IQ in children

[BaskeyJill]

My friend is a teacher and made a comment the other day that made me wonder. She thinks that she can identify which children in her year 4 class could go on to be doctors, solicitors, vets etc and which children would never be capable of achieving the grades needed.

My pfb DS is 7 and has just started year 3. When I look at him I assume he could be anything he wants to be. At the moment he is slightly below average (he is an August birth) but I think he is still so little! He has another 11 years of school until he does his A Levels and I am a bit that my friend thinks he isn't ever going to achieve the 'higher' tier jobs.

Dd1 struggled at primary school but is getting high grades at secondary school. I failed 11 plus but am a teacher. One of my brothers is an architect but our parents were not well educated. Personally I feel it's just down to personal factors.

Has anyone read "Freakonomics". That looks at a load of adopted children (who typically went from a very disadvantaged home to a very nice middle class one.)

On average the children did significantly better than you would statistically expect from their biological parents but not as well as you would expect from their adoptive parents so I guess a combination of nature and nurture.

Inidentally I went to a very state school dominated college at Cambridge (so we were all freaks basically). One topic that we discussed one time was when did our "freakiness" become clear. There was a huge range. Some were like me (who can remember being 4 and being given a green book to do maths in while everyone else had red or blue ones). Another lad had had two years out. One after GCSEs because he'd been expected to fail them and so got a job for a year before going back to do his A-levels as he'd done much better than expected. He then did the same thing at A level before ending up at Cambridge. And there was all sorts of combinations in between.

Sorry but i think your mate might be roght sadly

I think its very easy to work out that if a parent has never worked, has low asperations, hardly any education has lots of children and has poor parenting skills

Its not really that shocking that the children will not achieve much in life the reason why its news when a traveller child or a child from a neglful background gets into oxford is because its very hard for a child to cast of there background

This is why children from disadvatage backgrounds will almost always fail not matter how much money you pump into there school its the level of aspration the parents have for there child

There are children in my sons school who have never been to the park we live with walking distance of 3 chidren who only went to the cinema for the first time with the school

MummytoKatie this is why it makes me mad when people say that children dont do well in care the readon they dont do well is because they have had a poor start woth the birth parents i never meet a child in care that is doing worse in care than they would of if left to the neglect or abuse of there birth parents

Flow4 wrote: "Has anyone mentioned the 'Pygmalion effect' or the 'Golem effect' yet? There have been a few research studies (esp in the 60s and 70s) that show that teachers' expectations have a significant effect on students' attainment. So students perform better in tests if teachers expect them to do well, and vice versa..."

I am freaked out now! DS has just been IQ tested in new school, at start of Yr 7, along with whole year group. All staff will get to know results and 'categorise' each child accordingly - eg "Oxbridge material" vs "bit of a non-starter".

Parents and children are not allowed to know the results, so I guess we'll only work out, a few years along the line, where our DS may have been 'placed' by the school.

Nothing we can do about this and it is a v academically selective school but I feel like DS may be 'labelled' from the start and I expect will not be deemed anything like creme de le creme and fated never to realise possible potential?

Presumably your teacher's friend IQ isn't high enough to be a "solicitor/doctor/other high flyer" though.

But seriously, there is so much more to success than high marks. A friend's daughter scored extremely high all the way through school yet was turned down for medicine because her people skills were not to shit hot. (She was accepted for dental where, clearly, people skills are not so important )

Too much emphasis on the future of the child; what about the now? Let them learn, grow, play, work some stuff out for themselves...

I assumed that the teacher was saying she could predict which children would do well academically and therefore be able to go on and train in medicine etc., this is not necessarily the same as having a high IQ.

I agree with TheBuskersDog - there are two quite different things here.

I think the teacher in question may be overstating how well she can predict these things, but I wouldn't say she's totally wrong.

I think a teacher could, by the age of 7, see which children had (as well as some innate ability) supportive parents and an understanding that working hard in school was important.

BlogontheTyne, that would worry me. (Perhaps I should already be worried: I have a year 8 child, so perhaps they've also done this to him )

If you want to take on the (probably thankless and challenging) task of making sure teachers are aware of the powerful effects of their expectations, here are some more references:

(I can't find most of them on-line, sorry; but they are proper academic sources that teachers should be able to follow up, or you will be able to find though your library if you want)

Rosenthal, R., & Jacobson, L. (1968). PYGMALION IN THE CLASSROOM. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. (The original 'Pygmalion' study)

Good, T. L. (1987). Two decades of research on teacher expectations: Findings and future directions. JOURNAL OF TEACHER EDUCATION, 38(4), 32-47. EJ 358 702

[[http://campoaberto.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/altasexpectativasediferenciac3a7c3a3o.pdf High Expectations and Differentiation Equal Academic Success
]]

Tauber, R. (1997). SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY: A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO ITS USE IN EDUCATION. Westport, CT: Praeger.

Tauber, R. (1998). Good or bad, what teachers expect from students they generally get! online here

Cotton, K. (2001, January). Expectations and student outcomes.

LaQ - I think we're all understanding that bit in the same way. The difference is that you're then saying the teacher can treat what s/he knows about mum's education as a 'deciding factor' - but it isn't. It only predicts.

