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by hutzlibu 2249 days ago
Yet so many parents want their children to be brilliant and push them by all means to be.

I like the Montessorie approach, "every child is a genius"

(does not at all mean, they are all the same, nor all have the potential to be rocket scientist. But it is a negation of the primitive evaluation approach of, this kid is very gifted, this kid is mediocre and this kid sucks. Societey needs lots of different talents, who can all be brilliant at what they do, but less likely if they got labeled as loosers from the start)
1 comments
sumgocko 2249 days ago
Yes, specialization is a good thing, and there are many dimensions on which you can measure talent. However, the correlation between some of these dimensions (mathematical ability, reading comprehension, recall, etc.) has been found to be about 0.4. That still leaves room for individual diversity of talent, but makes it clear that not everyone gets the same amount of points to invest into the skill tree.

Saying that everyone is a genius just devalues the word.

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hutzlibu 2249 days ago
"Saying that everyone is a genius just devalues the word."

The saying is "every CHILD is a genius". (not every burned out adult). Childs have a incredibly potential, than can grow in many directions. And the saying is also more intended to the teachers, opposite to the weeding out approach. So no, it is not meant literal, it has to be understood in a context. But yes, the idea is, that the teacher treats every child, as if they have the potential to be a genious. (and I actually do believe, most do, and it is sad, that so few actually get the opportunity to develope their potential and rather learn to sit still and repeat and behave and repeat what is demanded)

" but makes it clear that not everyone gets the same amount of points to invest into the skill tree"

Probably not, but I think it is hard to measure. It is also a question what skills you consider to be relevant. Some extreme example, I heard from my sisters friend who have a mentaly handicapped child .. which clearly did not have many skills .. but a big smile the whole time, that made people happy who interacted with him. Could be considered a valuable skill for society, too.

(but I don't know, if the parents smile the time, as he is probably quite labour intensive)

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