The Secret to Raising Smart Kids: Scientific American: "Parents and teachers can engender a growth mind-set in children by praising them for their effort or persistence (rather than for their intelligence), by telling success stories that emphasize hard work and love of learning, and by teaching them about the brain as a learning machine."
A 30 year study!? Well, we had to be sure, maybe they should have nuked it from orbit.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Concentration
Concentration: "Concentration means directing one's attention on whatever one intends. We all have a natural ability to concentrate. Have you noticed how difficult it is to get young children's attention when they are playing? Do you remember the time when you were completely engrossed in an interesting novel, a super film, an exciting match or an exhilarating piece of music? You were concentrating then. "
We also know this as flow.
A Very powerful and very useful skill and one well worth learning.
Occasionally I go tot he library to "get away from it all," but sometimes there are some people who just don't get that a library is supposed to be quiet. If I can here someone talking on a cellphone a good 50 feet away they are talking way too load. The library is generally well designed, it has a separate children's room that keeps the noise under control, but some of their chairs are absolutely awful, they cut into you spine if you try leaning back.
We also know this as flow.
A Very powerful and very useful skill and one well worth learning.
Occasionally I go tot he library to "get away from it all," but sometimes there are some people who just don't get that a library is supposed to be quiet. If I can here someone talking on a cellphone a good 50 feet away they are talking way too load. The library is generally well designed, it has a separate children's room that keeps the noise under control, but some of their chairs are absolutely awful, they cut into you spine if you try leaning back.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Why No Child Wants To Study Math and Science
Kansas City area students recognize that their generation had better master math and science.from theKansas City Star
But too many of them, according to a survey released today, answer, “Who, me?” when asked what they personally intended to do about it.
Most engineering schools stress subjects like differential calculus and physics, and their graduates tend to end up narrowly focused and likely to fit the stereotype of a socially awkward clock-puncher. Richard K. Miller, the president of the school, likes to share a professional joke: “How can you tell an extroverted engineer? He’s the one who looks at your shoes when he talks to you.”from The New York Times
I have noticed that children aren't all that dumb, they may not be able to tell you in some may words why they know something is bad but they do have the gut feeling that something is wrong. They read Dilbert and see that it is too close to the truth, when their Uncle Bob or their friend's dad is laid off and it takes months if not years for that family to recover.
They might not have a plan on what they should do but they do have a clue about what they know won't work out. How many times do you have to hear on the news that more engineers are being laid off and jobs moved offshore before you realize that engineering is not a good, safe job.
Getting a math, science or engineering degree is hard work, and then when you do get a job, even if you do a great job solving a problem that had never been solved before, it is all that was expected of you, but if something doesn't come out in just the right color, you're fired. The story of the guy who invented the blue LED and got $11,000 for it is real. And there are tons of other stories about inventors getting fleeced. One of my former bosses had founded a company but he was little more then a show dog for them, he would invent things and get hardly anything back from the company after he gave control to the VCs who put in their own management team.
The kids see "All pain, no gain" so obviously they are going to choose to go in another direction.
An engineering degree is a long hard slog, I remember we had a whole college lecture and the speaker asked how many expected to graduate in 4 years, only 1 person raised their hand out of 1500 students, most expected 5-6 years. And when you do get out of school you end up doing huge amounts of grunt work, until you are ready to do real work.
If they are even the slightest bit diligent they realize that businesses aren't really interested in engineering for the most part. Engineering wages have been stagnant for decades, except for a blip for the dotboom period. They hear their parents or the parents of friends about how the engineer slaves all day and night but the English LIt manager gets all the reward.
Why should they ever think of going into the hard stuff when the soft stuff gets better rewards.
I have got to give Olin credit here. Helping engineers be more entrepreneurial will help them far more then another math class ever will.
Friday, September 28, 2007
MIT Entrance Examination, 1869-70: Exhibits: : Institute Archives & Special Collections: MIT
MIT Entrance Examination, 1869-70: Exhibits: : Institute Archives & Special Collections: MIT
This is pretty cool and fairly tough. These are scans of the test questions and are not for the faint of brain.
If you are homeschooling it is a glimpse into what was important to people then and that is important to know. It is a way to think about how you might want to test your own children and see what is important to you.
I wonder if the tests actually got them the poeple they were looking fo or someone else. These tests are there to exclude people. But were they the right ones to exclude?
This is pretty cool and fairly tough. These are scans of the test questions and are not for the faint of brain.
If you are homeschooling it is a glimpse into what was important to people then and that is important to know. It is a way to think about how you might want to test your own children and see what is important to you.
I wonder if the tests actually got them the poeple they were looking fo or someone else. These tests are there to exclude people. But were they the right ones to exclude?
