It's Not How Smart You

I Am Knowledgeable Enough About The World Of Prizes To Realize That There Is A Large Degree Of Luck - Both For The Recognitions That You Receive And Those That You Did Not.

If One Develops Good Habits And Routines, It Is Possible To Be A Responsible Educator Most Of The Time; And To Marshal The Special Energies And Reflection For Those Times, When The Correct Course Of Action Is Not Clear, Or When One Is Weighing One Wrong Against Another Wrong.

In The United States, If You Ask Teachers, "are There Children Whom We Should Call 'gifted?'", Many If Not Most Will Say 'no.' That's The Politically Correct Answer. But If You Then Ask The Teacher To Rank Order Students In Terms Of How Well They Paint Or Write Or Dance, They'll Have Little Difficulty In Doing So.

While We May Continue To Use The Words Smart And Stupid, And While Iq Tests May Persist For Certain Purposes, The Monopoly Of Those Who Believe In A Single General Intelligence Has Come To An End. Brain Scientists And Geneticists Are Documenting The Incredible Differentiation Of Human Capacities, Computer Programmers Are Creating Systems That Are Intelligent In Different Ways, And Educators Are Freshly Acknowledging That Their Students Have Distinctive Strengths And Weaknesses.

In Roughly The Last Century, Important Experiments Have Been Launched By Such Charismatic Educators As Maria Montessori, Rudolf Steiner, Shinichi Suzuki, John Dewey, And A. S. Neil. These Approaches Have Enjoyed Considerable Success[...] Yet They Have Had Relatively Little Impact On The Mainstream Of Education Throughout The Contemporary World.