Brigid: Mrs. Kellerman, why is it that some children perform much better than others at school?
Mrs. Kellerman: Obviously, it can't be denied that certain children are brighter than others, but it's not as simple as that. A lot of emphasis is placed on intelligence measured by tests—so-called I.Q. tests, which only measure certain types of intelligence.
Brigid: Such as?
Mrs. Kellerman: Basically linguistic and numerical skills—or reading and mathematics, to put it plainly—which is unfortunate because some children are bound to suffer. A good example was a friend of mine's son who was kept out of the top class at school because of his average I.Q.—that's around 100. His father, though he had no idea his son was going to be an architect, always said he was a clever child. Apparently he was able to picture things in his mind and draw accurately at a very early age. The point is that his university life might not have been so difficult if his ability had been recognized sooner.
Brigid: What you're saying, then, is that some children have abilities that are not easy to measure, that aren't appreciated by many schools.
Mrs. Kellerman: Precisely. And if these skills are not spotted sufficiently early, they cannot be developed. That's why, in my view, there are so many unhappy adults in the world. They are not doing the things they are best at.
Brigid: What are these other kinds of intelligence, and how can we recognize them in our children?
Mrs. Kellerman: Well, take musical talent. Many children never get the chance to learn to play an instrument but, while they might not become great artists or composers, they may get a lot of pleasure and satisfaction. Musically gifted children are fascinated by all kinds of sounds—car horns, animal noises and so on. And they can easily recognize tunes and sing them in key.
Brigid: How can a parent encourage them?
Mrs. Kellerman: Sing to them and teach them new songs. Buy a piano or even a cheap instrument such as a recorder. If you can afford it, send them to lessons as soon as possible. Play recordings of different instruments to them.
Brigid: What about a child who is good at sport? Could that be described as a form of intelligence?
Mrs. Kellerman: Most certainly. We psychologists call it 'motor', or bodily, intelligence. These children move gracefully and handle objects skillfully. A child who finds it easy to take things apart and use various tools may well become an engineer with the right encouragement. We should give them models to make and take them to science museums. However, unless these children are also good with words and numbers, they will probably not do well in school examinations.
Brigid: Is there anything a parent can do to help in this case?
Mrs. Kellerman: Yes. It may be worth spending money on private lessons. But, you know, hardly anyone is good at everything. In my opinion a child should be judged on his individual talents. After all, being happy in life is putting your skills to good use, no matter what they are.
Teacher: I think there are a lot of reasons why it's good for children to read. Er ... Not just reading for pleasure, but all of the subjects, no matter what subject it is, involve some reading, even if it's just art. (Mmm.) They have to read the directions to do an art project, and ... ah. Social Studies they have to read. Science they have to read. And the more they read, ah, the easier, ah, the more their vocabulary will expand, and the better the ... they'll do in their other subjects. Erm ... Also for, for pleasure, erm, es, er, especially here in Puerto Ordaz where there aren't very many things to do. In ... instead of being out doing something they shouldn't be doing, ah, they can choose reading as a hobby.
Erm ... It also improves their language tremendously. I can read a composition that a student has written that has, that reads a lot and I know, er, that he reads a lot by his use of the language and his vocabulary and a lot of advanced sentence structure that someone of that age normally would not, er, be able to handle.
Erm ... What else? Erm ... Sometimes children who have very limited experiences, whose families don't get out very much, er, maybe not have enough money, er, ah, just stay at home a lot, have real limited experiences and by reading they can expand their experiences about what happens in the world and I've had children who, in a reader, see a picture, an exercise and they see a picture of a lion and they don't know what it is, because either their parents haven't read to them, or they haven't read books, or they haven't been out. And if they haven't been to a zoo to see an actual lion they could have read in a book, or had their parents read to them about, er, lions. And they miss the, the problem, because they may, once you tell them what it is, explain, they can do the exercise, but because they didn't know, didn't have the experience, they weren't able to do it.
Erm ... er ... For survival later, too. If you can't read, erm, a cook-book or a, a manual to, to repair things, you're lost in that you have to rely on someone else to, always. And you're not, er, independent.
