Author Topic: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?  (Read 34137 times)

dragoncar

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #50 on: April 14, 2014, 04:22:28 PM »
As the OP of the above-mentioned poll (https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/what's-your-iq/), this is all I have to say:




MrsPete

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #51 on: April 14, 2014, 05:59:18 PM »
How do you measure intelligence?

I tend to say it's knowledge + application. If you have all the smarts in the world but don't do anything with them, how intelligent are you?
I like the knowledge + application definition.  One of my siblings is SIGNIFICANTLY smarter than the rest of us.  If you'd seen us in high school, you would've said she was the one to watch.  However, today she's the only one who has no college degree, no job training of any sort, and is still in an entry-level manual labor job (waiting tables). 

So, I'd say people who are interested in frugal living and saving (whether early retirement is the goal or not) tend to be intelligent + have chosen to apply that knowledge.  You could argue that this is self-discipline or an aptitude for goal-setting. 

Do you have to be smarter than average to do this?  No, though the smarter you are, the more likely you are to be able to obtain a professional job, and I don't think any of us would argue that a professional job (and a good paycheck) is likely to help with saving. 

rocksinmyhead

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #52 on: April 14, 2014, 06:51:53 PM »
thanks everyone for new words to look up!!! (looking at you, Jamesqf!) seriously, I love looking up new words.

I don't know about more intelligent, but I know that when we lived in an 800 sq ft apt with no TV reception of any kind and no video game system or computer, my son's friends thought we had the best, most fun house in the universe.  Probably because it forced them to actually play together with his legos and beyblades or play board games or go outside and find frogs or crayfish, etc.  Apparently there is now novelty in these pursuits for the elementary school jet set.  Seriously, more than one of his friends told me our apt was the "funnest" house to visit.

wrt house size and kids' attitudes, I think it's gonna really vary based on where you live, your kids' age/gender,  and whether they go to school with the children of dickheads. When my kids were very young, their schoolmates thought our dumpy little house was the best house ever because it had a slide in the kitchen and we put peanut butter into our salad dressing.

both of these comments are so awesome. also, Gerard's comment about the children of dickheads made me LOL.

Ahh, this reminds me of when I was in about the 4th grade, I used the word wounded.  I think I was reading a book about Betsy Ross at the time.  I mispronounced it (as the past tense of wind + -ed) because I had only read it, never heard it to my recollection.  I had to suffer through my family laughing at me first before they would tell me how to pronounce it.  I was more careful after that, trying to avoid another minor humiliation.  I use a bigger daily vocubulary than my dad...but I've never stumped him on asking how to pronounce one.

bahaha that's awesome! it took me FOREVER (well, I guess until like 3rd or 4th grade) to match up the written word "khaki" with the word I had heard said out loud. I remember reading about someone wearing a "khaki shirt" and picturing it being sort of Hawaiian print. I seriously thought that the beige pants were spelled "cacky."

ahh, the downsides of being a young and voracious reader... and/or just a doofus :)

to be more on topic... I don't know about being smarter than average. I agree with those who said it's more about just not giving a shit, which isn't necessarily correlated with intelligence. also, I think ch12 is on to something with the numeracy comments. I definitely think that someone who is above-average intelligence but not very numerate (can you say it like that? like literate?) would not be inclined to pick over their finances the way we do :)

JPinDC

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #53 on: April 14, 2014, 07:13:18 PM »
Yes, more intelligent. Also better looking.

+1

Jamesqf

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #54 on: April 14, 2014, 11:30:39 PM »
I'm not sure about more intelligent, but it seems like a lot of mustachians here tend to have had some advantages in life. I'm sure there are exceptions, but it seems like for the most part people come from middle class backgrounds. This certainly makes it easier to get the STEM degree so many of us here have.

I don't think that's really true about the STEM degree.  Though I've never seen any actual numbers, it's my perception that (especially if you count 2nd generation & later) people from middle to upper middle class backgrounds tend to go into business or liberal arts.  Business, because you've got family/social contacts who'll help you find work; liberal arts because you know (or think you know :-)) that mom & dad will support you while you follow your dream through that unpaid internship.  Us STEM folks, OTOH, know we have to get jobs on our own merits.

thepokercab

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #55 on: April 15, 2014, 12:07:54 AM »
Though I've never seen any actual numbers..

Do STEM degrees not encourage this?   

MrsPete

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #56 on: April 15, 2014, 11:22:39 AM »
I'm not sure about more intelligent, but it seems like a lot of mustachians here tend to have had some advantages in life. I'm sure there are exceptions, but it seems like for the most part people come from middle class backgrounds. This certainly makes it easier to get the STEM degree so many of us here have.

I don't think that's really true about the STEM degree.  Though I've never seen any actual numbers, it's my perception that (especially if you count 2nd generation & later) people from middle to upper middle class backgrounds tend to go into business or liberal arts.  Business, because you've got family/social contacts who'll help you find work; liberal arts because you know (or think you know :-)) that mom & dad will support you while you follow your dream through that unpaid internship.  Us STEM folks, OTOH, know we have to get jobs on our own merits.
Nah, most of the kids I see heading for STEM careers are from middle to upper class backgrounds.  The typical kid from a lower class background isn't going to college. 

Business, however, is still referred to as "the universal major" because so many people choose it. 

Jamesqf

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #57 on: April 15, 2014, 12:49:49 PM »
Though I've never seen any actual numbers..

Do STEM degrees not encourage this?

The problem is getting the numbers.  If I could just hook up a voltmeter or something, sure, but I don't have the resources needed to collect those numbers.  I'm not sure anyone does.

NewStachian

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #58 on: April 15, 2014, 01:53:16 PM »
There is a reading comprehension quiz to register on this website, so at some point you have to read enough to know that the MMM family lives in New Jersey.

Jamesqf

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #59 on: April 15, 2014, 03:14:44 PM »
...because intelligence is strongly correlated to many positive behaviors, including health and lack of criminality.

Though if you want to be pedantic (and I do), I think we can only say that IQ correlates strongly with not getting caught.  For a recent example, consider the two sex offenders who decided to commit several murders while wearing GPS tracking devices.

dragoncar

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #60 on: April 15, 2014, 03:35:04 PM »
...because intelligence is strongly correlated to many positive behaviors, including health and lack of criminality.

Though if you want to be pedantic (and I do), I think we can only say that IQ correlates strongly with not getting caught.  For a recent example, consider the two sex offenders who decided to commit several murders while wearing GPS tracking devices.

This is true! I wonder if IQ is positively linked with some kinds of crimes. I can't imagine my former secretary, who had an IQ of about 80, being able to understand a Ponzi scheme, let alone engineer one...

Thought crimes

AJ

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #61 on: April 15, 2014, 03:54:46 PM »
As the OP of the above-mentioned poll (https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welcome-to-the-forum/what's-your-iq/), this is all I have to say:

I missed this thread and just read through it. Wow. I didn't realize intelligence was such a taboo topic. Noted.