Thursday, September 27, 2007
TCS Daily - CEOs Learning About Education
TCS Daily - CEOs Learning About Education: "They also recognize that restrictions induced by the federal No Child Left Behind act 'have made it more difficult for high schools to take a radically different approach to curriculum and instruction.' In other words, the autonomy required for the replication of successful enterprises is currently stifled by central planning."
It is amazing how some well meaning group can spend so much money to learn something that a million+ people figured out without spending any money at all.
The school system is tied up in its own red tape and cannot change. The administrators are going to do everything in their power to protect their jobs, that is natural. Everyone wants to protect their income and therefore their family.
We, the people, just need to make it painful enough for them to make it in their interest to change. But that doesn;t help our children so we homeschool.
We've been officaially homeschooling for a couple of weeks now and she is generally quite excited about schooltime. Not always but then she is 5 and that is okay we toss plan A and pull out plan B and see what she would like to do and add some material to it to make it more educational.
It is the full Moon right now and we were driving around and she mentioned that the Moon was following us. I explained why it looked that way. And so it goes.
It is amazing how some well meaning group can spend so much money to learn something that a million+ people figured out without spending any money at all.
The school system is tied up in its own red tape and cannot change. The administrators are going to do everything in their power to protect their jobs, that is natural. Everyone wants to protect their income and therefore their family.
We, the people, just need to make it painful enough for them to make it in their interest to change. But that doesn;t help our children so we homeschool.
We've been officaially homeschooling for a couple of weeks now and she is generally quite excited about schooltime. Not always but then she is 5 and that is okay we toss plan A and pull out plan B and see what she would like to do and add some material to it to make it more educational.
It is the full Moon right now and we were driving around and she mentioned that the Moon was following us. I explained why it looked that way. And so it goes.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Significant Literature
The article linked above (from hatrack) really hammers home something I ran across before, that modern literature doesn't seem to do any heavy thinking any more. I've noticed in school that a lot of the books I read in my English classes where rather meaningless. They didn't really go anywhere and didn't do anything or have anything to say at the end of the trip. Finishing the book was like finishing a sit-com, that was a waste of my time.
I've long been a fan of sci-fi and fantasy and now Harry Potter. They tended to wrestle with hard problems come out with something that may or may not work.
Almost everyone ignores or disdains those genres, and that is okay by me. It's really for the best. What they don't know can't challenge their mindset.
The thing is I remember when Star Wars came out. I saw it 9 times and drove my parents crazy about it. They see what they believe is everything that it is about. A space shoot-em-up and rescue the princess story. Eventually it made its way through the Iron Curtain, and the censors saw the same things: a nice safe space western, no threat to the Party. Talking to my cousins after they'd seen it, they saw what I saw, the little guy can make a difference and destroy the empire. I might not be the Luke but I can be the Biggs that let's Luke get his shot off.
People see what they expect to see. There was someone railing against Harry Potter because it isn't Christian because it is set after the ministry Christ and doesn't talk about it, while The Lord of the Rings is okay since it is set before. That just made my head spin and I had to stop reading, it made no sense to me whatsoever.
If you want to write something that is going to do some serious thinking forget about trying to get into traditional literature, you have to go into the children's or fantasy genres to do it. Pixar is doing the same thing very well. The Incredibles taught that happiness is found through honesty to ourselves and families. Cars; there is more to life then work, and Ratatouille explores loyalty to self, family and friends. Much deeper then the comedies they appear to be.
I've long been a fan of sci-fi and fantasy and now Harry Potter. They tended to wrestle with hard problems come out with something that may or may not work.
Almost everyone ignores or disdains those genres, and that is okay by me. It's really for the best. What they don't know can't challenge their mindset.
The thing is I remember when Star Wars came out. I saw it 9 times and drove my parents crazy about it. They see what they believe is everything that it is about. A space shoot-em-up and rescue the princess story. Eventually it made its way through the Iron Curtain, and the censors saw the same things: a nice safe space western, no threat to the Party. Talking to my cousins after they'd seen it, they saw what I saw, the little guy can make a difference and destroy the empire. I might not be the Luke but I can be the Biggs that let's Luke get his shot off.
People see what they expect to see. There was someone railing against Harry Potter because it isn't Christian because it is set after the ministry Christ and doesn't talk about it, while The Lord of the Rings is okay since it is set before. That just made my head spin and I had to stop reading, it made no sense to me whatsoever.
If you want to write something that is going to do some serious thinking forget about trying to get into traditional literature, you have to go into the children's or fantasy genres to do it. Pixar is doing the same thing very well. The Incredibles taught that happiness is found through honesty to ourselves and families. Cars; there is more to life then work, and Ratatouille explores loyalty to self, family and friends. Much deeper then the comedies they appear to be.
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