How did your kid become so darn smart?? Top five or ten.

Parents Forum
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I am a fan of the “chute” theory, i.e., they come out of the chute with an innate intelligence level/personality which they can either develop or not based on the environment in which they find themselves. The exceptional child will further develop his/her natural intelligence in the most extreme conditions. However, the majority of kids who hit the genetic lottery jackpot are nurtured from day one which helps them immensely on their intellectual “journey”. For example, most kids are not going to sit and watch Nova at the age of four or five without an adult to guide them. A child who is fascinated by all things scientific and has a parent who either watches Nova or knows about Nova is way ahead of the game in comparison with a child of the same innate intelligence/curiosity who has parents who are watching reality television. Nurturing gives the diamond in the rough the éclat.

BTW - When my kids want to tease me, they throw an ain’t and a double negative into the conversation! My son always states that language is evolving, right after he lobs something that makes me cringe! :slight_smile:

IMHO - When it comes to getting along in life, EQ is just as important as IQ.

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Hmmm… reviewing this list of top HS in Ohio lists both public and private schools. http://www.gerberanalytics.com/ogt/ogt_topschools_2014.php The one Miami’s dau attended is a good school, but there are lots of good schools in Ohio, with many (private and… what a shocker… public) having as good if not better outcome scores.

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“I described ALL k - 12 in the USA as a very low in academics in comparison to schools abroad.” Well, many of us disagree. You capitalized “all,” so we have to assume you mean it, despite limited knowledge.

My kids’s schools sparked them, added to the curiosity we encouraged, and definitely led me to believing, “It takes a village.” They gained a broad and deep base of knowledge, the ability to take on a challenge, and critical thinking. Add, the ability to be interested in learning about a variety of topics. And self-management. We took credit, too, for instilling in them the curiosity, willingness, and standards. Plus the rest.

Again, I think the thread is about a higher level of smartness than towing the line. Actually, in my family, the principle I was raised with is akin to, an ox can be trained to tow. Sorry if that offends anyone, but while adhering to expectations is important, it’s not all there is.

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@MiamiDAP, I think you’d get less pushback if you occasionally said that something was your opinion, rather than saying “it is fact.” Americans chafe at that.

American K-12 is a mixed bag, with strengths and weaknesses, and also huge regional differences. Texas, for example, has some strange ideas about Science. But, overall, I think that the U.S. system manages to foster creative and independent thought in at least the top 5-10% of the class.

As for Physics in a year, let me discuss my small sample: DS. His HS Physics teacher, in an IB curriculum, noticed that DS was distracted and bored in class. He made a deal with DS that he’d provide the textbooks and after-class time if needed in return for DS paying attention for 5 minutes per class and spending the remaining time on the books he would provide. It worked like magic: DS was no longer bored, he got to take the AP Physics C tests, he got an internship which officially did not allow HS students, he developed software for plasma diagnostics, and he was a listed author on a published peer-reviewed paper. That all took place in one year, and it was mostly a result of a teacher not focusing on the “problem,” but rather on what the opportunity was. Fwiw, he’s a bright kid, but he’s got lots of company. Our family is of course grateful to the teacher.

There’s an old joke that I don’t quite remember the details of, but it was something about heaven and hell and the different roles (lover, cook, police) assigned to different nationalities (French, German, British I think) in each location. When I was a software developer, we’d talk about how, as well-engineered as German cars were, they weren’t so good at enterprise and productivity software (don’t get me started on SAP). The innovative software was being developed by Americans, many without much more than a HS education. There have been changes in this, but I still think the point has merit.

I have family from HK to Germany to Argentina to Scotland in addition to places in the U.S. My sister attended HS in Switzerland and Spain. My wife’s family attended HS in Italy and France in addition to the U.S. I’ll bend my rule a bit: it is a fact that absolute statements about educational quality in different locations are bound to be only partly true.

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Wonder how many of Miami’s dau’s college and med school classmates attended public HS? And the grandkids-- if public school (even the top NY ones) are so terrible, one might wonder why the parents and/or grandparents didn’t scrape up the $ to protect their developing brains and put them in private school. Wait-- maybe those public schools in NY, even those that require testing for admission aren’t so terrible after all.

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My high school rather clearly did not prepare me well for college—which is why I flunked out freshman year. I then proceeded to earn an ivy league PhD, which seems to be evidence of at least some degree of intelligence on my part. I’m not about to overgeneralize my own K–12 experiences to the general population—the school district I came through was (then, not now—things change a lot over the course of decades) an underfunded rural district that simply had no focus on college preparation. Other school districts (now including the one I grew up in) do a much better job of college preparation.

Maybe there’s no one thing that results in kids becoming “so smart” (however that’s defined)? Maybe there isn’t even a consistent set of things—perhaps each case really is unique? That’s what I’ve started believing, myself.