Interviewer: What is it good for children to read?
Teacher: I think children should read everything, that, er, not just limit it to mystery books, or just to science fiction. In fact there are some children who, who say, 'No, no. I just want to read science fiction,' but, er, I think they should read, er, from different areas. Er ... The newspaper, magazines. The School subscribes to, even though it's a small school, we've gotten in the budget approved to have fifteen magazines come in, and during their Silent Sustained Reading time can read magazines.
Erm ... if ... Anything that's written down, I think they should read. Whether a sign or newspaper, textbook, everything, and not just limit it to one or two things. Erm ... I think a lot of parents disagree that children, they say if they're reading comic books they're wasting their time, but if I have a child who's a poor student, if he'll read a comic book, er, I'm happy because he's reading something. Or if he's, while he's eating breakfast he's reading the back of the cereal box he's still reading something and I wouldn't take it away from him and say, 'Stop wasting your time,' Because that is a step to go on to further reading and if you limit it to certain areas, then that will, it sometimes, it will stifle them and they'll stop reading completely. And they'll say, 'If I can't read the comic book then I don't want to read anything.' But reading the comic book could, erm, they say, 'Well I enjoyed this and I understood this, er, I think I'll try something else,' and that expands their reading. And they can learn something from a comic book.
Erm ... It's also important, erm, if a student, if, a lot of the kids want to play games and they don't, it's a new game they don't know how to play, if they can't read the instructions, then they won't be able to play the game. Or, if they have a new toy, erm, if they can't read the instructions, they could possibly break the toy, and, by not learning how to use it properly.
Ever since you started to school, and perhaps before, you have been given tests. One type of test you have probably taken is an intelligence test, a test designed to determine your ability to learn or your ability to change behavior on the basis of experience.
It is not just test-givers who make judgements about intelligence, however. Most of us make educated guesses or inferences about how smart or intelligent a person is from the way he does certain things. We usually call people intelligent if they learn quickly, know answers to a lot of questions, and can solve difficult problems. When a psychologist studies intelligence, there are many questions that he wants to answer. But the first question he must ask is: What is intelligence?
Most people think of intelligence as one ability. We say, "Ann is smart". But is intelligence really that simple? Is it only one ability? In trying to understand these questions, it might be helpful to look at athletic ability. If Mitch is a good basketball player, do we say that he is a good athlete? What if he is poor in baseball? What if he can't play football? Even if a person is good at sports, is he equally good in all of them?
This is the same kind of problem we have when we ask, "What is intelligence?" What if Estelle is very good in math, but very poor in spelling? Is she intelligent or unintelligent? Maybe there is not just one kind of intelligence, but several different kinds. You probably know people who are very good in some subjects, but not good in others, and it is likely that you are the same way. You find some subjects easier than others and you do better in them. Most people are like that—they are not equally good in everything.
In trying to understand the nature of intelligence, a psychologist tries to find out how various abilities are related to each other. To do this, he devises intelligence tests which have several parts—each part measuring a different ability. The kinds of abilities that these tests measure include:
1. How well words can be defined and understood;
2. How well arithmetic problems can be done;
3. How well facts can be remembered.
Are these abilities related to each other? If a student is good at solving arithmetic problems, will he also be good at remembering facts? If he can define and understand a lot of words, will he also be good in arithmetic? To find the answers to these questions, the psychologist correlates the scores from each part of the test. A correlation is a mathematical way of finding out if these abilities are related to each other. If two abilities are correlated, it means that if you are good at one, you will probably be good at the other—or, if you are poor at one, you will probably be poor at the other. When two abilities are not correlated, it means that they are not related to each other—they do not go together. It means that being good at one has nothing to do with being good at another. For example, success in mathematics is not correlated with success in playing baseball. Some people who are good baseball players are good in math—others are not.
Think of all the mental and athletic abilities shown by your friends and schoolmates. Can you think of some abilities and skills that seem highly correlated? Can you think of some abilities which do not seem to be correlated? Why do you think some abilities are correlated and others are not?