Jamesqf

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #62 on: April 15, 2014, 11:42:44 PM »
This is true! I wonder if IQ is positively linked with some kinds of crimes. I can't imagine my former secretary, who had an IQ of about 80, being able to understand a Ponzi scheme, let alone engineer one...

From my own experience, I would say that intelligence is strongly correlated to a disregard for laws, particularly victimless crimes.  Though even where there's a disregard for law, there are practical considerations.  For instance, I can make plenty of money legally, doing software, thus any sort of small-time crime is too much like hard work and, like Shakespeare's Autolycus, "Though I am not naturally honest, I am sometimes so by chance."

rocksinmyhead

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #63 on: April 16, 2014, 06:41:44 AM »
1. Most American adults are not literate enough to participate on a forum like this, so participants probably skew more intelligent than average, because more intelligent people are more likely to have the literacy skills necessary to not only be able to understand the level of discourse here, but enjoy it.

Many, many upper middle class people have very little exposure to the left half of the IQ bell curve, so they find this hard to believe. Part of this is because they come from Lake Woebegone style families, where everyone is above average, so their baseline for normal intelligence is set way high. Thanks to participation in a research study, we have three generations of people in my mother's family who have taken IQ tests, and the lowest scorers in the family were a standard deviation above the mean. This effect can be compounded by the increasing segregation of American society by income, which is strongly linked to IQ. If you grow up in a nice suburb, go to a selective college, and then move into a reasonably rigorous profession, you may never have close associates, let alone intimate friends or family members, with double digit IQs. And yet, there are millions of families where almost all members have double digit IQs, and they're full of good, decent, kind people.

this!!! I kind of forgot about this. most of us are probably pretty insulated from below-average intelligence people in our workplaces, too. I mean, there are always people at work you think of as less intelligent, but as my boyfriend has pointed out, I still work with engineers and masters-degreed geologists all day. he's a smart dude but doesn't have a bachelors, so he's worked in a lot of manufacturing contexts, and has definitely had more exposure to the lower 50% of the intelligence distribution than I have. it's interesting because I REALLY took it for granted before he pointed this out to me.

your point #2 is really interesting, too.

I also didn't know that about IQ tests. I thought they were outdated and people just used them to brag obnoxiously :) I skipped 2nd grade because I was already a really strong reader and writer, and I was bored in 1st grade (and I had an AWESOME teacher who gave me extra cool stuff to do, and worked on getting me moved up). when they were trying to decide whether to let me move up or not, I took a written test that I don't remember much about other than there were some questions with recognizing patterns of shapes. I wonder if that was an IQ test? hmm. now I'm curious :)

Leisured

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #64 on: April 16, 2014, 07:34:58 AM »

The idea that intelligence, or quick wits as it used to be known, is important is perhaps no more than 120 years old. Consider the United States in old days; qualities like perseverance, fortitude, courage and determination were more prized than quick wits, and perhaps rightly so. Intelligence is certainly important in the modern world, but I think that most people regard intelligence as merely the absence of stupidity.

As a child develops physically, parents hope that the child will learn to walk, become house trained, eat, and then learn to read and write. All that is necessary is that the child is competent in these things and has no obvious impediment; there is no need to excel.

If we define intelligence as merely the absence of stupidity, then contributors to the MMM forum are intelligent. The Anti Mustachian Wall of Shame and Mockery describes instances of stunning stupidity on the part of the barbarians beyond the Great Wall of Mustachianism.

We admire competence in specialist in the trades and the professions, just as our ancestors admired competence in living off the land. In Australia, aborigines describe wild food in the landscape as ‘bush tucker’, tucker being slang for food. Go back 500 years, and aborigines in Northern Australia would have had trouble living off the land in southern Australia, if suddenly transported there, and vice versa, because of the differences in the landscape and climate.

As an aside, I recommend the Australia movie ‘Ten Canoes’ set somewhere in northern Australia long before white settlement. It is a Stone Age soap opera, and well done, and available on Youtube.

Modernity, that is science and engineering, and the type of society that emerges from science and engineering, relies on taking advantage of the forces of nature to work for us. Machinery becomes a form of inanimate slave labor. A parallel is investment, and living off dividends is the equivalent of living off robotic effort. Robotic effort will be wide spread in the near future. Before the Civil War in the southern states, no white man would be seen digging a hole or carrying a heavy bag if there was a black slave to do it for him, and the equivalent today is using machine labor rather than your own. The parallel is living off investment income rather than working, and it is now clear that most non mustachians have difficulty with this idea, and are not comfortable with saving and investing, and eventually living off dividends.



Heather

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #65 on: April 16, 2014, 08:03:49 AM »
While it's smart to question the irrationality of the behaviors of people around us, it is also smart to accept and even embrace our own instinctive behaviors.  Your partner just wants to keep his status in his peer group by imitating them.   It's not a stretch to say that social status can affect not just our minds but our physiology.

Which house will make you both happier in the end, I don't know, but obvious as your side seems, there is at least a grain of merit to his side of the argument.


CommonCents

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #66 on: April 16, 2014, 08:30:39 AM »
I also didn't know that about IQ tests. I thought they were outdated and people just used them to brag obnoxiously :) I skipped 2nd grade because I was already a really strong reader and writer, and I was bored in 1st grade (and I had an AWESOME teacher who gave me extra cool stuff to do, and worked on getting me moved up). when they were trying to decide whether to let me move up or not, I took a written test that I don't remember much about other than there were some questions with recognizing patterns of shapes. I wonder if that was an IQ test? hmm. now I'm curious :)

Yes. 

I was in the "GT" "G&T" "GATE" (Gifted & Talented) programs each place we lived (dad was military).  Voracious reader like you - read James Mitchner's Alaska in 4th grade after we moved there, but it took me a long time - a whole week to finish.  In 2nd grade, I was picked to be in a split 2nd/3rd grade class (they picked advanced second and regular 3rd grade).

In high school, my mom was stumped though and couldn't get me into the advanced history or seminar english classes so I was bored out of my mind.  (About 40 in the history, the english was only about 15, in a class of 400.)  She had to FIGHT tooth and nail each time we moved to get me into those programs.  Apparently an academic track record of being in advanced classes and doing well was insufficient for California, because they based it on a (stupid) IQ test everyone took when they were about 5-6.  This despite the fact I always scored top 99% percent on tests they made me take at various points such as the Iowa tests.  (Ridiculous timing, but I seemed to always move and hit the "one test" they required school kids to take.)  I found my parents looking at my results once, saw I got a 98% in one category and apologized to my parents for not doing well.