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Thank you for sharing this story! Your son’s physics teacher reminds me of my high school calculus teacher. I had a friend who was incredibly gifted in math and science. Most of our math and science teachers just let him do his own thing in class so long as he was quiet. Our calculus teacher took a different approach. He told my friend he’s let him work ahead in the textbook during class if he would help select the daily homework assignment. So if the day’s lesson was derivatives, my friend would be going through the questions for that section of the textbook while our teacher was lecturing the class. A few minutes before class was over, he would ask my friend “Which questions do you think I should assign for homework?” Instead of ignoring an exceptionally bright student or treating that student like everyone else in the class, our teacher put my friend’s gift to good use. My friend taught himself calculus at his own pace, and everyone else in the class got more reasonable homework assignments. :slight_smile:

268

The saddest fact is that if problem is not recognized, then the problem will never be fixed. The first step in any progress is to recognize the problem.
But I still do not know what “smart” is and how it is measured besides IQ test…
I watched a show on TV that had kids with very high IQs compete with each other for a very sizable college scholarship. I was not impressed with neither format of competition nor kids themselves. All it was memorization of many facts, while they had no idea about something that was very well known to many, even person with such bad memory like me, knew some of facts that were unknown to these kids. I guess, these facts were so well known that they were not part of their preparation material. Closer to finals, most were Asian and the Asian girl won.
I guess, if these kids are the smartest in the country, apparently, one needs to be born Chinese to be smart.
So, here is a recipe, marry Chinese and have Chinese kids to make them smart!

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If you don’t know about something, why don’t you read about it to learn something?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics)

You gotta wonder about the parents who put their kids on reality shows like that…

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I expect that many of the posters on this thread would agree with this statement. :wink:

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I guess after a few hundred posts, we’ve meandered some from the topic, so I don’t feel bad going slightly OT, and it is somewhat related to US educations. DS’s teacher taught at a private school, which in NJ don’t pay well, which I think might be the case in most places. He had had a successful career in finance, and could afford to do what he loved, which was to teach Physics with imagination and to discover and nurture talent.

He was not alone in this, as many of his colleagues moved to teaching after successful careers elsewhere; the teachers parking lot had some head-turning cars in it.

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<==Grateful. Our public schools were great. We only ran into one overly strict K teacher and one poor communicator in jr high. High school is/was really great with so much AP, languages, athletics and general scholastic focus. I can’t imagine the boys having a better experience at a private school. And that’s not to mention the local community college and its offerings.

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At least in USA, americans have many ways to express their talents in various ways.
Other nations? NOt as much.

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miamiD was sheltered by her states policies on testing. In FL, kids in public schools are tested every few years. To be in gifted classes in elementary school they must be given IQ and Achievement tests. To enroll in any of our private schools, they need to be tested, and tests will be repeated at various years.

To enroll in TIP or other summer programs, they will be given the SAT in middle school.

Merit awards in our state U’s will depend a lot on SAT scores. How much merit money one receives at UMiami, for example, depends on SAT scores. Score over 700 on each section, great, over 750 on each, free ride!!!

Then we have the state exams, the formerly known FCATs. Getting the highest score in the state can be an asset to a student.

I refuse to believe that MiamiD’s DD did not have scores on some national exams, like PSATs or SATs. If her DD was a top scorer, than I too believe she is born smart and has great study skills. Otherwise, …

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Firstly, this is a sample of size 1 only.

When DS was in college, he once commented almost all students on the premed track who had completed all the premed course requirements attended public HS. He could have exaggerated it but he at least believed the majority of them attended public high school (most of these public HSs are competitive public HS.)

It seems that it is not the case that those from high profiled “prep” HSs are “bad” in academics - many of them are excellent in academic preparation before college. It appears they just think they find other better career paths once in college.

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http://www.capenet.org/facts.html

Since the majority of kids attend public HS, it makes sense that the majority of college students and premeds attended public HS. From the quote above, it looks like only 2% of students attend nonsectarian private schools, which I think includes most of the high-prestige privates, though there are probably some highly-academic Catholic schools.

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We (mom and dad) aren’t particularly smart, average intelligence at best. Smart son has smart uncle and possibly a grandfather. However, don’t most people have some smart family members? So, I’m not sure genes played a role. In addition, these smart family members are both on paternal side, so the theory about inheriting intelligence from moms doesn’t apply.

I think smartness has a lot to do with environment (nurture)… For example, when low SAT scores were expected of him at his poor Hispanic public school son performed as expected. When high SAT scores were expected at his suburban HS he again didn’t disappoint.

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@perazziman Another aspect of nurture I think it having role models that get it into your head early “I bet I can do that”. One uncle is a top tier much-in-demand computer programmer. Seeing his confidence and competence and “sought-afterness” may have made an impression on S1 who went whole hog into programming.After his fist internship he’s been offered to work full time and forego college (nope) or continue part time while he starts college shortly (seriously considering). Call it the Little Engine That Could theory “I think I can, I think I can, I know I can, I know …”

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Has anyone yet menttioned the Flynn effect? http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/will-we-keep-getting-smarter-flynn-effect-says-yes/

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That’s the PC newsspeak, but not the reality at UT Austin which is obliged to auto-admit the top ranking students in terms of GPA.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/05/18/magazine/who-gets-to-graduate.html?referrer=&_r=0