Our local capital paper, News & Observer, featured an article on the front page today, “IQ tests show kids are smarter than parents”. Due to copyright restrictions, they could not include the article online. But the article reports on the continuing increase in IQ test scores since the advent of the test. The long article suggested possible reasons, but the bottom line was that our “…intellects develop to the degree that the times demand…” and the demanded intellects at present seem to be what the tests measure.
The article featured the work of New Zealand researcher, James Flynn, and what’s been called the Flynn Affect, this increase in IQ. Only scant mention of this was included in the article, but I have read other references to Flynn’s research pointing to a recent escalation of our general intelligence, and speculations that it has been a result of new technologies. Consider the tools that we use on a daily bases, digital watches and VCRs. These are machines that will perform numerous functions for us, but with a very limited number of buttons. We must reason our way into the operation of the device to make it do what we want. My children can reason through a cell phone or VCR in minutes. For me, I stopped wearing a watch years ago, and my VCR is a 12:00 flasher.
The article ends with Flynn’s conculsion that…
…modern American kids, while relatively skilled in abstract thinking, lack a lot of the basic three R’s and rote knowledge that their forebears possessed. At age 10, when IQ tests are generally given, stronger abstract-thinking skills give them an edge. but by the time today’s students exit hight school, their achievement levels in reading and math are much closer to their great-grandparents’.
Could this be (my words) because we continue to teach our children in the same way that their our grand parents were taught, teaching methods that are contrary to the unique learning skills that our children enter our classrooms with?
What do you think?
Greve, Frank. "IQ tets show kids are smarter than parents." News & Observer 4 February 2006: 1A.
Dude, VCRs are sooooo last century! Upgrade to a TIVO and it grabs the time through its network connection =)
I think this certainly makes a lot of sense. What is sad, then, is that we are not teaching to the analytic strengths of our students. There was an interesting USA Today article a bit ago that I never got around to blogging:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techinnovations/2005-12-18-google-memory_x.htm
It talks about how knowing how to find facts on Google has replaced memorizing facts. For this to work, though, we need to shift to focus on teaching information skills.
Maybe kids know how to instinctivly program cell phones, but are there some instincts they have lost? Can they still invent a game like kick the can?
You know, I felt that, about VCR, when I typed it in. But it illustrates the point, and mine does flash. An interesting question that you pose at the end of your comment. I would tend to say, “yes, they can make up games.” At least that’s been my experience in watchin my son play Halo. He and his friends got tired of the game after a few weeks, and just started meeting in the game environment, making up their own games. It was his backyard, where he invited his friends to come out and play.
I wholeheartedly agree with you about the skills we’re not teaching them. Venture capitalist, Vinod Khusla, recently talked about a meeting he had with the principal of his children’s school. They talked about a project the children had engaged in on Hopi Indians. During the meeting, Khosla pulled out his Treo phone, and Googled “Hopi indians”, receiving in his hand, 430,000 hits. He said, in the discussion that, “There is no longer a need to teach children facts.”
I display that quote in some of my presentations and ask people to identify the operant word in that statement. To me, it isn’t facts. It’s teach. It’s not learning to be taught that students should be doing, but learning to teach themselves, and that takes those information skills you mentioned.
Good point about Halo, a lot of the games I play have alternate scenarios or modifications that are user developed. I was casting about for an idea focusing on a technology that was “natural” for an older generation (as cell phone programming is for the current young generation) that current generations would have no clue about.
I wish I had a Treo for that level of connectivity, but I love being able to carry around a handheld with a number of dictionaries, the CIA factbook and (if I get around to updating it again) an extract of wikipedia.
Sorry, I misunderstood, and I agree, there is much about my childhood that is completely foreign to my children. In fact, I suspect that to them, my experience as a child seems almost of a different era, having almost noting in common with their times. I imagine that our parents felt the same way, what we missed that was dear to them. It’s part of living in changing times. We give up what’s comfortable, and learn to take advantage of the opportunities.
Thanks for the conversation…
— dave —
I believe that thinking about whether students are thinking differently and if so why and how are they different is very significant for educators.
I enjoyed some of the arguments about this in Steven Johnsons’ recent book “Everything bad is good for you”. (2005) Johnson argues that “popular culture has, on average, grown more complex and intellectually challenging over the past thirty years.” He also unpacks the Flynn Effect in a user friendly way.
BUT for the teachers I work with my favourite professional reading is the part where he imagines a world where “video games were popularised before books” – check it out on p19 and 20 It is classic writing and a passage I’d love to see you play with on the 2 cents worth blog.
Dave I laughed when I read your example of the flashing 12:00. I just used that in my comment to you on TechLearning.com/blog
Our local paper just ran a story about how many students bring so much technology to school and teachers are uncomfortable with it interferring. That is the point, teachers are uncomfortable. Should educators ban electronics, NO. Educators need to engage their students in conversation and find out how to embrace their students along with their technology and use that motivation to continue the learning. If a teacher allowed text message responses to questions about the class discussion they would be surprised!
by the time today’s students exit hight school, their achievement levels in reading and math are much closer to their great-grandparents’.
Could this be (my words) because we continue to teach our children in the same way that their our grand parents were taught, teaching methods that are contrary to the unique learning skills that our children enter our classrooms with?
I think we can call this a resounding triumph for compulsory schooling.