Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Being in a Group Makes you Dumb? Really?

 These K-1's do not fear showing intelligence

I picked up a thread on Twitter about a study that shows that when people are made aware of their comparative IQ in a group, their IQ score actually drops - especially with women.  Intriguing.  So I looked further.  There are a slew of articles about this in the last few days.
Being In a Group Lowers Intelligence is one of the more interesting ones.  Each one has a slant, and the headlines are sensational! 

Here is the most important part: In the study, IQ only goes down in a group when it is measured and the scores are broadcast to the group.  And it mainly goes down for women in this small study sample. 

This little study with the fun headlines (You're Right!  Meetings Actually Do Make You Stupider!) has school implications.  It's why we don't give grades at Parker, or post the spelling tests on the wall.  Comparing who is "smarter" makes kids feel self-conscious, or like they don't measure up, or are superior to others - take your pick.  It is not conducive to motivation or to joy in learning.  

Won't it be fun to see how far this "news" goes?

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