Standing Still Predicts School Success Better Than IQ

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19212514

by curi • 18 years ago

75 38 18 years ago

pg• 18 years ago

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.

dood2• 18 years ago

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!

curi10• 18 years ago

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.

dood2• 18 years ago

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."

greendestiny3• 18 years ago

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).

tokipin• 18 years ago

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

nostrademons• 18 years ago

So, is it a good thing that I talk to myself when programming? My parents always look at me a little strangely when I do that. (I suspect that my coworkers would've done so too, except that many of them also mumble to themselves while programming.)

ephextom• 18 years ago

I've had a bit of insight into this, through some exposure to a program that attempts to treat ADHD, Aspergers and Dyslexia. The program is based on the premise that these conditions are caused by an underdeveloped cerebellum, and provides a program of exercises that are specifically designed to develop this part of the brain.

One of the tests they do in diagnosis and progress assessment is a basic "standing still" test, performed on a platform with computer-monitored sensors, and several of the exercises involve simply standing as still as possible for a few minutes.

They find that over the 12-24 months the candidate participates in the program, as their ability to stand still increases, the extent to which they suffer from these conditions diminishes.

As I'm sure many here would attest, people with ADHD, AS and Dyslexia often have above-average IQ scores, but struggle with school performance or endeavors that require similar strengths, like conventional office jobs.

curi10• 18 years ago

+1 for info about actual usage of tests like this

whacked_new5• 18 years ago

I have a related story. During a visit to a doctor when I was a kid, the doctor found me unruly, noisy, and over-active. Being a friend of my parents, he flatly and frankly told them, and in front of me, that I "cannot sit still" and suggested they enroll me into a Go classroom, which they promptly did.

After a few months I visited him again, and he said, again in everyone's presence, that I was "much better." I was actually not yet mature enough to care or comprehend what it was all about, but I am thankful for having had those lessons.

I also daresay that the benefits of taking such lessons would have comparable or perhaps superior effects to these lab-controlled exercises, at least when there is still uncertainty.

However, as per the article, the goal, I believe, is self regulation, so at least in my case, the neural changes probably were not focused in the cerebellum.

lackbeard• 18 years ago

What is a "Go classroom". A place where they teach the boardgame Go?

vlad• 18 years ago

The headline is a sad mark on our schools...

Especially as they talk about young children, any faults lie with their parents--the same generations who think they were tougher when they were kids, are creating problems by never saying no to their own offspring. And, schools don't ever want to keep students back, so the curriculum is designed so that anybody who shows up to class can pass. Required daily homework and classwork that might represent 50% of one's grade, instead of a couple of tests that define 80% of one's grade, teaches kids to focus on submitting paperwork instead of actually putting in thought nor allowing them to figure out how to do the learning they might need to do.

This process works to ignore incompetency in basic abilities year after year in students, as long as they have good grades, the fact which allows educators to say that college opportunities their kids have available to them are also good, and therefore, that they did their job. Not to mention that schooling our students one month longer, and for 2 years longer, than other countries do, in the same "conditions" described, furthers work towards decreasing independent thought and leaves many kids unprepared for real life.

Sometimes I wonder if that when people think our education system does our kids justice because our students are better at sports (that are mostly only played in the US), have more options of after-school activities, and have the chance (based on parent income) to utilize many different types of expensive private educational tools, tutors, "theories", consultants, certifications, and textbooks, if they're not missing that...

...the huge factor that explains why our students end up being more entrepreneurial or have the potential to get paid a lot of money when they finally do grow up, is that the US is incredibly wealthy--and at the same time cannot keep track of money any better than its average citizen--than that we're good at educating our students remotely close to what we should be given the money the government budgets for education.

I don't think we would hinder our country's strength in either entrepreneurship or Football, Baseball, Lacrosse, and Softball programs if we were to increase our understanding of math and science in this country; nor would it hurt to have a law that would require mandatory monthly teacher to parent education on what is expected of their student and ways the parent can help the student actually succeed at learning the material rather than submitting enough homework assignments to pass. Of course, having more educated people instead of "consumers" could affect our economy "negatively" as well as positively, but there are already many ways our economy is being pulled in both directions, so I don't think that teaching arithmetic and the scientific method to everyone would be a crazy thing to do.

deltapoint• 18 years ago

Self regulation and IQ are both important characteristics. It makes sense that self regulation has a stronger correlation with better school performance than IQ. School tests one's ability to regulate their time and focus, studying a paying attention.

I believe that children must mix "raw" play where they can imagine their surroundings. The good old empty box comes to mind... it can be a race car, a castle, a rocket ship and so on and so forth.

On the other hand I think the commentary undervalues the importance of regulated play. The learning of rules will come in handy when one enters school and the work world where there are many formal rules to follow.

gojomo2• 18 years ago

Awful headline.

One of multiple exercises in a 1940s test of 'self-regulation' involved standing still. Children in 2001 don't obediently stand still as well. Separately, the article notes (without referencing source) that "good executive function is a better predictor of success in school than a child's IQ".

The custom headline going from 'standing' to 'school success' is tenuous extrapolation that, if the reporter had put it directly in their article, would not have survived editing and fact-checking.

