To be pissed off that people who are not academic are branded as thick!

[teamcullen]

Why is it that people/children who are not academically clever are constantly branded as Thick, stupid or the underclass of society.

A person can leave school at 16 with little qualifications and work every day of their lives in McDonalds or a shop or as a labourer. They pay taxes. They contribute to society. Yet people constantly make comments on how you must be thick to work in those proffessions.

There are options in schools for children to take vocational courses, but I am always seeing comments like "No way Id let my DC take a deploma or vocational course." Or those subjects are only for the thick kids!

I understand that if a child is likely to go to uni, they need to take the traditinal route of GCSEs and A levels, but the world ecomony would quickly cease if everybody took this route.

Just because somebody is not academic, does not constitute being thick. Creative skills, patience, common sence, empathy and listening skills to name just a few are things that may not come naturatly to those with letters after their name, but are needed in many proffessions.

If a child who is not academic goes into the world at 16 and works hard in a job which needs no or little qualifications is it not unreasonable to treat tham and their proffession with a bit of respect.

My point is that p[eople have referred to gardner's theory of intelligences (or so I believed) and I would call them talents rather than intelligences. That's all. It's just a different opinion.

The google was an example only. My reason for believing it has been mostly discredited is through looking at changing views of Gardner in educational circles over many years. And in educational terms, it has, as far as I know, been mostly judged unsound.

I agree thoroughly! I was pushed into A Levels by my college because vocational courses were deemed by them to be 'below [my] standard' and for 'those not intelligent enough to cope with A Levels'! I would have thrived if they had not pressured me so much and allowed me to study childcare then

People in Maccy D's obviously aren't that thick as they get paid shedloads to do that in some places!

I think its more that the application of the idea is unsound in an educational setting.

There is a lot of criticism of gardners work, but very little of it disputes the core of the theory itself, and very few would argue for a single definition of "intelligence".

runny, are you still talking about gardner? If so, I don't just google a quick answer - as I'm sure jane doesn't - I read stuff by people whose judgemtn I value and who are experts in their field - whether education, sociology, psychology - and that is where I get a lot of my info from.

ah hah , that`s my point. You are all looking toward gardners theory , and others ....trying to learn what is already written to learn for yourselfs, instead of thinking about your own theory and proving for yourselves.- supposed that would be crystalised intellegence .
mozart had natural talent + intellegence+ genius.

Oh, I see now pointylog! Yes, I see what you mean - I'm sceptical about emotional 'intelligence' myself. But I do think there are far more credible arguments for seeing intelligence as multi-faceted, and the OP is reasonable when she argues that someone who is non-academic isn't necessarily thick.

thick is such a nasty term imo.

As far as I can see, nobody is trying to argue for a single definition of intelligence.

I'm just saying that Gardner's stuff was quirky and interesting and 'of the moment' once upon a time but not supported by substantial fields of evidence and used too easily to try and slot children into 11 boxes - which was as little helpful ultimately as previous attempts to slot them all into one box!

Now it really is bedtime. Will come back and argue some more tomorrow

what i hate is myself, DH and bil all left school at 16 with not great quals but all are reasonably intellegent though obviously not suited to academics (we all work though)

bil got a gf with a drama degree who he dumped because she was always putting him down, saying he should better himself by, really implying he was intellectually below her etc

bil decided to do a degree in aquatic zoology and i told him he would become his ex and guess what he has! (don't get me started on the animal research lab he now works in!)

my DH and i should better ourselves and want to get more out of life than our poxy just above min wage job and gorgeous DS and nearly new arrival

if and when we do decide to do some training, when DCs are at school it will be for us and not so we can look down on others.

(sorry to use this thread as a personal rant space)

I agree completely tjhat someone who is non-academic is not thick.

We all agree! G'night

drloves8 yeah, hilarious, people use their education and ability to study to understand an issue!
You can't just work everything out for yourself. You can't just think about stuff a bit and know it all. Thats just naive.

It all depends on how you are defining "intelligence" anyway. You could subsitute for ability, aptitude, whatever. Or you could agree with the idea of the "g-factor" either as a single entity or with various correlating subsets.

You have to define "thick" as well as I'm not sure how its being used. Its not a term thats used where I live.

Im so sorry Millymollymoo that my OP and all my other posts are littered with spelling mistakes, that must be because Im so thick!

