I had to share this story, because it involves this thread. Last night my girlfriend, her daughter, my son and I went out for Pizza.
My son is at the age (9) where he likes to display how much he knows. And at times this can get in the way of him learning anything new.
My girlfriend started asking me how my day was, etc, etc. I mentioned a few of my activities, and I said "oh, yeah, and I have a 156 IQ (ha ha)."
I did this for the shock value, knowing that I was going to explain to her that it wasn't right, but it did give me some insight as to what kind of learner I am.
Just then my son asked... "what's an IQ?"
I started to explain to him what it was and my girlfriend mentioned a few supporting statements. Meanwhile her daughter (3 1/2) sat and colored.
As soon as my son realized that he was being taught something, he started informing us that he had taken a test just like that. My girlfriend and I responded with some sample IQ questions.
I used a visual question that I remembered from the test as a sample. I colored three sets of shapes out and asked my son to draw the next set. My son got it wrong, but he was close to the correct answer. He drew the right shapes, just in the incorrect orientation.
Then it happened, as it has been lately, my son realized that he now had to share some of the stories of how smart he is. Kind of a way for him to save face on getting the IQ questions wrong.
These stories are usually based in reality, but he also has the tendency to stretch the truth to make himself look a little better. For example, we were talking about word problems and my son mentioned some "sample" word problems he has taken.
"Mary had a candy bar and two apples. She gave one apple to two of her friends and had them split it. Then Mary went to the store, but she took a taxi..."
I could go on... but I won't. He mentioned how everyone in the class got it wrong, except him, because they let the details of the questions get in the way of the simple answer.
When my son starts story telling, I usually have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand I am really happy that he wants to contribute to the conversation, and I value that. On the other hand, it can get in the way sometimes when youre trying to teach him something.
My girlfriend and I have talked about this, and weve decided we have to start calling my son on when he takes a step into the fictional parts of his story telling.
So we let my son continue with his story and proceeded to ask him follow up questions etc. It was about that time we were finishing up our meal and I remembered a quote from the IQ test. I over simplified the quote to help him understand what we were talking about.
I said true intelligence is... (a) knowing everything; (b) knowing some things; (c) knowing nothing; (d ) knowing everybody.
My son answered (B) knowing some things. Which is pretty good for a kid his age. My girlfriends daughter did not participate in the question, she chose to color and my girlfriend decided not to venture a guess.
I said, the answer is ( c ) knowing nothing.
Then I realized I was going to have to explain my reasoning. Just then the waitress put the bill on the table along with a few suckers for the kids.
I said, perfect, here we go... and I grabbed a sucker. It was one of those dumb-dumb suckers. There were five suckers on the table I grabbed the root beer" flavour.
I held the sucker up and asked. What color is this sucker? (the rapper was still on).
My son said brown knowing that root beer flavoured suckers are brown.
My girlfriend said Id have to say brown too..
I said youre both wrong.
Then out of nowhere my girlfriends daughter (3 1/2 years old) said. ask me!
So I said... okay, what color is this sucker?
This is her answer
Well I dont know what color it is I cant see through the wrapper.
It was absolutely perfect! The 3 year old had the answer!
I continued by saying. Shes right, shes 100% right. That is the correct answer. The wrapper is on this sucker. You cannot see through the wrapper. The ONLY way to know, for sure, what color the sucker is, would be to see it. Since you cannot see it, you dont know for sure what color it is.
True the wrapper says its root beer, which would probably make it brown, but how do you know its the correct wrapper?
True intelligence is knowing nothing.
The best part of this was that it was a lesson in humility for my son. Everyone got it wrong, except the three year old. So while he was trying so hard to be an adult, he realized that kids could be right too.
An interesting side note, my girlfriend started posing questions in the parking lot on the way to our car. She often does this, she asked an addition question... how many people are there here... to her daughter.
Her daughter said four
Then my girlfriend wanted to continue the lesson my asking a multiplication question.
She said, how many legs do we have?
Her daughter answered two
My girlfriend started to say.. no...
I interrupted her, and said, Shes right again! That was the correct answer! We have two legs! If you wanted to know how may legs we all have you should have asked that.
The kids spent the entire trip asking each other tricky questions all the way home. But time after time the 3 year old was right.
Its been proven that our learning potential increases significantly every year up until our first year of schooling. Then it often takes a sharp drop. Some say we actually teach ways of preventing learning. So dont take your IQ scores too seriously, youre only a three year old away from your lesson of humility.