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| IQ and Creativity |
Kudos to Prof. Robert Sternberg who dispels the myth inherent in IQ test and went further to argue that a national focus on standardized tests and IQ scores is hampering global progress
In an interesting meeting with Scientific American, clinician and Cornell University Professor, Robert Sternberg clarifies that the U.S. instruction framework is very centered around standardized tests and IQ scores. This nearsighted approach is making people who have a specific sort of knowledge, however not the kind that causes society to advance in significant ways.
Students who score well on tests like the SAT, ACT, and the GRE have great general insight and genuinely high scholastic knowledge, however, these tests uncover nothing of their innovativeness otherwise known as creativity, judgment skills, moral and mindfulness, regardless of the way that these qualities are colossally vital in improving our lives. The tests additionally sift through many individuals who do have those qualities. As Sternberg says:
IQ with or without creatiivity? What it leads to is people who are very good at advancing themselves, often at other people’s expense. We may not just be selecting the wrong people, we may be developing an incomplete set of skills.
This assessment may sound brutal to a few readers, yet Sternberg advances a fascinating contention. Consider the way that IQ focuses have risen 30 points higher in the twentieth century, which is gigantic, and keep on rising in the United States. Where is the confirmation of that expanding knowledge? Sternberg doesn’t see it reflected in reactions to advanced issues:
If you look at the problems we have in the world today—climate change, income disparities in this country that probably rival or exceed those of the gilded age, pollution, violence, a political situation that many of us never could have imaged—one wonders, what about all those IQ points? Why aren’t they helping?
The issue, he contends, is that education needs wisdom. The educational system never again shows youngsters how to be loyal citizens, maintain great esteems, take part in moral thinking, and utilize sound judgment; and as more individuals separate themselves from religious establishments, there’s even less presentation to these profitable lessons.
Why does it make a difference, one may ask? Since, without intelligence, “we get individuals who see the world as being about individuals like themselves. We get this sort of tribalism.” We get gifted experts who are great at making next strides, however do not have the capacity to be distinct advantages, to be “redirectors and reinitiators, who begin a field once again.” We even wind up with a general public that at no time in the future esteems ethics and wisdom as it ought to on the grounds that they are such new ideas.
Sternberg urges higher institutions to change their admissions tests to make a superior showing with regards to with evaluating a man’s creativity, judgment skills, and intelligence altogether.
Schools would react by educating these ideas to students to guarantee they do well on those tests; and after that, gradually yet clearly, an upheaval could happen – in our schools, as well as in our own and political connections and reactions to natural emergencies. In Sternberg’s words, “It’s a no-lose proposition.”
Thanks to Sternberg for his observation, I guess many schools would actually learn from this.
Reference:
Katherine Martinko. (June, 2017). Why We Need Wisdom Taught in Schools. Retrieved from https://www.treehugger.com/culture/why-we-need-wisdom-taught-schools.html