At the end of the first term freshman year of high school, my mom finally got them to consider letting me in, but they required me to take an IQ test.  (For the record, it's apparently easier to do well and score higher in comparison to your peers when you are younger like 5, rather than 14 or later as an adult.)  It was as you describe - pattern matching.  I think there are something like 5 boxes, you pick the 6th one from a selection of 4 boxes.  After I took it, was deemed sufficiently advanced enough to be let in, I then had to interview with the seminar teacher.  Apparently she was the true gatekeeper, because as soon as I did and she liked me, all road blocks lifted and I changed classes the next day.  Came home babbling about a lecture on the French Revolution to my mom "and they would cut the heads OFF with the guillotine! and then pick them and look to see if they had blinked as they were requested to do before the beheading..."  Despite the gruesome nature of that day's history lesson, I think she was thrilled I was less likely to become a juvenile delinquent out of boredom.

Headed to a wedding this summer for another high school seminar student.  He was brilliant - higher IQ than mine - but lacked that application factor noted above.  He's doing help desk today.  Used to help me understand my calculus homework, but would never turn it in himself.  On the opposite vein, my first high school boyfriend was a seminar student in the year above me who got into the program his junior year, only he had the seminar teacher wanting him in so it was easy to bypass the red tape - even though he didn't score high enough on the IQ test to get in and was actually told by a counselor that "Most people only use a small percentage of their brains.  You must be operating at max capacity" because he was doing quite well academically.

This is long, but to sum it up, I'm a little bitter about tests as a result of my experience - the fact that my track record was insufficient and only a test mattered.  Took at psychological testing course in college to learn more.  The prof in that class proudly told us she deliberately ruined her kids for any true results from testing by using them as guinea pigs for her classes to see how they are administered.  I think it can reveal good information, but shouldn't be relied on too much.  Have NOT read Divergent yet, but from what I've read about it, seems to express the same notion that a test shouldn't determine everything...

zurich78

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #67 on: April 16, 2014, 08:42:33 AM »
Still fairly new here but I wouldn't say Mustachians are any more intelligent than say paleo dieters or crossfit junkies.  This is a lifestyle choice (and even I can't say I've gone full mustache yet, maybe stubble for now but getting there).  There are many people who just choose not to follow this lifestyle or, make enough money that they don't really have to.

But smarter than the average American?  I'd say probably so.  There are math and financial concepts that one must be able to grasp as a true Mustachian that I don't think the average American could follow.  Heck, I wouldn't consider myself of above average intelligence and there are a ton of concepts in here I've yet to grasp!

nosyparker

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #68 on: April 16, 2014, 08:44:00 AM »
probably more intelligent on average but i would say certainly more alert, curious, willing to learn and more questioning than many.

CommonCents

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #69 on: April 16, 2014, 09:01:34 AM »
CommonCents: IQ Tests taken before the age of 9 are fairly unreliable, actually. Before that age, they take the scores and norm them against other same-aged test takers. The problem is, young children are developing so much that there's no real way to differentiate between an unusually bright child who will be unusually bright for their entire lives, and an unusually bright child who just matured a tiny bit faster and will be a perfectly average 12 year old. By the age of 9 or so, things have largely calmed down and stabilized, and you've largely settled into your slot on the bell curve.

Ironic then that they relied on those tests so much!  My understanding is that it's easier to differentiate at younger ages and thus achieve a higher score than you might otherwise, because as you note, kids are developing and changing so rapidly.  (So you get some "false positives" I'll call them.)  In any event, even without this boost, I managed to get into the darned program.

Yes, I've heard about people doing that with IEPs, although mostly only in the past 5-10 years.  Luckily my parents never had to do that, but I suspect it'd be easier if you didn't have to do it every 2-3 years when we moved again.

thepokercab

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #70 on: April 16, 2014, 09:25:09 AM »
CommonCents: IQ Tests taken before the age of 9 are fairly unreliable, actually. Before that age, they take the scores and norm them against other same-aged test takers. The problem is, young children are developing so much that there's no real way to differentiate between an unusually bright child who will be unusually bright for their entire lives, and an unusually bright child who just matured a tiny bit faster and will be a perfectly average 12 year old. By the age of 9 or so, things have largely calmed down and stabilized, and you've largely settled into your slot on the bell curve.

Ironic then that they relied on those tests so much!  My understanding is that it's easier to differentiate at younger ages and thus achieve a higher score than you might otherwise, because as you note, kids are developing and changing so rapidly.  (So you get some "false positives" I'll call them.)  In any event, even without this boost, I managed to get into the darned program.

Yes, I've heard about people doing that with IEPs, although mostly only in the past 5-10 years.  Luckily my parents never had to do that, but I suspect it'd be easier if you didn't have to do it every 2-3 years when we moved again.

Is memory associated with intelligence?  I ask, because i'm always slightly amused when people are able to recall that they they were in some sort of gifted honors program in the 2nd grade, or something as detailed as it was split with third graders.  I don't doubt you remember it, but I could barely tell you classroom details of my middle school experience. I remember taking honors classes in high school, such as math, English and History.  We were 'honors' students- which, if we were being honest with ourselves, meant we were the 'white students'.   

And what books I read in the fourth grade? Not a chance.   

Tyler

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #71 on: April 16, 2014, 09:52:52 AM »
Dear Internet,

I don't agree with the politician or god or lifestyle you believe in therefore I'm clearly smarter than you.

Sincerely,

Anonymous

dcheesi

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #72 on: April 16, 2014, 10:43:44 AM »
CommonCents: IQ Tests taken before the age of 9 are fairly unreliable, actually. Before that age, they take the scores and norm them against other same-aged test takers. The problem is, young children are developing so much that there's no real way to differentiate between an unusually bright child who will be unusually bright for their entire lives, and an unusually bright child who just matured a tiny bit faster and will be a perfectly average 12 year old. By the age of 9 or so, things have largely calmed down and stabilized, and you've largely settled into your slot on the bell curve.

Ironic then that they relied on those tests so much!  My understanding is that it's easier to differentiate at younger ages and thus achieve a higher score than you might otherwise, because as you note, kids are developing and changing so rapidly.  (So you get some "false positives" I'll call them.)  In any event, even without this boost, I managed to get into the darned program.

Yes, I've heard about people doing that with IEPs, although mostly only in the past 5-10 years.  Luckily my parents never had to do that, but I suspect it'd be easier if you didn't have to do it every 2-3 years when we moved again.

Is memory associated with intelligence?  I ask, because i'm always slightly amused when people are able to recall that they they were in some sort of gifted honors program in the 2nd grade, or something as detailed as it was split with third graders.  I don't doubt you remember it, but I could barely tell you classroom details of my middle school experience. I remember taking honors classes in high school, such as math, English and History.  We were 'honors' students- which, if we were being honest with ourselves, meant we were the 'white students'.   

And what books I read in the fourth grade? Not a chance.
"Working memory" yes; long term episodic memory, not as much.

