual prayers, and the bugler played taps. One by one those who loved Mark took a last walk by the coffin and sprinkled it with holy water.

I was the last one to bless the coffin. As I stood there, one of the soldiers who had acted as pallbearer came up to me. "Were you Mark's math teacher?" he asked. I nodded as I continued to stare at the coffin. "Mark talked about you a lot," he said.

After the funeral, most of Mark's former classmates headed to Chuck's farmhouse for lunch. Mark's mother and father were there, obviously waiting for me. "We want to show you something," his father said, taking a wallet out of his pocket. "They found this on Mark when he was killed. We thought you might recognize it."

Opening the billfold, he carefully removed two worn pieces of notebook paper that had obviously been taped, folded, and refolded many times. I knew without looking that the papers were the ones on which I had listed all the good things each of Mark's classmates had said about him. "Thank you so much for doing that" Mark's mother said. "As you can see, Mark treasured it."

Mark's classmates started to gather around us. Charlie smiled rather sheepishly and said, "I still have my list. It's in the top drawer of my desk at home." Chuck's wife said, "Chuck asked me to put this in our wedding album." "I have mine too," Marilyn said. "It's in my diary."

Then Vicki, another classmate, reached into her pocketbook, took out her wallet, and showed her worn and frazzled list to the group. "I carry this with me at all times," Vicki said without batting an eyelash. "I think we all saved our lists."

That's when I finally sat down and cried. I cried for Mark and for all his friends who would never see him again.

The original story appeared in Proteus. Condensed in the October, 1991, Reader's Digest. Also compiled by Alice Gray in Stories For The Heart, 1996, Vision House Publishing, Inc.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

After I read this story to my students, I passed out papers with the names of all their classmates and teachers already filled in, and I asked the students to write some nice things about each person.

They groaned and moaned, but got right to work. I then took the papers home and compiled a sheet for each student ... (I used to do this by hand ... thank goodness for the computer and WORD!!)

On the last day of classes before Summer break, I gave each student and teacher their list of Good Things which the students had written about them. The effect was the same as in the above story. Simple words like "Smart", "Pretty" and "Kind" peppered the sheets. Other words like "Thoughtful" , "Hard-working" , "Complicated" , "Sensitive", and "Hilariously sarcatstic" were used. Teachers were described as being "Funny" and "Caring" and "Merciful" and "Forgiving".

It doesn't matter how old you are ... it is nice to read how people feel about you. It is especially nice to read Good Things people have written about you.

It was a good way to end the school year.

Will EOC Testing be any Better?

The Texas Legislature is considering replacing the High School TAKS tests with 12 End Of Course (EOC) Tests.

No .... these are not the Final Exams of your memory.

The Final Exams of your memory would be Exams which were written by your teacher covering the material your teacher had covered in class that semester or year. The teacher taught the class, the teacher wrote the tests, the teacher graded the tests.

The EOC tests will be standardized tests written by PEARSON Educational Systems ... the same people who wrote the TAKS tests. (Can you say "another big contract for Pearson"?)

EOC's are not new concepts. For several years there were EOC's being given to 9th graders for Algebra I and for Biology. These tests were given IN ADDITION TO any final exams the teachers gave. My opinions of EOC testing are based on my experiences with the Algebra I EOC test several years ago.

Just let me say this .... it isn't gonna get any better, folks.

A teacher can follow the curriculum and teach exactly what is supposed to be taught ... and be totally blindsided by the "End of Course" tests. It has been my experience that instead of testing the curriculum, the EOC DROVE the curriculum. Teachers, of course, were only allowed to see the test AFTER it was given ... and it often turned out that the things on the test just weren't the things of Algebra I ... at least not what the teachers thought were Algebra I.

We teachers always seemed to be at least six steps behind!! We would focus our teaching on the things that were tested on the last test only to find that the newest test focused on different things. The Algebra I books became totally worthless because the test was testing things often beyond the considered realm of Algebra I. Teachers had to create new worksheets and totally new lesson plans in an attempt to cover anything that might be asked on the next EOC. Algebra I courses became a mish-mash of old EOC tests and areas of weakness on those tests.

Meanwhile .... Algebra I was not being taught. At least, not the Algebra I we learned years ago. Principals and Math Coordinators only cared about the EOC test results ... no one seemed to care if the students could actually do any Algebra I!!