There are many factors to keep in mind about intelligence tests. It is especially important to realize that intelligence tests measure how well you do at the time you take the test, but not how well you could do. There are many reasons why a student might not do well on a test in school. A person may do poorly on an intelligence test because he did not have a proper education and not because he is stupid. Also, some of the problems and questions of intelligence tests are not fair to certain groups of people.
For example, suppose that the problems and questions on a test are about ice cream cones, baseball, automobiles and hot dogs. How would a student from another country, where these things do not exist, do on this test? Could he do as well as an average American boy? What if you took an intelligence test which asked questions about the hibachi, tempura and saki? Any Japanese boy could answer these questions, but you probably couldn't. Does this mean that you are not intelligent? No matter how intelligent a person is, he will not be able to answer questions about things he has never seen or heard of. When a test has a lot of "unfair" questions, do the results tell us much about a person's intelligence? Why not?
Some questions would be "unfair" to almost all American test takers. How can you tell if a test question is "unfair"? Here is one to consider: Which of the following four musical instruments is different from the others in an important way: VIOLIN, SITAR, KOTO, TRUMPET.
What makes this question unfair to most American boys and girls is that two of the four words are from foreign languages. The test taker has no way of knowing what they mean. Therefore, if you don't know what a word means, how can you decide that it is, or is not, different from the other words?
The same question can be made into a fair intelligence-test question. It can be done very easily by adding pictures next to each word and asking the question again.
To find out if the question without pictures is "unfair", ask people to answer it. Do not let them see the picture next to each word. Ask them why they gave the answer they did. Now show them the question with the pictures. Do the people who are questioned give correct answers more frequently the first time, without pictures, or the second time, with pictures?
In what ways do the pictures help people answer the question? Is it true that the question without pictures is "unfair" and the one with pictures is "fair"? Can you think of a question that would be fair to boys and girls all over the world? Intelligence is partly measured by the ability to put information together and use it to answer questions. How does this apply to the question on musical instruments? Can the most intelligent person you know answer this question: What colour hair does each author of this book have?
1. (Politics)
When a party is elected to Parliament in Britain it may not stay in power for more than five years without calling an election. But—now this is an important point—the Prime Minister may 'go to the country', that's to say call an election at any time before the five years are up. This is important because it gives the Prime Minister in Britain a lot of power—he can choose the best time to have an election for his own party. In many other countries the timing of an election is fixed—it must take place on a certain date every four years, or whatever, and this means that in these countries the President or Prime Minister cannot choose the most convenient time for himself, the way a British Prime Minister can.
2. (Medicine)
One of the most dramatic examples of the effect of advances in medical knowledge is the building of the Panama Canal. In 1881 work was started on this canal under the supervision of De Lesseps, the Frenchman who built the Suez Canal. The project had to be abandoned after mosquito-borne diseases of yellow fever and malaria had claimed 16,000 victims among the workers. At the beginning of this century, the area was made healthy by spraying the breeding waters of the mosquitoes with petroleum. Work was able to be started again and the canal was finished in 1914.
3. (Sport)
By the way, since we have mentioned the Olympic Games, you may be interested to know the following curious fact about the ancient Olympic Games as compared to the Modern Olympics. The ancient games were held every four years without interruption for over 1,000 years. The modern games have already been cancelled three times, in 1916, 1940 and 1944, because of world wars.
4. (Zoology)
Although it is not strictly speaking relevant to our topic, perhaps I might say something about sharks since they are in the news quite a lot these days. Sharks have got a very bad reputation and probably most people think that all sharks are killers. This is not the case. In fact, the largest sharks of all, I mean the Whale Shark and the Basking Shark, are usually harmless to man.
Moon River
Moon river wider than a mile
I'm crossing you in style some day
Old dream maker
You heart breaker
Whenever you're going
I'm going your way
Two drifters, off to see the world
There's such a lot of world to see
We're after the same rainbow's end
Waiting round the bend
My Huckleberry friend
Moon river and me
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