I remember lots of things about my childhood schooling, but it's also subject to selection bias; if you quizzed me on random details, I would do much worse than I do just volunteering things that I can easily recall. E.g., I recall being in a gifted math program in elementary school, in large part because of an emotional incident when I thought I had been passed over for it one year. But I couldn't tell you exactly what years it was for or anything like that.

Zikoris

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #73 on: April 16, 2014, 10:54:57 AM »
I was in a gifted program in elementary school, but I don't remember it being too noteworthy - we made kites, went to science fairs, and I remember some sort of extended weekend camp at a ranch with limited spaces that we had to fight over (I won). It was fun, but I think I would have learned a lot more if they'd just let me go to the library for a few hours and read about things I found interesting, which my teachers eventually started letting me do at lunch.

CommonCents

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #74 on: April 16, 2014, 11:13:09 AM »
CommonCents: IQ Tests taken before the age of 9 are fairly unreliable, actually. Before that age, they take the scores and norm them against other same-aged test takers. The problem is, young children are developing so much that there's no real way to differentiate between an unusually bright child who will be unusually bright for their entire lives, and an unusually bright child who just matured a tiny bit faster and will be a perfectly average 12 year old. By the age of 9 or so, things have largely calmed down and stabilized, and you've largely settled into your slot on the bell curve.

Ironic then that they relied on those tests so much!  My understanding is that it's easier to differentiate at younger ages and thus achieve a higher score than you might otherwise, because as you note, kids are developing and changing so rapidly.  (So you get some "false positives" I'll call them.)  In any event, even without this boost, I managed to get into the darned program.

Yes, I've heard about people doing that with IEPs, although mostly only in the past 5-10 years.  Luckily my parents never had to do that, but I suspect it'd be easier if you didn't have to do it every 2-3 years when we moved again.

Is memory associated with intelligence?  I ask, because i'm always slightly amused when people are able to recall that they they were in some sort of gifted honors program in the 2nd grade, or something as detailed as it was split with third graders.  I don't doubt you remember it, but I could barely tell you classroom details of my middle school experience. I remember taking honors classes in high school, such as math, English and History.  We were 'honors' students- which, if we were being honest with ourselves, meant we were the 'white students'.   

And what books I read in the fourth grade? Not a chance.
"Working memory" yes; long term episodic memory, not as much.

I remember lots of things about my childhood schooling, but it's also subject to selection bias; if you quizzed me on random details, I would do much worse than I do just volunteering things that I can easily recall. E.g., I recall being in a gifted math program in elementary school, in large part because of an emotional incident when I thought I had been passed over for it one year. But I couldn't tell you exactly what years it was for or anything like that.

Yes, I'd agree it's partially selection bias and partially that some things are repeated in your hearing, refreshing your memory of it.  I may also be younger than you, pokercab!  For the book, we had just moved again so I was lonely and hadn't made many friends yet, and was reading about the new state.  My mom also would occasionally tell the tale because she found it an example of my reading habits.  For the class, I ended up reasonably close to the teacher - I stayed with her the following year bc my mom knew that she would keep me going at the same advanced pace rather than hold me back.  But the only reason I can remember her name as Donaldson is because she gave me an autographed copy of the classroom textbook when I moved away.  I remember odd things from elementary school - I remember playing in second grade "Around the World" (compete against a student to do a multiplication problem faster, winner moves on, goal to circulate back to your own desk first of the class) for example.  Why?  Who knows, maybe because it was my only time I ever got to eat Funyuns (choice of bags of chips for winning) as a kid?  Or maybe it was just a fun way to learn?  But I can't remember how to walk to the school.

Moving often often helps me with dating things that happened, because I can remember the "place" it happened, and then often early, mid or end of the time there.  It's a little bit of a mnemonic in a way. 


CommonCents

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #75 on: April 16, 2014, 11:19:55 AM »
I was in a gifted program in elementary school, but I don't remember it being too noteworthy - we made kites, went to science fairs, and I remember some sort of extended weekend camp at a ranch with limited spaces that we had to fight over (I won). It was fun, but I think I would have learned a lot more if they'd just let me go to the library for a few hours and read about things I found interesting, which my teachers eventually started letting me do at lunch.

The book Genius Denied, which is a bit dated but still good, talks about this. Most gifted programs have fun enrichment type activities that most kids would benefit from but that do nothing to address the underlying realities of students who are often years ahead of their agemates in some subjects.

Very true, enrichment would be better for more than just gifted kids.  I remember loving the brainteasers they gave in one place (recently stumbled across them cleaning out boxes in my parents house and kept them), and dissecting a cow's eyeball (and my mom's adament refusal to let me keep it in the fridge afterwards).  All kids could have benefited from those.

But the best gift?  In 4th grade, we were permitted to *go at our own pace* in the math class, as long as it was ahead of the teacher.  4 of us sat in the back with desks pulled together and we could ask each other for help on figuring out the lessons.  We could - joy - finish the homework there, rather than taking it home (or having to sneak doing it, as before), if we went fast enough.  And the terrible awful part (from a 9 year old perspective that is)?  My mom made me finish every single lesson I didn't finish during the school year during the summer even though I pointed out that I was already ahead of the class.  It's amazing how being able to go at your own faster pace in the US is rare and considered a treat.  DH was yelled at for going ahead, despite not bothering anyone or asking the teacher for help.

CommonCents

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #76 on: April 16, 2014, 11:59:14 AM »
My husband grew up in Malaysia and had remarkably similar experiences being bored to tears. He was a piano prodigy, so my in-laws spent their money on his music lessons and pulled him out of private school, and that's when things went really downhill. He used to smuggle novels in to school to read under the desk.

Ha, I stopped hiding them at one point.  Three of us in high school read novels in french class.  The class was huge - 40+, and she'd go through the exercises in a rote manner.  It was absolutely terrible and not conducive to learning much.  (Looking back, I think mistake one was taking French in San Diego.)  So you just needed to keep an ear out for your name (easy) and know which number of the exercise you were on (harder).  The exercises themselves were easy enough to do on the fly.  A few tense moments when called on, wondering if I was doing the right number.  It all got shut down though when my teacher told my mom she couldn't really yell at us for this because we were all paying attention enough to answer properly.  My mom told her to give us french novels to read, which she did, and we got the message to stop reading in class.  Never told the other two where the teacher got that idea...  Also did cross-stitch in seminar english class too.  In retrospect, for a straight A student I may have been a bit of a rebel, albeit in a non-traditional manner.

Zikoris

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #77 on: April 16, 2014, 12:11:37 PM »
Quote
Also did cross-stitch in seminar english class too.  In retrospect, for a straight A student I may have been a bit of a rebel, albeit in a non-traditional manner.

I used to knit during class in elementary school! I got away with that until about 5th grade. Ah, the memories of all the pointless hours spent in a concrete building not learning anything, of listening to the slow kids spend ten minutes reading a paragraph out loud to the class messing up every second word and punctuation mark. I can make really nice knitted winter hats now anyways.