Geometry teachers began to notice severe weaknesses in their students Algebra I skills. So Geometry teachers had to start doing more remediation in Alg. I ... plus teaching the Geometry. And now the state wants to give an EOC Geometry test?? Plus an EOC Algebra II test??
Talk about a Math teacher nightmare. Makes me very happy to be on the private tutoring end of things. My business should do VERY well.

The DMN printed this article about the legislative moves on EOC Testing ... and it contained this quote ....

"We are extremely disappointed with what the House did," said Mr. Hammond, now president of the Texas Association of Business. "While we support the move to end-of-course exams, the House bill would make those tests meaningless."

He noted that when Texas had an end-of-course Algebra I exam a few years ago, virtually all students passed the course, even though as many as 90 percent were failing the end-of-course test each year.

90% of the students FAILED the EOC Algebra I test???

Did anyone stop to question the validity of THAT test?

Yikes ... I am beginning to sound like a broken record.

Any of you who think the move to End of Course testing is a move in a positive direction ... you are going to find yourselves to be sadly mistaken.

16% of Class of 2007 Fail TAKS ... Will NOT Graduate

16% of the Class of 2007 will NOT graduate this Spring according to this article in the Dallas Morning News.

That is 40,182 seniors who will not walk across the stage with their friends and classmates. Forty thousand students who will leave their high school at the end of this year without a diploma.

These students spent at least 13 years in school, completed all their required courses with passing grades, but because of one or more sections of the TAKS Exit Level Test, they will not receive a diploma.

Where will they go now? What will they do now?

40,000 young men and women from the Class of 2007 ... over 25,000 men and women from the class of 2006 .... over 22,000 men and women from the class of 2005. See TEA Reports to verify these #'s.

I hardly call this "No Child Left Behind".

Mind you, these young men and women are welcome to continue trying to pass the one or more sections of the test which they failed. Their next chance is in July. But they have already had 5 chances to pass this test ... already had extra help and tutoring from their schools. And now they are out of school!

Free Education is GONE for them. Nothing will be free from now on.

I guess my BIG question is .... DOES ANYBODY CARE??

Hello????

FORTY THOUSAND students will not graduate. Has anyone stopped to question the validity of the TEST?

I know the Math portion of the TAKS test inside, outside, and upside down ... and I am here to question the validity of this test.

But no one will listen to me. Math teachers who complain sound like whiners. Yet they are the only ones who work with the Math portion of the TAKS test. Ask any other adult to sit down and look at this test and they will excuse themselves away ....

"It's been years since I had Math ..."

"I was an English Major ... I didn't need Math ...."

"I barely made it past Algebra I myself ...."

TOUCHE' !!!

Yet all of you are viable members of society. Employed. Productive. Educated!! Why do we expect EVERY student in High School to be able to pass this Math Test? YOU couldn't pass it. ((Or could you? I double dog dare you to try .... Online Version )) Let me know how you do.
No excuses allowed such as ... "I just read the problem wrong" or "I didn't understand what the question was asking" or "It has been years since I had Math" ...... those are exactly the same things that high school juniors say. The 11th grade TAKS test covers 9th and 10th grade Math .... which to 11th graders was YEARS ago.

Okay ... Honestly ... How many of you bookmarked that online testing page for future reference? How many of you are willing to take a few hours and sit down and attempt to take just the Math portion of the 11th grade Exit Level Test?

Think you are good at Math .... I especially challange YOU to try it. Please print out a copy of the Formula Chart to use ... so you'll have the same advantage as the kids. Oh .... and see if you can borrow a TI-83 or 84 Graphing Calculator from someone. You might need it.

Letting My Light Shine ....

Have you ever just felt like you are glowing?? I don't mean a hot flash ... I mean emitting light ... glowing!

I felt that way today.

I wasn't wearing make-up nor dressed especially well, although I did have on a fun new skirt I had bought for our upcoming trip to Mexico. My hair was chem-perm tossled and air dried ... in all it's salt-and-pepper glory.


I was planning to visit High School Counselors in the area. The Statewide TAKS test results are coming in and there are many students who will not be graduating due to these results. I wanted to let counselors know that I can and will still help these students. Shake some hands, pass out cards, give them a sample copy of my DVD.


I had to stop at a local grocery store to pick up some big envelopes. As I was walking back to the check-out counter I crossed paths with another customer and she FROZE. This young lady stood there, eyes wide open, mouth open in surprise. She looked like she had just seen a movie star .... or a ghost!


I smiled at her and asked her if she knew me ... or if I should know her. She said, "You were my favorite teacher! I am Kelly ~*~*~ and I graduated in 1998. I have never forgotten you. Thank you so much!"