Oh apart from, I did manage to get to university and got good marks while I was there.

I totally agree. One of the main reasons we emigrated to Australia was not wanting to raise two dyslexic kids in a county where people look down their noses unless you're a "professional". The fact that DH and I are makes it even more difficult as people think we're not doing the best for our kids by accepting them as they are rather than tutoring/pushing them to try and fit square pegs in round holes.

Why not just reject the word thick? People who use it do so because they don't have the sense or wisdom to realise that people aren't academic for so many reasons (lack of interest, lack of cognitive ability, but mainly due to lack of opportunity/decent education/lack of family support).
Only truly stupid people would use the word "thick" to label another human being.

Re: emotional intelligence. I am quite high-achieving academically (PhD, currently studying to be a medical doctor) and was a teacher for twelve years. In that time I never met a child that you could describe as "thick". Some were cleverer than others, but each had something they could do (even if, for some, it was excellence at swearing ). However, I am currently studying with other gradiates on a gradiate-entry medical course and you would be amazed at what these clever people can't do (talk to people, empathise, think for themselves!)

Re: nursery nursing. I wouldn't want DD to be a nursery nurse because the pay and conditions are so atrocious. If the situation was as it is now I wouldn't want her to do vocational courses because they are not respected by universities/employers/wider society. It is a Catch 22 but hopefully one which will be resolved in ten years time when she comes to make decisions about her life.

Surely the key issue is about allowing people to reach their full potential. If people feel like they have been given the opportunities they wanted and have grasped those opportunities with both hands and fulfilled their potential then they shouldn't care if other people label them as "thick".

30 years ago people generally died relatively young compared to today.

runnybottom are you saying that commonsense declines after 35-40. (or Fluid intelligence)

Not sure why I spelt graduate and gradiate. Sorry.

Young girl I used to work with was a brilliant mathematician but always claimed
she was away the day they taught spelling.

coralanne personally I don't like the term common sense, I don't think it means much of anything. Research suggests that fluid intelligence, as in the ability to reason abstractly, does decline around that age. One theory is that repeated experience and acquired knowledge sort of "sets" our manner of thinking, if you will.

Intelligence-in education- saves you time, you can learn something in one hour when person B would learn it in 2 hours. But person B can learn it too. Maybe even better if she has other tools i.e. focused and driven, self esteem, stamina...

Many people think that i am intelligent because of the ammount of work i can produce and the exams i can pass. I am not . But i always only needed 4 hours sleep and can be fine on 2. Maybe insomnia is another tool then

Anyway intelligence is the ability to think. People from all kind of jobs can think and read.My grandad only went to primary school but he spend his money on books and he wrote poetry. I hope that my children will read books but i don't mind whether they go to university or not, these two are not always go together.

It seems to be the norm these days for women to have DC in their late thirties, early forties.

How are these people going to cope if their ability to reason abstractly is already declining?

One of our local GP's dropped dead from a heart attach a month ago.

He was still working 4 days a week.

He was 92 years old.

I think the problem these days is that "academic" intelligence has become far to much of a focus - from the omnipresent SAT scores to the Govt push to get more people in to University.

"Manual" work has become totally devalued. There used to be no shame in earning a decent living from a hard day's work. Trouble is, these days you can't earn a decent living in these kind of jobs anymore. The minumum wage is not enough money to support a family without top ups. So many jobs get outsourced to agencies who only want to keep costs down. There is no interest in maintaining loyal, hardworking staff and developing them to reach their potential. If someone gets fed up there is an endless stream of people waiting to take their place.

I think therefore, nowadays there are far fewer opportunities for people who start at the bottom, no matter how hard they work. I wish the govt would stop this push to get every child to meet high academic targets and bring back apprenticeships and the like.

Littlereddragon- are you someone who has a specific learning difficulty?

Your results of slow processing and poor digit span would appear to suggest this.

If you have your IQ scored, most ed psychs would say you should disregard your lower scores as they bring your average IQ right down.

It's called a "spikey profile".

david beckham is a kinaesthetic genius

think on this - unless ALL the kids who are lacking academic nouse go and do the manual shitwork, you're going to end up polarising this country's class system even further, because the only people doing the vocational courses will be the working classes, and because their parents aren't pushy enough to barge them onto academic courses, or get a mild dyslexia treated, even the bright ones are going to end up doing the shitwork.

Thus has this country always been.