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #78 on: April 16, 2014, 12:34:16 PM »
I find it a bit sad that the kids who are bored are not asked to help others.   Empathy and compassion seem like pretty good qualities to foster.   

There is a huge opportunity to engage in self-education for independent learners - even when I went to school without the internet this was possible.   And you always have your brain.  If you are bored because you are not challenged, well, there is a whole world of interesting ideas to contemplate invisibly if you have a brain that works pretty well.

I guess what I'm saying is that it is okay to discuss intelligence, but I draw a line at calling other kids "slow".  I felt the same way in law school where people seemed to be fond of telling the "I was so bored in elementary/junior/high school" stories.   It appeared to be a form of bragging about how smart they were.  I just thought there could have been a better use for their time than waiting for a school to fill a void.

CommonCents

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #79 on: April 16, 2014, 12:49:16 PM »
I find it a bit sad that the kids who are bored are not asked to help others.   Empathy and compassion seem like pretty good qualities to foster.   

There is a huge opportunity to engage in self-education for independent learners - even when I went to school without the internet this was possible.   And you always have your brain.  If you are bored because you are not challenged, well, there is a whole world of interesting ideas to contemplate invisibly if you have a brain that works pretty well.

I guess what I'm saying is that it is okay to discuss intelligence, but I draw a line at calling other kids "slow".  I felt the same way in law school where people seemed to be fond of telling the "I was so bored in elementary/junior/high school" stories.   It appeared to be a form of bragging about how smart they were.  I just thought there could have been a better use for their time than waiting for a school to fill a void.

And that is what I had to do in church, invisibly contemplate ideas.  But other times, you want to progress at a different, faster pace in class than permitted.  I can see that you do not like the label of slow, which is understandable.  What term would you prefer to refer to those who do not progress at the speed of the class, but progress at a slower pace?  I think you miss the point though by saying advanced kids are "waiting for a school to fill a void" - rather the point here has been made that we tried to fill it ourselves but were told we were not permitted to do so.  And while our society says it's ok to go slow for one kid (no child left behind!), we as a society are not equipped to deal well with kids that want to go faster.  Its one of the best argument for home schooling I think (I used to be opposed for socialization, but am changing my mind).  Here's an article I sent to a friend of mine a few weeks ago: http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2014/03/15/the-poor-neglected-gifted-child/rJpv8G4oeawWBBvXVtZyFM/story.html

thepokercab

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #80 on: April 16, 2014, 12:52:43 PM »
I find it a bit sad that the kids who are bored are not asked to help others.   Empathy and compassion seem like pretty good qualities to foster.   

There is a huge opportunity to engage in self-education for independent learners - even when I went to school without the internet this was possible.   And you always have your brain.  If you are bored because you are not challenged, well, there is a whole world of interesting ideas to contemplate invisibly if you have a brain that works pretty well.

I guess what I'm saying is that it is okay to discuss intelligence, but I draw a line at calling other kids "slow".  I felt the same way in law school where people seemed to be fond of telling the "I was so bored in elementary/junior/high school" stories.   It appeared to be a form of bragging about how smart they were.  I just thought there could have been a better use for their time than waiting for a school to fill a void.

yeah, i agree with this.  I was always around peers in high school and college that just couldn't stop telling me how "bored" they were with the material all the time.  Because,  for the cool kids, it wasn't enough to just get good grades, you had to look like you weren't even trying.  As someone who actually had to try from time to time, this always annoyed me. 

I find this now dynamic now with fellow parents who also have kids who are about to go into kindergarten.  Everyone's kid is always just so "bored" at pre-school. Its freakin pre-school! I guess people think this is more PC than just saying how smart they think their kid is.

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #81 on: April 16, 2014, 01:03:01 PM »
I think the best solution for a lot of kids is distance-based self-paced learning. Like homeschool, but with accreditation - you have actual teachers, you just don't see them. You get all the books and supplies, work through it as fast or slow as you want, and mail/email your work to your teachers. If you feel like doing nothing but science for a week, you do that. When you finish grade 12, you take the exams and graduate with the same diploma as kids in regular school.

Personally, I did that in grades 1 and 2, then again for all of my high school.

CommonCents

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #82 on: April 16, 2014, 01:16:05 PM »
I find it a bit sad that the kids who are bored are not asked to help others.   Empathy and compassion seem like pretty good qualities to foster.   

The standard practice in my school was to group kids in mixed ability groups, so you'd have one top quartile, two middle quartiles, and a bottom quartile student all working on a common project. They did this specifically to force the smart kids to help. This was bad for a number of reasons:

1. A student who is very good at a subject is often not a good teacher, regardless of their empathy or compassion.

2. This doesn't actually help low-ability students, who tend to get very discouraged. They do better in groups with similar ability students. The odds of a student in the bottom quartile coming close to a student in the top quartile are very slim, and they find it discouraging. They'd be better off grouped with similarly able students where they can reasonably compete, for the same reason you wouldn't gain much training in spraints with Usain Bolt.

3. Learning disabled students are legally entitled to an ability-appropriate education. Why aren't smart kids? Nobody tells an LD student that they'd learn patience and how to sit quietly and listen if they are in a math class years above their ability levels, despite patience and sitting quietly being valuable life skills. Why do you feel entitled to tell smart kids they should be bored so they can learn empathy and compassion?

4. My time in school is not a public resource to be socialized at will against my consent.

5. Having been forced to do that for years, it didn't teach me empathy and compassion. It made me angry and frustrated, because a very smart fourth grader is not magically going to transform a semi-literate fourth grader into a decent writer of five paragraph essays. Instead, it makes the smart fourth AND the semi-literate fourth grader frustrated. AND I was still bored and learning.

6. Because exposure to smart kids doesn't magically make bottom and middle quartile students into top students, as a person who cared about grades, I ended up doing the bulk of the work, because the middle quartile kids were producing B-level work and the bottom quartile kid was producing C-level work, and I wanted A's. The other three kids all benefited from my work, by the way. Or at least their GPA did, since we got one grade for the project.

+1
For years, I had a horror of working in groups for these very reasons.  I only gradually stopped hating them as something that meant oodles of extra work for me (coaxing the others to participate, because I cared and they didn't, doing it when they didn't do) when I got into college and finally had a group in my Interest Groups class in US Govt that worked as a group is ideally meant to work.  But we got to pick our groups, which helped.  Incidentally, 2 of the 5 group members ended up clerking for Supreme Court justices.  Apparently I was the slow one in the bunch!
« Last Edit: April 16, 2014, 01:24:52 PM by CommonCents »

thepokercab

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #83 on: April 16, 2014, 01:22:41 PM »
I find it a bit sad that the kids who are bored are not asked to help others.   Empathy and compassion seem like pretty good qualities to foster.   