Well .... if that isn't music to a teacher's ears, I don't know what is!!

I gave her a big hug, handed her one of my cards and told her I had remarried. She had been in my classes during my 2nd divorce ... and all my students had seen me suffer. I let her know I had a good guy this time and this one was going to stick!!

I asked her how her life has been the past several years .... she shrugged ... "It's been ... Life."

I told her I was online all of the time and to look me up. We hugged and went on our ways.

What a great way to start a morning!


On to Lewisville High School .... where I taught for 3 years ... 1994-1997 ... it seemed like all the adults who saw me there remembered me ... I asked to see the lead counselor and the secretary said, "Go on back. Do you remember the way?"

The counselor greeted me by name.

Other teachers I saw in the hall greeted me with joy and asked if I was coming back. That felt so nice. It also felt nice to walk out of there, climb into my car and drive away!! LOL ...
I also went to Marcus HS ... was greeted kindly by the counselor there ... saw an old friend in the counselor's office and had a nice visit.


Then I met Tom for Indian Food for lunch .... and dribbled some of it on my shirt .... sigh .... so much for glowing ....

Anyway .... more school visits tomorrow. There are five high schools in LISD.


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*


Home School is out ... ((how does that happen??)) .... my unschoolers are taking a few weeks off, but will return and continue through the summer. Many colleges are ending this week. Basically my daytime work is slowing way down right now. Which is nice. I actually got a nap today!!

I am expecting some summer TAKS work .... and already have parents contacting me about summer tutoring. It's all good!


Gonna keep letting my light shine.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

How NOT to Talk to Your Kids ....

How Not to Talk to Your Kids
The Inverse Power of Praise.

By Po Bronson

What do we make of a boy like Thomas?

Thomas (his middle name) is a fifth-grader at the highly competitive P.S. 334, the Anderson School on West 84th. Slim as they get, Thomas recently had his long sandy-blond hair cut short to look like the new James Bond (he took a photo of Daniel Craig to the barber). Unlike Bond, he prefers a uniform of cargo pants and a T-shirt emblazoned with a photo of one of his heroes: Frank Zappa. Thomas hangs out with five friends from the Anderson School. They are “the smart kids.” Thomas’s one of them, and he likes belonging.

Since Thomas could walk, he has heard constantly that he’s smart. Not just from his parents but from any adult who has come in contact with this precocious child. When he applied to Anderson for kindergarten, his intelligence was statistically confirmed. The school is reserved for the top one percent of all applicants, and an IQ test is required. Thomas didn’t just score in the top one percent. He scored in the top one percent of the top one percent.

But as Thomas has progressed through school, this self-awareness that he’s smart hasn’t always translated into fearless confidence when attacking his schoolwork. In fact, Thomas’s father noticed just the opposite. “Thomas didn’t want to try things he wouldn’t be successful at,” his father says. “Some things came very quickly to him, but when they didn’t, he gave up almost immediately, concluding, ‘I’m not good at this.’ ” With no more than a glance, Thomas was dividing the world into two—things he was naturally good at and things he wasn’t.

For instance, in the early grades, Thomas wasn’t very good at spelling, so he simply demurred from spelling out loud. When Thomas took his first look at fractions, he balked. The biggest hurdle came in third grade. He was supposed to learn cursive penmanship, but he wouldn’t even try for weeks. By then, his teacher was demanding homework be completed in cursive. Rather than play catch-up on his penmanship, Thomas refused outright. Thomas’s father tried to reason with him. “Look, just because you’re smart doesn’t mean you don’t have to put out some effort.” (Eventually, he mastered cursive, but not without a lot of cajoling from his father.)
Why does this child, who is measurably at the very top of the charts, lack confidence about his ability to tackle routine school challenges?

Thomas is not alone. For a few decades, it’s been noted that a large percentage of all gifted students (those who score in the top 10 percent on aptitude tests) severely underestimate their own abilities. Those afflicted with this lack of perceived competence adopt lower standards for success and expect less of themselves. They underrate the importance of effort, and they overrate how much help they need from a parent.

When parents praise their children’s intelligence, they believe they are providing the solution to this problem. According to a survey conducted by Columbia University, 85 percent of American parents think it’s important to tell their kids that they’re smart. In and around the New York area, according to my own (admittedly nonscientific) poll, the number is more like 100 percent. Everyone does it, habitually. The constant praise is meant to be an angel on the shoulder, ensuring that children do not sell their talents short.

