On how to feel completely redundant ...

lindsmuse

http://www.businessinsider.com/new-york-4-year-olds-take-this-test-to-enter-elite-kindergarten-2014-7?utm_content=buffer67ec1&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Apologies for massive address but it works .....

I can't even get the first one right! ?

briang-telkomsa-net

How the hell does a 4 year old do this!! >☹
We're living longer but expected to become adults sooner - suffer the children?

Mixerboy

I scored 4/5.......somehow it doesn't make me feel any better, especially seeing as it's for "dumb american" 4yr olds.

lindsmuse

briang wrote: How the hell does a 4 year old do this!! >☹
We're living longer but expected to become adults sooner - suffer the children?

And ..... there's no jobs ... So we're going to have this excess of brilliant layabouts who can't look after their poor old parents. Or so it would seem ? Seems like we're creating little gods

Don't know if it's common knowledge but as of next year (if all goes to plan and according to my info) Grade R will be compulsory in SA ... (I'm an illustrator busy with textbooks)

These kids who can do this test must have been force fed Mensa textbooks from day one. That must be it.

RobbieZ

This is crazy.

[deleted]

Haven't finished reading the article, but I know I would have been terrible at this. I was and probably never will be a "people pleaser". I'd probably ignore the test and go play outside, which is what I'd encourage my kid to do. That said, I just did the test and got 5/5, baha, step aside toddlers!

This was horrifying :

"Some consultants raised concerns about the use of an iPad test, saying toddlers shouldn't spend so much time in front of a screen. But Doruk said her company has been using iPads in tutoring sessions for the past two years.

"Kids know how to use the iPad. They like the iPad. It's more engaging to them. It looks like a game," Doruk said. "But they still have to answer the questions correctly."

So the argument is "it's alright, we've been doing it for two years and the kids like it" !? That's the kind of argument a drug addict would make.

AlanRatcliffe

Viccy wrote: So the argument is "it's alright, we've been doing it for two years and the kids like it" !? That's the kind of argument a drug addict would make.

Like it or not, we now live in a technological culture, and it's only going to get more so. The kids raised and steeped in that culture will have an advantage.

Similarly I have no problems with a group of teens sitting together and texting. If we all stuck with our parent's culture, I'd spend my evenings retiring with the gentlemen to the drawing room for backgammon or some such...

singemonkey

This is an IQ test and they change very little as one ages. So this test for toddlers is theoretically no easier or harder than it is for us.

But added to that the "Flynn effect" means that every generation has a higher IQ. One of the best guesses for this is that as our culture is ever more centred on spatial-visual comprehension (the thing that causes the increase in IQ over the generations - verbal stuff hasn't changed really over time) each subsequent generation is more adept at this type of reasoning that the one before.

IQ being highly tied to educational achievement, this seeks to guarantee the school the kinds of results that made it so prestigious in the first place - picking only winners = cycle of success.

In fact almost any school's results would jump if they only took the 4-5/5 kids and excluded all the low scores who'll probably struggle far more with maths.

[deleted]

Like it or not, we now live in a technological culture

BA HA! Some people do. Technology is a tool; culture is being human. Do you think children should associate more with tools, than people?

If we all stuck with our parent's culture, I'd spend my evenings retiring with the gentlemen to the drawing room for backgammon or some such...

Cultures come and go, and technology has helped shape cultural shifts. I just get a bit nervous when the technology has moved away from the "make life better/easier" role to "replace life". I guess that'll always be a difficult balance to strike.

AlanRatcliffe

Viccy wrote: Technology is a tool; culture is being human.

Tools are nothing without people. We're having this very human discussion via our technological tools.

Do you think children should associate more with tools, than people?

Didn't hurt me. As a chile I associated more with books than people. As a teen I associated with more guitars than people. Then it was technologies turn. Now I interact with more people than I ever have - via more technology.

I think that as the world gets smaller and more overcrowded, it's perfectly natural for us to draw our boundaries in closer than ever before, and the technology allows us to do that to whatever degree we are most comfortable with. The technology continually advances, but its use and the success of one tech innovation over another is driven by the social needs of the time. We shape our tools, not the other way around -that's the human way.

Ultimately, people are still interacting with other people - it's just that there is an extra link in the chain. Still doesn't negate the fact that there is a person (or millions of people if you so desire) at the other end of that chain. We're giving up the face to face thing in preference to being able to control how many people we interact with at any time and how close we allow them to become. Feels completely natural to me.

Even in gaming - which used to be as insular a pursuit as one could practice short of the ...err... solo carnal kind - the primary focus has been on multiplayer gaming for well over a decade now.

I just get a bit nervous when the technology has moved away from the "make life better/easier" role to "replace life".

I don't believe it has replaced life. It's just a different one and, as with any cultural shift, the older generations eschew it aside from a few able to change and assimilate it. The newer generations are born into it and know no other "normal". And of course, there will always be misfits who feel they were born anachronisms, that live their lives with a general unease about the world surrounding them.

[deleted]

As a chile I associated more with books than people

A Voodoo Chile! Kidding. I'm assuming this was after you could read, which means you had the normal development of role modeling on adults for emotional growth, up until the age of about 5? Books are also a creative/ emotional journey, although they have their faults too, as opinions (and lies) are often assumed to be facts, just because they are in text.

The newer generations are born into it and know no other "normal".

On the contrary. Our "normal" is still biologically driven.

In my humble experience of teaching children in the age group harmfully affected by technology (2 - 4), for about eight years, is that they are not fully developed people, conversing with other fully developed people, sharing ideas, and experiences. They are incredibly playful and energetic people, driven be a need to belong, and be cherished. Your argument not applicable to the most crucial point. Technology does not cherish people... IMO.

Mixerboy

Interestingly, reading a book is still as exclusively solo/antisocial as you can get.

AlanRatcliffe

Viccy wrote: I'm assuming this was after you could read, which means you had the normal development of role modeling on adults for emotional growth, up until the age of about 5?

I'm possibly a bad example - by all accounts I was developmentally weird. Very late speaker, very precocious reader. Always been insular.

But yes, point taken.

briang-telkomsa-net

Alan Ratcliffe wrote:
Viccy wrote: I'm assuming this was after you could read, which means you had the normal development of role modeling on adults for emotional growth, up until the age of about 5?
I'm possibly a bad example - by all accounts I was developmentally weird. Very late speaker, very precocious reader. Always been insular.

But yes, point taken.

You Introvert Alan ?

AlanRatcliffe

briang wrote: You Introvert Alan ?

I has a room full 'o guitars 'n stuff, an uncapped connection and a wife who shares my passions. What else is there?

We were chuckling over this this morning -aside from point 10, spot on:
http://thoughtcatalog.com/christopher-hudspeth/2014/07/13-things-homebodies-say-and-what-they-actually-mean/

lindsmuse

Love the thought catalog thing . Most the people I know are like this. Both of them. ?