There is a huge opportunity to engage in self-education for independent learners - even when I went to school without the internet this was possible.   And you always have your brain.  If you are bored because you are not challenged, well, there is a whole world of interesting ideas to contemplate invisibly if you have a brain that works pretty well.

I guess what I'm saying is that it is okay to discuss intelligence, but I draw a line at calling other kids "slow".  I felt the same way in law school where people seemed to be fond of telling the "I was so bored in elementary/junior/high school" stories.   It appeared to be a form of bragging about how smart they were.  I just thought there could have been a better use for their time than waiting for a school to fill a void.

yeah, i agree with this.  I was always around peers in high school and college that just couldn't stop telling me how "bored" they were with the material all the time.  Because,  for the cool kids, it wasn't enough to just get good grades, you had to look like you weren't even trying.  As someone who actually had to try from time to time, this always annoyed me. 

I find this now dynamic now with fellow parents who also have kids who are about to go into kindergarten.  Everyone's kid is always just so "bored" at pre-school. Its freakin pre-school! I guess people think this is more PC than just saying how smart they think their kid is.

I was reading books in pre-school. What term would you prefer I use to describe the feeling I experienced while my classmates were doing pre-literacy exercises?

I guess i would just repeat that its pre-school dude.  You know- drawing pictures, play time, social interaction, some crafts, etc..  I'm sorry if you were in the corner reading Victor Hugo while the other kids were finger painting. I suppose I wouldn't be intellectually stimulated either.   

AJ

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #84 on: April 16, 2014, 01:28:15 PM »
I find it a bit sad that the kids who are bored are not asked to help others.   Empathy and compassion seem like pretty good qualities to foster.   

The standard practice in my school was to group kids in mixed ability groups, so you'd have one top quartile, two middle quartiles, and a bottom quartile student all working on a common project. They did this specifically to force the smart kids to help. This was bad for a number of reasons:

I have a friend who is a teacher and my understanding is that this practice is going out of favor for all the reasons you mention. On paper, it sounds like it should be a good idea, but in practice you end up with embarrassed bottom quartile students who haven't learned any better (because children - even bright ones - are usually poor teachers) and frustrated upper quartile students (who can't understand why their "teaching" isn't working).

thepokercab

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #85 on: April 16, 2014, 01:33:40 PM »
I find it a bit sad that the kids who are bored are not asked to help others.   Empathy and compassion seem like pretty good qualities to foster.   

There is a huge opportunity to engage in self-education for independent learners - even when I went to school without the internet this was possible.   And you always have your brain.  If you are bored because you are not challenged, well, there is a whole world of interesting ideas to contemplate invisibly if you have a brain that works pretty well.

I guess what I'm saying is that it is okay to discuss intelligence, but I draw a line at calling other kids "slow".  I felt the same way in law school where people seemed to be fond of telling the "I was so bored in elementary/junior/high school" stories.   It appeared to be a form of bragging about how smart they were.  I just thought there could have been a better use for their time than waiting for a school to fill a void.

yeah, i agree with this.  I was always around peers in high school and college that just couldn't stop telling me how "bored" they were with the material all the time.  Because,  for the cool kids, it wasn't enough to just get good grades, you had to look like you weren't even trying.  As someone who actually had to try from time to time, this always annoyed me. 

I find this now dynamic now with fellow parents who also have kids who are about to go into kindergarten.  Everyone's kid is always just so "bored" at pre-school. Its freakin pre-school! I guess people think this is more PC than just saying how smart they think their kid is.

I was reading books in pre-school. What term would you prefer I use to describe the feeling I experienced while my classmates were doing pre-literacy exercises?

I guess i would just repeat that its pre-school dude.  You know- drawing pictures, play time, social interaction, some crafts, etc..  I'm sorry if you were in the corner reading Victor Hugo while the other kids were finger painting. I suppose I wouldn't be intellectually stimulated either.

There's no need to be a jerk. But you're not answering the question. What word would you use to describe the feelings of a literate child doing exercises along the lines of, "T-H makes 'thuh'"?

I suppose you would call it bored.  I don't have a problem with things in school being boring, or with you being bored in school.  I was just remarking that, in my experience, people seem to really go out of the way to not only remark on how well they grasped the material, but how bored they are in the process.  Its their way of trying to distinguish themselves from the other 99 people who can do the same thing-  not only can I do it, I was BORED while I was doing it. 

I'm not saying this is you or what you're doing- i'm just saying its been my experience in more than a few situations, that's all.   

Cassie

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #86 on: April 16, 2014, 01:35:22 PM »
Unfortunately, IQ tests have cultural bias: such as asking what goes with a teacup-the answer is saucer. Poor families don't use teacups & saucers.  There are also different levels of IQ tests. A full scale IQ test administered individually by a psychologist is the most reliable.  If you took a test yourself for instance that was all patterns that is a Level B test that is much less reliable.  Also IQ tests alone provide only some  information about a person.  That is why many other tests should be used in conjunction such as aptitude, personality, interest tests, personal interview etc if you are trying to help a person for instance identify a suitable career path. For instance, you can be really smart but maybe you don't want to go to college because you will not enjoy the work environment that goes along with the degree but would rather work in the skilled trades because that matches your personality, desired work environment, etc. As far as kids unfortunately the schools just pick a certain IQ and if you miss the cutoff it is too bad and you can't get into the gifted program which is a shame.  At one point we lived in a rural area and my youngest was gifted in all subjects. After testing they skipped him 2 grades. They wanted to skip him 4 in math but I could not see an 11yo being with high school kids for math so held him back to junior high for that.  I have spent the past 24 years in this field.   

CommonCents

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #87 on: April 16, 2014, 01:45:22 PM »
I think the best solution for a lot of kids is distance-based self-paced learning. Like homeschool, but with accreditation - you have actual teachers, you just don't see them. You get all the books and supplies, work through it as fast or slow as you want, and mail/email your work to your teachers. If you feel like doing nothing but science for a week, you do that. When you finish grade 12, you take the exams and graduate with the same diploma as kids in regular school.

Personally, I did that in grades 1 and 2, then again for all of my high school.

I both like and dislike this idea.  It seems to suggest if you don't fit "average" you ought to be shuffled off and not permitted to join with others your level.  otoh, it lets people work at their own pace.  I guess I just don't see why "tracking" in schools is such a bad thing.

thepokercab

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #88 on: April 16, 2014, 01:56:05 PM »
I find it a bit sad that the kids who are bored are not asked to help others.   Empathy and compassion seem like pretty good qualities to foster.   

There is a huge opportunity to engage in self-education for independent learners - even when I went to school without the internet this was possible.   And you always have your brain.  If you are bored because you are not challenged, well, there is a whole world of interesting ideas to contemplate invisibly if you have a brain that works pretty well.