But a growing body of research—and a new study from the trenches of the New York public-school system—strongly suggests it might be the other way around. Giving kids the label of “smart” does not prevent them from underperforming. It might actually be causing it.
For the past ten years, psychologist Carol Dweck and her team at Columbia (she’s now at Stanford) studied the effect of praise on students in a dozen New York schools. Her seminal work—a series of experiments on 400 fifth-graders—paints the picture most clearly.
Dweck sent four female research assistants into New York fifth-grade classrooms. The researchers would take a single child out of the classroom for a nonverbal IQ test consisting of a series of puzzles—puzzles easy enough that all the children would do fairly well. Once the child finished the test, the researchers told each student his score, then gave him a single line of praise. Randomly divided into groups, some were praised for their intelligence. They were told, “You must be smart at this.” Other students were praised for their effort: “You must have worked really hard.”

Why just a single line of praise? “We wanted to see how sensitive children were,” Dweck explained. “We had a hunch that one line might be enough to see an effect.”

Then the students were given a choice of test for the second round. One choice was a test that would be more difficult than the first, but the researchers told the kids that they’d learn a lot from attempting the puzzles. The other choice, Dweck’s team explained, was an easy test, just like the first. Of those praised for their effort, 90 percent chose the harder set of puzzles. Of those praised for their intelligence, a majority chose the easy test. The “smart” kids took the cop-out.

Why did this happen? “When we praise children for their intelligence,” Dweck wrote in her study summary, “we tell them that this is the name of the game: Look smart, don’t risk making mistakes.” And that’s what the fifth-graders had done: They’d chosen to look smart and avoid the risk of being embarrassed.

In a subsequent round, none of the fifth-graders had a choice. The test was difficult, designed for kids two years ahead of their grade level. Predictably, everyone failed. But again, the two groups of children, divided at random at the study’s start, responded differently. Those praised for their effort on the first test assumed they simply hadn’t focused hard enough on this test. “They got very involved, willing to try every solution to the puzzles,” Dweck recalled. “Many of them remarked, unprovoked, ‘This is my favorite test.’ ” Not so for those praised for their smarts. They assumed their failure was evidence that they weren’t really smart at all. “Just watching them, you could see the strain. They were sweating and miserable.”

Having artificially induced a round of failure, Dweck’s researchers then gave all the fifth-graders a final round of tests that were engineered to be as easy as the first round. Those who had been praised for their effort significantly improved on their first score—by about 30 percent. Those who’d been told they were smart did worse than they had at the very beginning—by about 20 percent.

Dweck had suspected that praise could backfire, but even she was surprised by the magnitude of the effect. “Emphasizing effort gives a child a variable that they can control,” she explains. “They come to see themselves as in control of their success. Emphasizing natural intelligence takes it out of the child’s control, and it provides no good recipe for responding to a failure.”

In follow-up interviews, Dweck discovered that those who think that innate intelligence is the key to success begin to discount the importance of effort. I am smart, the kids’ reasoning goes; I don’t need to put out effort. Expending effort becomes stigmatized—it’s public proof that you can’t cut it on your natural gifts.

Repeating her experiments, Dweck found this effect of praise on performance held true for students of every socioeconomic class. It hit both boys and girls—the very brightest girls especially (they collapsed the most following failure). Even preschoolers weren’t immune to the inverse power of praise.

Jill Abraham is a mother of three in Scarsdale, and her view is typical of those in my straw poll. I told her about Dweck’s research on praise, and she flatly wasn’t interested in brief tests without long-term follow-up. Abraham is one of the 85 percent who think praising her children’s intelligence is important. Her kids are thriving, so she’s proved that praise works in the real world. “I don’t care what the experts say,” Jill says defiantly. “I’m living it.”

Even those who’ve accepted the new research on praise have trouble putting it into practice. Sue Needleman is both a mother of two and an elementary-school teacher with eleven years’ experience. Last year, she was a fourth-grade teacher at Ridge Ranch Elementary in Paramus, New Jersey. She has never heard of Carol Dweck, but the gist of Dweck’s research has trickled down to her school, and Needleman has learned to say, “I like how you keep trying.” She tries to keep her praise specific, rather than general, so that a child knows exactly what she did to earn the praise (and thus can get more). She will occasionally tell a child, “You’re good at math,” but she’ll never tell a child he’s bad at math.

