What future for education. Intelligence

I believe it is so right that our group brainstorming resulted in understanding intelligence as making use of skills and knowledge that one has. Those people who don’t benefit from their knowledge are called “walking encyclopedias” in Russia. Another phrase that came to my mind is “If you are so clever why do you live so bad?” Therefore, we see intelligence as something that helps us moving forward.

I don’t remember myself taking IQ tests seriously – they were taken either for fun or for trying myself (as an entering test for a traineeship that I didn’t plan to participate in). I suppose that might be due to the believe that Prof. Gordon Stobart and Sandra Leaton Gray shared with us this week that IQ tests have little in common with intelligence.

So-called “intelligence” tests that I took seriously were subject tests that influenced people’s judgments about me for sure. The most relevant example in my experience as a pupil was that teachers put me in a “high level” or “gymnasium-like” 6th form basing on my results in the 5th form that was an ordinary one. Later on, I was put into the group taught by a better English teacher according to the same principle, I suppose. So, yes, test results definitely affect future educational opportunities. There is an irony that being at a university I had to pass my English test five (!) times to be allowed to take exams while all of my group mates had already passed several of them. Why my instructor didn’t give me a chance to show my knowledge in any other form except from test then, I still don’t know. Maybe because she didn’t have time as teachers don’t have time to ask meaningful questions, as Prof. Stobart says.

Luckily, regardless of that I didn’t lose my passion to learning and I can consider myself to be a learner. I really love studying and I’m thrilled with discovery. I often think about the way I have been taught and the way I wish my future children be taught. Reading the article “Myth of Ability” I was thinking that I didn’t remember much from Physics, Chemistry or Biology school courses but I love reading popular science articles and watch BBC films covering these topics. Does it mean that my teachers were bad? No, I don’t think so. Does it mean that my brain is now ready to perceive this information? Perhaps. Do I want my children feel enthusiastic about our nature and its laws as I do watching scientific documentaries? For sure.