I guess what I'm saying is that it is okay to discuss intelligence, but I draw a line at calling other kids "slow".  I felt the same way in law school where people seemed to be fond of telling the "I was so bored in elementary/junior/high school" stories.   It appeared to be a form of bragging about how smart they were.  I just thought there could have been a better use for their time than waiting for a school to fill a void.

yeah, i agree with this.  I was always around peers in high school and college that just couldn't stop telling me how "bored" they were with the material all the time.  Because,  for the cool kids, it wasn't enough to just get good grades, you had to look like you weren't even trying.  As someone who actually had to try from time to time, this always annoyed me. 

I find this now dynamic now with fellow parents who also have kids who are about to go into kindergarten.  Everyone's kid is always just so "bored" at pre-school. Its freakin pre-school! I guess people think this is more PC than just saying how smart they think their kid is.

I was reading books in pre-school. What term would you prefer I use to describe the feeling I experienced while my classmates were doing pre-literacy exercises?

I guess i would just repeat that its pre-school dude.  You know- drawing pictures, play time, social interaction, some crafts, etc..  I'm sorry if you were in the corner reading Victor Hugo while the other kids were finger painting. I suppose I wouldn't be intellectually stimulated either.

There's no need to be a jerk. But you're not answering the question. What word would you use to describe the feelings of a literate child doing exercises along the lines of, "T-H makes 'thuh'"?

I suppose you would call it bored.  I don't have a problem with things in school being boring, or with you being bored in school.  I was just remarking that, in my experience, people seem to really go out of the way to not only remark on how well they grasped the material, but how bored they are in the process.  Its their way of trying to distinguish themselves from the other 99 people who can do the same thing-  not only can I do it, I was BORED while I was doing it. 

I'm not saying this is you or what you're doing- i'm just saying its been my experience in more than a few situations, that's all.

That's a class signifier. When I went to prep school, it was very important to not be seen as working hard, but to just be an excellent athlete and student anyway. I suspect we got it from the British educated classes. I read a memoir of a West Point grad who got a Rhodes scholarship and discovered, upon arriving at Oxford, that the very best thing you could do was get a double first, despite never seeming to work at school. Being a grind, and actually appearing to study and strive was considered a little too plebeian. Much better to be seen out drinking and socializing and then shock everyone by somehow getting top grades at the end of the year.

Yeah- that makes sense.  Also- sorry for coming off as a jerk earlier. Honestly, i never really thought about these things before, but with my daughter entering school age, i feel like we're getting bombarded already with standardized assessments of her 'intelligence'.  Funny, i could care less about my own intelligence and how its perceived, but i get all irrational when it comes to my kids.  Go figure.     

Jamesqf

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #89 on: April 16, 2014, 02:18:20 PM »
The idea that intelligence, or quick wits as it used to be known, is important is perhaps no more than 120 years old.

Except that 'quick wits' are not at all the same as intelligence.  For instance, I used to work with a guy who was really quick-witted.  Ask him a question (or just give him an opportunity to express his opinion) on just about any subject, and he would come back with an authoritive-sounding answer, often before you'd finish asking.  Problem was, his answer - however great it sounded - was wrong more often than not.  Meanwhile those of us who were a bit slower usually came up with correct answers, or would admit that we didn't know.

So which is the more intelligent, quick but usually wrong, or slower but more often right?

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #90 on: April 16, 2014, 02:24:50 PM »
I guess what I'm saying is that it is okay to discuss intelligence, but I draw a line at calling other kids "slow".  I felt the same way in law school where people seemed to be fond of telling the "I was so bored in elementary/junior/high school" stories.   It appeared to be a form of bragging about how smart they were.  I just thought there could have been a better use for their time than waiting for a school to fill a void.

I was so bored in law school. 

totoro

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #91 on: April 16, 2014, 02:29:23 PM »
A fast but incorrect response does not meet the historical use and definition of 'quick wits'. 

'Quit wits' used to mean keen intelligence/cleverness and still does in England.

Consistently quick and wrong would be more accurately defined as annoying.

http://thesaurus.com/browse/quick+wit

CommonCents

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #92 on: April 16, 2014, 02:30:35 PM »
I guess what I'm saying is that it is okay to discuss intelligence, but I draw a line at calling other kids "slow".  I felt the same way in law school where people seemed to be fond of telling the "I was so bored in elementary/junior/high school" stories.   It appeared to be a form of bragging about how smart they were.  I just thought there could have been a better use for their time than waiting for a school to fill a void.

I was so bored in law school.

As a former law student, I assure you that had nothing to do with your brilliance (or lack thereof).  :)  There's a reason people are trying to push 2 year law schools!

Jamesqf

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #93 on: April 16, 2014, 02:40:29 PM »
I felt the same way in law school where people seemed to be fond of telling the "I was so bored in elementary/junior/high school" stories. 

I was so bored in law school.

Now there's a question: why would intelligent people go to law school in the first place?  It seems, on my experience of law school grads, more suited to those like my 'quick witted' former co-worker.

A fast but incorrect response does not meet the historical use and definition of 'quick wits'.

I think you missed my point, which is that the traditional linguistic usage is what's wrong - by which I mean that it creates a false perception of reality.

CommonCents

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #94 on: April 16, 2014, 02:44:23 PM »
I felt the same way in law school where people seemed to be fond of telling the "I was so bored in elementary/junior/high school" stories. 

I was so bored in law school.

Now there's a question: why would intelligent people go to law school in the first place?  It seems, on my experience of law school grads, more suited to those like my 'quick witted' former co-worker.

Interesting you get quick but wrong legal answers frequently from lawyers.  I was taught that much as the client may demand/howl for an immediate answer, it's faaaar better (and less subject to lawsuits) to say, "I will get back to you with an answer" than to spout off something you think, but aren't sure about.  Note that "I don't know" to a client was not ever an acceptable response either.

Then again, you may be right.  I was discussing the ACA with the father of a friend for an hour or two, who was curious about the impact on him in particular, and once admitted I didn't know the answer to a particular question and he said I was the first lawyer ever to admit that.  He about fell over when I did it a second time.  :)

totoro

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #95 on: April 16, 2014, 02:49:19 PM »
I felt the same way in law school where people seemed to be fond of telling the "I was so bored in elementary/junior/high school" stories. 

I was so bored in law school.

Now there's a question: why would intelligent people go to law school in the first place?  It seems, on my experience of law school grads, more suited to those like my 'quick witted' former co-worker.

A fast but incorrect response does not meet the historical use and definition of 'quick wits'.

I think you missed my point, which is that the traditional linguistic usage is what's wrong - by which I mean that it creates a false perception of reality.

Hated law school, but absolutely love my job as a lawyer.  I did it for the designation.