But that’s at school, as a teacher. At home, old habits die hard. Her 8-year-old daughter and her 5-year-old son are indeed smart, and sometimes she hears herself saying, “You’re great. You did it. You’re smart.” When I press her on this, Needleman says that what comes out of academia often feels artificial. “When I read the mock dialogues, my first thought is, Oh, please. How corny.”

No such qualms exist for teachers at the Life Sciences Secondary School in East Harlem, because they’ve seen Dweck’s theories applied to their junior-high students. Last week, Dweck and her protégée, Lisa Blackwell, published a report in the academic journal Child Development about the effect of a semester-long intervention conducted to improve students’ math scores.
Life Sciences is a health-science magnet school with high aspirations but 700 students whose main attributes are being predominantly minority and low achieving. Blackwell split her kids into two groups for an eight-session workshop. The control group was taught study skills, and the others got study skills and a special module on how intelligence is not innate. These students took turns reading aloud an essay on how the brain grows new neurons when challenged. They saw slides of the brain and acted out skits. “Even as I was teaching these ideas,” Blackwell noted, “I would hear the students joking, calling one another ‘dummy’ or ‘stupid.’ ” After the module was concluded, Blackwell tracked her students’ grades to see if it had any effect.


It didn’t take long. The teachers—who hadn’t known which students had been assigned to which workshop—could pick out the students who had been taught that intelligence can be developed. They improved their study habits and grades. In a single semester, Blackwell reversed the students’ longtime trend of decreasing math grades.

The only difference between the control group and the test group were two lessons, a total of 50 minutes spent teaching not math but a single idea: that the brain is a muscle. Giving it a harder workout makes you smarter. That alone improved their math scores.

“These are very persuasive findings,” says Columbia’s Dr. Geraldine Downey, a specialist in children’s sensitivity to rejection. “They show how you can take a specific theory and develop a curriculum that works.” Downey’s comment is typical of what other scholars in the field are saying. Dr. Mahzarin Banaji, a Harvard social psychologist who is an expert in stereotyping, told me, “Carol Dweck is a flat-out genius. I hope the work is taken seriously. It scares people when they see these results.”

Since the 1969 publication of The Psychology of Self-Esteem, in which Nathaniel Branden opined that self-esteem was the single most important facet of a person, the belief that one must do whatever he can to achieve positive self-esteem has become a movement with broad societal effects. Anything potentially damaging to kids’ self-esteem was axed. Competitions were frowned upon. Soccer coaches stopped counting goals and handed out trophies to everyone. Teachers threw out their red pencils. Criticism was replaced with ubiquitous, even undeserved, praise.

Dweck and Blackwell’s work is part of a larger academic challenge to one of the self-esteem movement’s key tenets: that praise, self-esteem, and performance rise and fall together. From 1970 to 2000, there were over 15,000 scholarly articles written on self-esteem and its relationship to everything—from sex to career advancement. But results were often contradictory or inconclusive. So in 2003 the Association for Psychological Science asked Dr. Roy Baumeister, then a leading proponent of self-esteem, to review this literature. His team concluded that self-esteem was polluted with flawed science. Only 200 of those 15,000 studies met their rigorous standards.

I am smart, the kids’ reasoning goes; I don’t need to put out effort. Expending effort becomes stigmatized—it’s public proof that you can’t cut it on your natural gifts.
After reviewing those 200 studies, Baumeister concluded that having high self-esteem didn’t improve grades or career achievement. It didn’t even reduce alcohol usage. And it especially did not lower violence of any sort. (Highly aggressive, violent people happen to think very highly of themselves, debunking the theory that people are aggressive to make up for low self-esteem.) At the time, Baumeister was quoted as saying that his findings were “the biggest disappointment of my career.”

Now he’s on Dweck’s side of the argument, and his work is going in a similar direction: He will soon publish an article showing that for college students on the verge of failing in class, esteem-building praise causes their grades to sink further. Baumeister has come to believe the continued appeal of self-esteem is largely tied to parents’ pride in their children’s achievements: It’s so strong that “when they praise their kids, it’s not that far from praising themselves.”

By and large, the literature on praise shows that it can be effective—a positive, motivating force. In one study, University of Notre Dame researchers tested praise’s efficacy on a losing college hockey team. The experiment worked: The team got into the playoffs. But all praise is not equal—and, as Dweck demonstrated, the effects of praise can vary significantly depending on the praise given. To be effective, researchers have found, praise needs to be specific. (The hockey players were specifically complimented on the number of times they checked an opponent.)
Sincerity of praise is also crucial. Just as we can sniff out the true meaning of a backhanded compliment or a disingenuous apology, children, too, scrutinize praise for hidden agendas. Only young children—under the age of 7—take praise at face value: Older children are just as suspicious of it as adults.

