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To: Maurice Winn who wrote (193168)	1/17/2007 4:35:02 AM
From: John Carragher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793964

perhaps his iq is below 100 because he has not been exposed to various parts being tested in an iq exam. I fail to understand why his iq cannot be improved if it is a lack of knowledge or experience. Just like "no child left behind" this should be point out other areas to work on to enhance intelligence. certainly iq is not capped at this age. sounds like another teacher cop out report.

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (193168)	1/17/2007 6:31:09 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793964

In both cases, the problem is not that we have not been taught enough, but that we are not smart enough. There has been a lot of comment about this essay by Murray. I have read his books, and agree with them. But he is off course on what can be taught to lower IQ people. They can learn if the material is presented more slowly, using different methods than you use for higher IQ. A lot of education blogs that I respect all hit this point in their assessment of this column. Murray's problem is that he invented his "IQ hammer" for this situation, and now everything he sees is a "nail."

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (193168)	1/23/2007 4:16:07 PM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793964

Q, I read a few posts that originated with yours and I have to add a thought. One of the problems with our educational system is that we waste too much energy training up "high IQ" students. Sure some of those students are worth the effort but many aren't. They'll get GREAT grades and learn a huge amount of material, very little of of which they'll ever put to good use. They'll get on fast tracks to law schools, medical schools and in business and then they'll climb ahead from that advanced starting position but they'll never, ever, contribute much of value. And why is that? IQ has been shown to measure one's ability to learn very well but the correlation between learning well and thinking well is not clear. There are some people who don't retain information well but who think very well. And there are many people who retain information almost perfectly but who think poorly. How many times have you found that the person who was first in the class was as dumb as a post when it came to actually finding a solution to a real problem? So yes, IQ is a very fine determinant of how well you'll do in school. That's the talent for telling the professor what the professor told you. But the straight A, high IQ person rarely distinguishes herself or himself in the real world with a record of innovation and creative accomplishments. Sure they may climb to high levels but watch what they actually achieve and I think you'll find that more often than not some "dark horse" with no straight A average and no jaw dropping IQ innovates, invents or problem solves in ways that make us all go "wow." The something else that's going on there is that that persons brain thinks differently in a special way that solves NEW problems. And we can't test for that, or at least we can't test for that yet. So I'd say IQ is one way of measuring something but we should understand what that "something" is. The real "something" we want to find is one's ability to actually "DO" something difficult really well and IQ seems to be a poor indicator of that kind of special spark, or talent, or whatever you want to call it. The result is that we may do more harm than good employing our resources feeding the memory banks of the world when we should be feeding the processors. And telling kids with "good" IQs or "average" IQs that they're not quite as smart as the "high" IQ kids can create low expectations and interfere with that special kid who might, if left to find this own level of "intelligence," do something really special. Disclaimer, I think my IQ is in the low 70s so you might not want to put much stock in this post. Ed