I don't know if creates a false perception of reality.  My reading of British historical fiction doesn't correlate use of the word "quick" here with verbal speed but mental acuity.  I think language changes over time.  We would probably just call this 'intelligent' today.  The guy in your example would not fit the "quick wits" definition. 

totoro

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #96 on: April 16, 2014, 02:54:59 PM »
I tell clients all the time if I don't know an answer.  I also let them know that I will find it out.  Clients like that and I like finding out the answers to questions quickly.  It is a win:win.   I'm pretty sure there are a lot of lawyers doing this.  I personally know many.

In law you can't know everything unless you practice within a very limited range.  Some do and they probably do have most of the answers most of the time.  I would find that not very interesting. 

Freedom2016

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #97 on: April 16, 2014, 03:50:03 PM »
I skipped 2nd grade and was in the gifted program in elementary school ("Resource"), which consisted of leaving our usual classrooms (I think during reading) twice a week for an hour or so of enrichment activities in the library.

I have a vivid memory of the day that my Resource compatriots and I returned to class only to find the room empty. (This was 6th grade.) Befuddled, we hung around, not sure what we should do. 10-15 minutes later, our classmates came back in with ice cream cones in hand. Turns out, our teacher had taken the rest of the class on a field trip to get ice cream, deliberately leaving us out. I say deliberate because when we asked her why we didn't get to go, she said that we get to go to Resource and that wasn't fair to the other students, so she wanted to do something nice for them. I don't know whether she meant for us to feel punished, but that's certainly how it felt.

To this day I think it's a huge mistake to eliminate tracking/gifted programs so other kids don't feel badly. How about you do a better job of helping every kid feel good about whatever track they are on?

rocksinmyhead

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #98 on: April 16, 2014, 07:08:25 PM »
CommonCents: IQ Tests taken before the age of 9 are fairly unreliable, actually. Before that age, they take the scores and norm them against other same-aged test takers. The problem is, young children are developing so much that there's no real way to differentiate between an unusually bright child who will be unusually bright for their entire lives, and an unusually bright child who just matured a tiny bit faster and will be a perfectly average 12 year old. By the age of 9 or so, things have largely calmed down and stabilized, and you've largely settled into your slot on the bell curve.

interesting! I definitely believe this given my own experience. I used to tell people "jokingly" (but not really) that I was a smart little kid and somehow got dumber as I got older (this was when me having skipped second grade came up more often in conversation, like in high school and college). I definitely feel like I got "less above average," if that makes sense. like a kid who has an early physical growth spurt, but ends up pretty average height.

I find it a bit sad that the kids who are bored are not asked to help others.   Empathy and compassion seem like pretty good qualities to foster.   

The standard practice in my school was to group kids in mixed ability groups, so you'd have one top quartile, two middle quartiles, and a bottom quartile student all working on a common project. They did this specifically to force the smart kids to help. This was bad for a number of reasons:

...

+1
For years, I had a horror of working in groups for these very reasons.  I only gradually stopped hating them as something that meant oodles of extra work for me (coaxing the others to participate, because I cared and they didn't, doing it when they didn't do) when I got into college and finally had a group in my Interest Groups class in US Govt that worked as a group is ideally meant to work.  But we got to pick our groups, which helped.  Incidentally, 2 of the 5 group members ended up clerking for Supreme Court justices.  Apparently I was the slow one in the bunch!

YES, THIS, SO MUCH.

interestingly I still feel like I developed empathy and compassion, probably an over-the-top amount. I also love teaching and started college wanting to be a high school teacher (I dropped that when I realized I fucking hated education classes). working in the university writing center was one of my favorite parts of college, and I LOVED being a TA in grad school. I'd definitely consider some kind of teaching job in my future. but it does suck to be forced into doing it when you're in school, the fellow students you're supposed to be "teaching" are annoyed with you, and really you just want to be learning new stuff.

yeah, i agree with this.  I was always around peers in high school and college that just couldn't stop telling me how "bored" they were with the material all the time.  Because,  for the cool kids, it wasn't enough to just get good grades, you had to look like you weren't even trying.  As someone who actually had to try from time to time, this always annoyed me. 

this is so funny to me... I realize high school/college are totally different than earlier schooling, and I agree it's pretty immature and stupid for people that age to say, "oh, I'm just so BORED with this material." especially in college, where you have more agency... jesus, if you're bored, do something else! but as a shy, nerdy kid, I desperately wanted to be one of the "cool kids" for probably grades K through 9, and let me tell you, it was NOT cool to be smart. I pretended to be stupid so many fucking times. as I got older I stopped actually purposely putting wrong answers on tests, but I still pretended to other kids that things were harder than they were. (exception: long division. holy fuck that was confusing to me!) I didn't really stop pretending to be stupid until 10th grade, when I had an awesome English class that made me realize I actually loved public speaking, and generally came out of my shell in a lot of ways. now every time I wish "adult me" was smarter, I kind of want to slap "little kid me" upside the head and say DON'T DO IT!!! be as smart as you can! wait a couple years and you will only ever wish you were smarter! sigh. I think it's sad. I hope my kids never do that.

The book Top Dog actually talks about different ways to group students (the military experimented at length on West Point cadets) and which cohorts elicit the most improvements. Mixing high and low ability kids makes the low ability ones perform worse. The book Top Dog goes into this at length; it's fascinating.

I think I heard them talking about this on NPR recently!! good to know the book is interesting, I'll have to put it on my list :)

Yeah- that makes sense.  Also- sorry for coming off as a jerk earlier. Honestly, i never really thought about these things before, but with my daughter entering school age, i feel like we're getting bombarded already with standardized assessments of her 'intelligence'.  Funny, i could care less about my own intelligence and how its perceived, but i get all irrational when it comes to my kids.  Go figure.   

I don't have kids yet but I could see myself being the same way :) I'm sure it's also annoying as fuck to hear other parents brag obnoxiously about their kids. I don't know why, but that shit just annoys me.
« Last Edit: April 16, 2014, 07:14:17 PM by rocksinmyhead »

Leisured

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Re: Are Mustachians more intelligent than the average American?
« Reply #99 on: April 17, 2014, 06:44:43 AM »

I have been surprised by what seems the obsessive nature of many of the posts in this topic. I took two intelligence test in my life: 1956 in England when I was 11, and again in Australia in 1961 when I was 16. I was never told the results of these tests, as was policy.

High schools in Australia were streamed in the sixties, and I was in the A stream for all subjects except Maths. Nobody seemed bothered by the streaming, and variation in academic ability was taken as normal. I accepted that there were students who were better at maths than I was. In the sixties, most students left school at age 15, I think. There was full employment, and good pay. I stayed on into senior high school, but attitudes to schooling were casual. I was something of a ‘swot’, to use the English term, compared to most other students at senior High. The culture of Hogwarts is similar to the culture in my school in England, and in Australia. Hermione is much more of a swot than I was.

My teachers were concerned to put ‘round pegs into round holes, and square pegs into square holes’, and it was assumed that students could graduate and go on to a prosperous life even if not particularly intelligent.

Things have presumably changed since the sixties.

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!