Psychologist Wulf-Uwe Meyer, a pioneer in the field, conducted a series of studies where children watched other students receive praise. According to Meyer’s findings, by the age of 12, children believe that earning praise from a teacher is not a sign you did well—it’s actually a sign you lack ability and the teacher thinks you need extra encouragement. And teens, Meyer found, discounted praise to such an extent that they believed it’s a teacher’s criticism—not praise at all—that really conveys a positive belief in a student’s aptitude.

In the opinion of cognitive scientist Daniel T. Willingham, a teacher who praises a child may be unwittingly sending the message that the student reached the limit of his innate ability, while a teacher who criticizes a pupil conveys the message that he can improve his performance even further.

New York University professor of psychiatry Judith Brook explains that the issue for parents is one of credibility. “Praise is important, but not vacuous praise,” she says. “It has to be based on a real thing—some skill or talent they have.” Once children hear praise they interpret as meritless, they discount not just the insincere praise, but sincere praise as well.

Scholars from Reed College and Stanford reviewed over 150 praise studies. Their meta-analysis determined that praised students become risk-averse and lack perceived autonomy. The scholars found consistent correlations between a liberal use of praise and students’ “shorter task persistence, more eye-checking with the teacher, and inflected speech such that answers have the intonation of questions.”

Dweck’s research on overpraised kids strongly suggests that image maintenance becomes their primary concern—they are more competitive and more interested in tearing others down. A raft of very alarming studies illustrate this.

In one, students are given two puzzle tests. Between the first and the second, they are offered a choice between learning a new puzzle strategy for the second test or finding out how they did compared with other students on the first test: They have only enough time to do one or the other. Students praised for intelligence choose to find out their class rank, rather than use the time to prepare.

In another, students get a do-it-yourself report card and are told these forms will be mailed to students at another school—they’ll never meet these students and don’t know their names. Of the kids praised for their intelligence, 40 percent lie, inflating their scores. Of the kids praised for effort, few lie.

When students transition into junior high, some who’d done well in elementary school inevitably struggle in the larger and more demanding environment. Those who equated their earlier success with their innate ability surmise they’ve been dumb all along. Their grades never recover because the likely key to their recovery—increasing effort—they view as just further proof of their failure. In interviews many confess they would “seriously consider cheating.”
Students turn to cheating because they haven’t developed a strategy for handling failure. The problem is compounded when a parent ignores a child’s failures and insists he’ll do better next time. Michigan scholar Jennifer Crocker studies this exact scenario and explains that the child may come to believe failure is something so terrible, the family can’t acknowledge its existence. A child deprived of the opportunity to discuss mistakes can’t learn from them.

My son, Luke, is in kindergarten. He seems supersensitive to the potential judgment of his peers. Luke justifies it by saying, “I’m shy,” but he’s not really shy. He has no fear of strange cities or talking to strangers, and at his school, he has sung in front of large audiences. Rather, I’d say he’s proud and self-conscious. His school has simple uniforms (navy T-shirt, navy pants), and he loves that his choice of clothes can’t be ridiculed, “because then they’d be teasing themselves too.”

After reading Carol Dweck’s research, I began to alter how I praised him, but not completely. I suppose my hesitation was that the mind-set Dweck wants students to have—a firm belief that the way to bounce back from failure is to work harder—sounds awfully clichéd: Try, try again.
But it turns out that the ability to repeatedly respond to failure by exerting more effort—instead of simply giving up—is a trait well studied in psychology. People with this trait, persistence, rebound well and can sustain their motivation through long periods of delayed gratification.

Delving into this research, I learned that persistence turns out to be more than a conscious act of will; it’s also an unconscious response, governed by a circuit in the brain. Dr. Robert Cloninger at Washington University in St. Louis located the circuit in a part of the brain called the orbital and medial prefrontal cortex. It monitors the reward center of the brain, and like a switch, it intervenes when there’s a lack of immediate reward. When it switches on, it’s telling the rest of the brain, “Don’t stop trying. There’s dopa [the brain’s chemical reward for success] on the horizon.” While putting people through MRI scans, Cloninger could see this switch lighting up regularly in some. In others, barely at all.

What makes some people wired to have an active circuit?