Bad headlines waste readers' time and send discussion off in tangential directions based on skewed understandings.

OTOH, I love the article -- good info on how self-management, in individual children (or even groups) might be best encouraged, and how toys/things might be just the wrong thing. (What would that mean for the OLPC?)

curi10• 18 years ago

It is not a bad headline, it is an opinionated headline (based on text from the article). I understand that you disagree with my point of view. Please understand that I disagree with yours, too. The "tangential direction" you are complaining about is the reason I posted the article. I would not have posted it otherwise. You should be glad that people who disagree can still be helpful each other, rather than complaining that your free ice cream wasn't the appropriate flavor.

gojomo2• 18 years ago

In my experience, people who disagree can best cooperate if they emphasize accuracy in their statements -- thus quickly finding the areas of agreement and disagreement.

That you thought the statement "good executive function is a better predictor of success in school than a child's IQ" was the most important part of the article is a valid opinion I can respect. That you found the standing-still experiments an interesting way to measure child self-regulation is also a valid opinion I respect.

It is the pairing of the two opinions into the unsupported statement "Standing Still Predicts School Success Better Than IQ", and then the promotion of that dubious statement to the key position of headline, that I find objectionable.

Alternate approaches I wouldn't have objected to:

* contribute article with original headline, but post a first comment with "I found it interesting that the article suggests ability to stand still for longer may predict executive function, and thus school success, better than IQ."

* contribute article with original headline plus appended pot-stirring question: "Old-Fashioned Play Builds Serious Skills (Does standing-still predict success better than IQ?)

Or, if HN were to someday allow a comment-with-submission or subhead-with-submission, that would be a great place for highlighting an opinionated takeaway from deep in the article, even though the article's main thrust is something else.

Erf• 18 years ago

One of the factors that lead Reddit to become unreadable, in my opinion, was the proliferation of editorializing headlines.

When the headlines begin presenting ideas that are too large a subset or superset of the actual contents of the article, it becomes difficult to judge what articles one actually want to reads.

whacked_new5• 18 years ago

Thanks for the great read.

skmurphy2• 18 years ago

This is a great article. Key paragraphs for me:

It turns out that all that time spent playing make-believe actually helped children develop a critical cognitive skill called executive function. Executive function has a number of different elements, but a central one is the ability to self-regulate. Kids with good self-regulation are able to control their emotions and behavior, resist impulses, and exert self-control and discipline.

We know that children's capacity for self-regulation has diminished. A recent study replicated a study of self-regulation first done in the late 1940s, in which psychological researchers asked kids ages 3, 5 and 7 to do a number of exercises. One of those exercises included standing perfectly still without moving. The 3-year-olds couldn't stand still at all, the 5-year-olds could do it for about three minutes, and the 7-year-olds could stand pretty much as long as the researchers asked. In 2001, researchers repeated this experiment. But, psychologist Elena Bodrova at Mid-Continent Research for Education and Learning says, the results were very different.

"Today's 5-year-olds were acting at the level of 3-year-olds 60 years ago, and today's 7-year-olds were barely approaching the level of a 5-year-old 60 years ago," Bodrova explains. "So the results were very sad."

foonamefoo• 18 years ago

I don't see all the mystery: people no longer beat their kids to the extent that they did 60 years ago. Maybe if they made the request as part of a game instead of as an order from an adult there would be more validity (but you can't go back in time to the '40s to make them change the experiment as well).

skmurphy2• 18 years ago

I am not sure that's it. I wasn't beaten as a child, nor are my children. However, I had much much more unstructured play "in the neighborhood" than my children do. Almost any activity is mediated by adults today. Other parents, primarily fathers, have remarked on this in the last five to ten years when we compare how we organized our time when we were between five and fifteen years old with how our children's time is organized and managed for them. For the most part we didn't have adult umpires or coaches as children, we had to work out situations for ourselves. Sometimes a game would break up, but over time we learned to compromise in ways that seem less common with adult coaches and adult referees who are often more committed to "winning" than the children involved. We may be getting off topic for "Hacker News" but unstructured play seems to be a key component to fostering self-control and creativity is my take-away.

yters• 18 years ago

The problem is much bigger than merely children's toys. In general, our society is progressively less imaginative, and merely consuming what we've inherited from our past. This is why a lot of entertainment is based around destruction: cutting humor, violent action/horror films, most video games, pop music (angry rock, gangsta rap).

The hacker community has an advantage here, since we are so used to using our minds. Games like nethack are entirely dependent upon the user being logical and having a good imagination.

curi10• 18 years ago

In what range of years do you think most of the imagining was done?

Alex3917• 18 years ago

But I was only hungry for one marshmallow...

nazgulnarsil• 18 years ago

old fashioned play involved mimicing what the children saw in the adult world on a much simpler level. What do you do when you want to understand something? You make a simplistic model of it and go from there. Are the children of today not doing this and thus not building an understanding of the world? Is WoW and MySpace the same thing?

tphyahoo• 18 years ago

I read this as "Social Standing Still Predicts Better than IQ..." ... coulda used a better headline.

Standing Still Predicts School Success Better Than IQ

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