What really interested me about Outliers was the idea of the current education system we have basically faulting and not being as reliable as we thought. I’m sure that students have surely felt this way, but in Outliers the idea was definitely solidified and broadened in such a way that goes beyond our high school years, and extends to the rest of our lives. By the end of The Trouble With Geniuses Part 1, I was seriously confused as to what IQ actually measures. According to CNN, an IQ score measures your critical thinking and reasoning skills. Gladwell’s ability to challenge the ideas of our society without making it seem like an attack and outright condemnation of the beliefs we have been presented with allows us to critically re-imagine the way we look at things and determine whether they are ‘right.’ Gladwell makes is clear that IQ isn’t everything. If IQ measures critical thinking and reasoning skills, which translates as ‘smartness’ or brains, but isn’t actually either of those things, then what does it mean to be smart and how do we calculate it?
After reading this chapter I was feeling philosophical (to say the least) and this chapter got me thinking. Such a large part of our lives is focused on education, shown when Gladwell points out the way we categorize students early on, but I think the big message from this chapter was that we actually have no idea what being smart means. We have tried in numerous ways to calculate it, through IQ, the ‘experiment’ that Terman did with the prospective students, and they all have failed to an extent. This says more about our society and what we as a whole consider ‘smart,’ but really, what does it mean to be smart?
I completely agree with you Alexis as you point out the faults in our school system. The way Gladwell describes it makes me re-evaluate everything I have ever thought. It is crazy to suddenly just look at everything differently. And in terms of IQ, I just see it as another SAT test. Even though it is not stressed some people still use it as a deciding factor. And further on in the chapter, Gladwell also points out how the IQ test just neglects a person's creativity. The exam focuses on the logic and reasoning of a person leaving out the best part of them which is there creativity.
ReplyDeleteI agree with both Tracy and Alexis, I think that society was molded a perception of what 'smart' means in order to classify the successful students versus the students who doesn't really matter. Gladwell did a great job at showing that creativity plays a significant role like Tracy mentions, which exams over look because, it doesn’t fall in the same category as what they consider ‘smart’. This really highlights why I dislike test such as the SAT because, they determine your value based on an insignificant numbers that doesn’t basically undermines one’s self-worth. I think it is interesting when people talk about Albert Einstein and they talk about his IQ without mentioning his creativity because, it reveals the way we are programmed to believe that numbers truly matter in determining one’s worth.
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