Cloninger has trained rats and mice in mazes to have persistence by carefully not rewarding them when they get to the finish. “The key is intermittent reinforcement,” says Cloninger. The brain has to learn that frustrating spells can be worked through. “A person who grows up getting too frequent rewards will not have persistence, because they’ll quit when the rewards disappear.”

That sold me. I’d thought “praise junkie” was just an expression—but suddenly, it seemed as if I could be setting up my son’s brain for an actual chemical need for constant reward.

What would it mean, to give up praising our children so often? Well, if I am one example, there are stages of withdrawal, each of them subtle. In the first stage, I fell off the wagon around other parents when they were busy praising their kids. I didn’t want Luke to feel left out. I felt like a former alcoholic who continues to drink socially. I became a Social Praiser.

Then I tried to use the specific-type praise that Dweck recommends. I praised Luke, but I attempted to praise his “process.” This was easier said than done. What are the processes that go on in a 5-year-old’s mind? In my impression, 80 percent of his brain processes lengthy scenarios for his action figures.

But every night he has math homework and is supposed to read a phonics book aloud. Each takes about five minutes if he concentrates, but he’s easily distracted. So I praised him for concentrating without asking to take a break. If he listened to instructions carefully, I praised him for that. After soccer games, I praised him for looking to pass, rather than just saying, “You played great.” And if he worked hard to get to the ball, I praised the effort he applied.

Just as the research promised, this focused praise helped him see strategies he could apply the next day. It was remarkable how noticeably effective this new form of praise was.

Truth be told, while my son was getting along fine under the new praise regime, it was I who was suffering. It turns out that I was the real praise junkie in the family. Praising him for just a particular skill or task felt like I left other parts of him ignored and unappreciated. I recognized that praising him with the universal “You’re great—I’m proud of you” was a way I expressed unconditional love.

Offering praise has become a sort of panacea for the anxieties of modern parenting. Out of our children’s lives from breakfast to dinner, we turn it up a notch when we get home. In those few hours together, we want them to hear the things we can’t say during the day—We are in your corner, we are here for you, we believe in you.

In a similar way, we put our children in high-pressure environments, seeking out the best schools we can find, then we use the constant praise to soften the intensity of those environments. We expect so much of them, but we hide our expectations behind constant glowing praise. The duplicity became glaring to me.

Eventually, in my final stage of praise withdrawal, I realized that not telling my son he was smart meant I was leaving it up to him to make his own conclusion about his intelligence. Jumping in with praise is like jumping in too soon with the answer to a homework problem—it robs him of the chance to make the deduction himself.

But what if he makes the wrong conclusion?
Can I really leave this up to him, at his age?

I’m still an anxious parent. This morning, I tested him on the way to school: “What happens to your brain, again, when it gets to think about something hard?”

“It gets bigger, like a muscle,” he responded, having aced this one before.

Aztecs vs Greeks ...

Aztecs vs. Greeks
Those with superior intelligence need to learn to be wise.
BY CHARLES MURRAY

If "intellectually gifted" is defined to mean people who can become theoretical physicists, then we're talking about no more than a few people per thousand and perhaps many fewer. They are cognitive curiosities, too rare to have that much impact on the functioning of society from day to day. But if "intellectually gifted" is defined to mean people who can stand out in almost any profession short of theoretical physics, then research about IQ and job performance indicates that an IQ of at least 120 is usually needed. That number demarcates the top 10% of the IQ distribution, or about 15 million people in today's labor force--a lot of people.

In professions screened for IQ by educational requirements--medicine, engineering, law, the sciences and academia--the great majority of people must, by the nature of the selection process, have IQs over 120. Evidence about who enters occupations where the screening is not directly linked to IQ indicates that people with IQs of 120 or higher also occupy large proportions of positions in the upper reaches of corporate America and the senior ranks of government. People in the top 10% of intelligence produce most of the books and newspaper articles we read and the television programs and movies we watch. They are the people in the laboratories and at workstations who invent our new pharmaceuticals, computer chips, software and every other form of advanced technology.

Combine these groups, and the top 10% of the intelligence distribution has a huge influence on whether our economy is vital or stagnant, our culture healthy or sick, our institutions secure or endangered. Of the simple truths about intelligence and its relationship to education, this is the most important and least acknowledged: Our future depends crucially on how we educate the next generation of people gifted with unusually high intelligence.

How assiduously does our federal government work to see that this precious raw material is properly developed? In 2006, the Department of Education spent about $84 billion. The only program to improve the education of the gifted got $9.6 million, one-hundredth of 1% of expenditures. In the 2007 budget, President Bush zeroed it out.

