From this headline it sounds like this is an article about the lameness of schools, but actually it's a very interesting article about the importance of self-discipline.
I just came in to say something very similar; the article's actual headline is much better: "Old-Fashioned Play Builds Serious Skills". Thanks for the excellent link though curi!
The part I put in the headline is what I thought was most interesting.
Most of the rest seemed to consist of saying that lack of obedience in modern children indicates something is wrong with them. And finding things to blame this on, like toys.
I don't think the issue was self-discipline because the example of how they studied it was about whether the children would stand still when someone else told them to.
I think you missed the most interesting aspect, not about obedience or toys specifically, but that attempting to control, regulate and educate children has severely hampered their ability to control, regulate and educate themselves.
"Essentially, because children's play is so focused on lessons and leagues, and because kids' toys increasingly inhibit imaginative play, kids aren't getting a chance to practice policing themselves. When they have that opportunity, says Berk, the results are clear: Self-regulation improves."
It seems rather unfair that you got upmodded so much, and curi's post 2 layers above got downmodded below 0. curi states a personal opinion, which is valid as one.
You say curi missed the most interesting aspect -- from your POV (and obviously shared by others). I disagree with you about what is the most interesting aspect, but I don't think your point is uninteresting, but neither would I think you missed the "most interesting aspect." I think the "most interesting" is merely the useful idea that "developing self-regulation is beneficial and important."
While there is really nothing wrong about the state of your, and curi's scores, and how much people agree with either of you, this points system makes it look like, at a glance, that something was wrong about curi's post, and yours was, relatively, +18 correct. This is a negative side effect of this point system, which I don't think most people keep in mind when voting.
yeah. you might also be interested to look at my thread history to see some of the other stuff i get downmodded for. a few are: a question about what dates someone meant, a comment that lotto odds are public knowledge (questioning the point of the post which asked about what the odds "really" are), a "+1 informative" joke that's at -9 for some reason.
edit: btw this thread wasn't a representative example. disagreeing with pg increases downmods. if it'd been someone else it might not have happened.
and i was getting some downmods by people who didn't like the link or title but who can't downmod the submission itself so downmod comments intead.
lol. i'm with you curi. this article just wasn't ostensibly boneheaded enough
in my case, my james bondian self-discipline, my exceptional always-in-flow-like concentration (nevermind when i'm actually in flow,) and my einsteinian think-in-nature cognition did nothing for school because i didn't care for it to begin with
does standing still indicate self-discipline? maybe, if the particular subject cares enough about the situation they're in. who's to say that test in the 1940's didn't result that way because of the children's obedience, making the test a poor determinant of self-discipline?
if a child is more likely to obey, they're more likely to be labeled "good executive functioning" by testers regardless of their relative self-discipline, and more likely to do good in school by that metric. hence, obedience may have just as much or more to do with school performance than actual self-discipline
i bet many children today don't even know the concept of "obedience." they obey, but it doesn't have a cultural significance for them. which would consequently mean the study done recently is freer of the effects of obedience and therefore more likely (but by how much?) to be measuring self-discipline by its lonesome. but in any case, the proposition that the difference is due to toys or playstyle doesn't seem likely to me. not as likely as obedience does :)
another sad thing in all this is that ADD often corresponds to particular personality types. i'm introverted and my mind always speeds along like it's on crack. if i was extroverted, that energy would force external motion and i would basically be some sort of technical spongebob. i'm guessing the MBTI types most often marked with ADD are ENFP and ENTP (which happens to be the prototypical entrepreneur)
why is that a problem? because personality types don't change. they're what people are. well, with chemicals they can change temporarily, which is the sad thing
I found the fact that something predicts school success better than IQ very interesting considering about all IQ predicts well is school success. For me it really confirmed the idea that what IQ measures isn't as fundamental a representation of cognitive ability as I grew up believing. I realise psychologists have moved onto a notion of 'g' but they still assume its highly correlated with IQ.
I strongly disagree with your assessment of the rest of the article, it seems like you're trying hard to fit it in to a particular world view. Concentration is not obedience, its vastly more important, and I don't think the lack of concentration shown was simply as a result of the childrens new aversion to obedience (if such a thing exists).
It depends on whether they failed to stand still because they simply didn't want to follow orders or because they couldn't. Not really enough information to judge on in this article, but I believe that its because they couldn't based on what I know of kids. Your romantic notion of these individualistic children who'd rather be concentrating on something else just doesnt gel with my experience with kids. In general they're eager to please, especially in a one off situations.
So for example I rarely concentrated very hard in class, but enjoyed to for 12 hour days at chess tournaments. I knew plenty of similar people, some of whom were diagnosed with things like ADHD.
I'm not saying all children are good at concentration. I doubt most of the kids who stand still well are very good at concentration. It's just not what is being tested for and not what schools really care about.
I don't think its that controversial to suggest that a child who can sit still longer has better self-discipline. Self-discipline isn't exactly the same as ability to concentrate, but as a simple indicator for young children its interesting to study.