It's certainly true that mum's intelligence and education probably do indicate what sort of values she's passing on, too.

But what bothers me about the OP, is the teacher there seems to think that children's outcomes are much more set in stone than they really are.

I think if someone is teaching young children, claiming they can 'tell' how the child will turn out is a rather bizarre kind of buck-passing. It's effectively saying 'well, someone else has already made the crucial decisions about this child's future, so whatever I do with them isn't going to change the path they're on'.

I'd rather have a teacher who's aware that some children face greater challenges than others, but who has confidence that s/he can help all of those children to overcome their challenges.

(Btw - bribery with chocolate was the only thing that got me even started on learning tables - do you stoop that low, or is there a better way?!)

Yes, I agree. I would want the teacher to realize that, and I hope she does.

As well as the random factors, IMO if someone is a teacher, they should be seeing themself as a factor, too. I know teachers can't be held responsible for transforming things for every single child, but still I'm sure a large proportion of people would admit that a good or influential teacher can have a huge effect.

Don't most schools administer IQ type tests in Y7 for grade prediction purposes? We have a tracking officer who makes sure all do as well as they should - early high levels usually going to high ability children. The cohort is seen as high, middle & low ability by all teachers - for differention purposes. All need to be shown to be making good progress.

Isn't it a given that schools make judgement about ability? A student predicted a D early on will probably not be on a trajectory for an A star?

Thanks for those references, Flow4. Might come in v useful!

Hamishbear, I think what is getting to me most is that the IQ tests aren't what a properly qualified person would use to assess a child and will give a composite score, rather than indicate that, whilst Child A might have difficulties with literacy, they're a whizz at maths - if the literacy score pulls them down overall.

I'd also feel more comfortable if things were transparent and parents were told the test results, the type of test, exactly, the 'strength' or otherwise of that type of test at predicting possible success and how or if the staff moderate their interpretations and expectations with their experience of the children, personality factors (ie some children may have problems focusing in the tests but be brighter than the scores indicate because of this) etc.

A relative of mine was deemd the family dunce as he didn't focus at school until age 16, when he pulled out all the stops and did really well at O levels and then A levels...but dipped again (for personal reasons) at the first part of Uni, then shot off ahead and is now a top professional and academic. If he'd been IQ tested at age 11, he may have come across as less likely to succeed than he did, based on one set of scores at one point in his life.

On the other hand, there might be a child who is excellent at doing IQ type tests and scores at genius level - yet because of personal issues, never translates that underlying IQ ability into the real world, as others have said here too.

I've read a couple of academic papers about teachers perception of school pupils IQ which showed that teachers, when asked to pronounce on which of where the brightest kids, tended to label the bright (top 10%) kids as "gifted", but they tended to lable the highest scoring kids - the gifted (top 2%) as "average", troubled,and difficult... the children in the study had IQ testing and then this was compared with what the teacher had already written about each child.

That's my experience as a parent too - I would say especially up to age about 12 or 13 (when IME brighter kids start to get a bit more out of education), teachers tend to overestimate the ability of bright, compliant children, because they are a "pleasure to teach",and underestimate the ability of exceptionally bright children who are bored and frustrated at school, and who are (to be fair to the teachers, probably a bit of a pita).

I greatly enjoyed bumping into my DS's (a pita, exceptional, bored, and off the scale bright) junior school head teacher and telling her the child she said was average and badly behaved (not bored like we said) was preparing to start at Oxford... her jaw virtually hit the floor.

My DS1 succeed despite a very difficult time at school - because he had very education orientated parents who fought his corner for better educational provision. Sadly I'm sure there are many very bright kids who are labelled difficult and challenging who fail to engage in education and don't have that parental support - so the teachers label becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

Blog, interesting. LeQ - I think most schools have it & it's called 'Raise Online' or something. Scotch - see your point.

I read something the other day about the Durham IQ type tests used as an entry exam. They said that a high score in Maths was a better predictor of all round intellect than a high score in English (or something like that). It explained there were a few outliers but generally the brightest would be similarly able at English & Maths.

Sadly in schools it can be a one size fits all approach - I suppose that's inevitable when costs & limited resources are taken into account.

I am sure that was the case LQ. Did you challenge the teacher during the course of the year out of interest? Why wouldn't a teacher want to support & stretch a child like your daughter? I'd be banging on the head's door a la Miss Honey in Matilda? Surely an able child positively thriving would reflect well on the teacher just as much as bringing the middle up to where they needed to get to & the low to the middle.

Sounds almost as if the teacher felt threatened? Is if possible the teacher didn't spot her ability? What was she reading in Y2 ? - please don't tell me books with 3 lines on a page etc?

IQ does not mean 'diddly squat', but it doesn't necessary equate to exceptional professional success such as your friend describes. Super high IQ people can lack common sense, empathy and 'EQ', and may also be too clever for the common man, so can struggle in positions where dealing with 'more average' people (management, for example) is important. It's not a given obviously, like anything in life.

If you have a relatively high IQ and you don't work hard at school/university, you may also fail to achieve.

SCOTCH - thanks for that very interesting perspective and hats off to your DS!