But never mind. A large proportion of gifted children are born to parents who value their children's talent and do their best to see that it is realized. Most gifted children without such parents are recognized by someone somewhere along the educational line and pointed toward college. No evidence indicates that the nation has many children with IQs above 120 who are not given an opportunity for higher education. The university system has also become efficient in shipping large numbers of the most talented high-school graduates to the most prestigious schools. The allocation of this human capital can be criticized--it would probably be better for the nation if more of the gifted went into the sciences and fewer into the law. But if the issue is amount of education, then the nation is doing fine with its next generation of gifted children. The problem with the education of the gifted involves not their professional training, but their training as citizens.

We live in an age when it is unfashionable to talk about the special responsibility of being gifted, because to do so acknowledges inequality of ability, which is elitist, and inequality of responsibilities, which is also elitist. And so children who know they are smarter than the other kids tend, in a most human reaction, to think of themselves as superior to them. Because giftedness is not to be talked about, no one tells high-IQ children explicitly, forcefully and repeatedly that their intellectual talent is a gift. That they are not superior human beings, but lucky ones. That the gift brings with it obligations to be worthy of it. That among those obligations, the most important and most difficult is to aim not just at academic accomplishment, but at wisdom.

The encouragement of wisdom requires a special kind of education. It requires first of all recognition of one's own intellectual limits and fallibilities--in a word, humility. This is perhaps the most conspicuously missing part of today's education of the gifted. Many high-IQ students, especially those who avoid serious science and math, go from kindergarten through an advanced degree without ever having a teacher who is dissatisfied with their best work and without ever taking a course that forces them to say to themselves, "I can't do this." Humility requires that the gifted learn what it feels like to hit an intellectual wall, just as all of their less talented peers do, and that can come only from a curriculum and pedagogy designed especially for them. That level of demand cannot fairly be imposed on a classroom that includes children who do not have the ability to respond. The gifted need to have some classes with each other not to be coddled, but because that is the only setting in which their feet can be held to the fire.

The encouragement of wisdom requires mastery of analytical building blocks. The gifted must assimilate the details of grammar and syntax and the details of logical fallacies not because they will need them to communicate in daily life, but because these are indispensable for precise thinking at an advanced level.

The encouragement of wisdom requires being steeped in the study of ethics, starting with Aristotle and Confucius. It is not enough that gifted children learn to be nice. They must know what it means to be good.

The encouragement of wisdom requires an advanced knowledge of history. Never has the aphorism about the fate of those who ignore history been more true.

All of the above are antithetical to the mindset that prevails in today's schools at every level. The gifted should not be taught to be nonjudgmental; they need to learn how to make accurate judgments. They should not be taught to be equally respectful of Aztecs and Greeks; they should focus on the best that has come before them, which will mean a light dose of Aztecs and a heavy one of Greeks. The primary purpose of their education should not be to let the little darlings express themselves, but to give them the tools and the intellectual discipline for expressing themselves as adults.

In short, I am calling for a revival of the classical definition of a liberal education, serving its classic purpose: to prepare an elite to do its duty. If that sounds too much like Plato's Guardians, consider this distinction. As William F. Buckley rightly instructs us, it is better to be governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than by the faculty of Harvard University. But we have that option only in the choice of our elected officials. In all other respects, the government, economy and culture are run by a cognitive elite that we do not choose. That is the reality, and we are powerless to change it. All we can do is try to educate the elite to be conscious of, and prepared to meet, its obligations. For years, we have not even thought about the nature of that task. It is time we did.

The goals that should shape the evolution of American education are cross-cutting and occasionally seem contradictory. Yesterday, I argued the merits of having a large group of high-IQ people who do not bother to go to college; today, I argue the merits of special education for the gifted. The two positions are not in the end incompatible, but there is much more to be said, as on all the issues I have raised.

The aim here is not to complete an argument but to begin a discussion; not to present policy prescriptions, but to plead for greater realism in our outlook on education. Accept that some children will be left behind other children because of intellectual limitations, and think about what kind of education will give them the greatest chance for a fulfilling life nonetheless. Stop telling children that they need to go to college to be successful, and take advantage of the other, often better ways in which people can develop their talents. Acknowledge the existence and importance of high intellectual ability, and think about how best to nurture the children who possess it.

Mr. Murray is the W.H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. This concludes a three-part series which began on Tuesday.