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Intelligence - Teaching and Parenting One of the most important and challenging tasks a teacher or parent faces is to select meaningful educational activities that are difficult enough to be challenging but not so difficult as to be defeating. The skill with which we do this plays a major role in the success and failure children and youth. For a someone who has experienced repeated failure, it is important to plan success by finding out what the person can do and then select tasks where he or she can have quick and readily apparent success. The case studies in this section not only illustrate success and failure but also illustrate that teachers, and their instructional methods, make a difference. Cindy. I first met Cindy in my basic high school mathematics class, the type of class that every student in the school knows is remedial. I began the class by giving each student a diagnostic mathematics test. After giving the test, I indicated to the students that they would not be graded on how well they did compared to other students, but rather on the progress they made individually. The test revealed that Cindy did not know her basic addition and multiplication facts. The contract made with Cindy agreed to give her an A if she reached a level of mastery where she could complete a grid involving all the addition of all the multiplication facts in less than three minutes each with no more than two errors. At the end of the first grading period, Cindy had reached the pre-determined objective and received an A. As a result of this, a number of interesting things happened. First, arithmetic processes which had been very difficult for her became relatively easy. When she did not have to struggle with her addition and multiplication facts as well as process, learning how to perform basic arithmetic computations became straight-forward. By the end of the year, Cindy was able to do basic arithmetic expected of sixth to eighth graders with reasonable accuracy and ease. A second outcome of the interest was that teachers began to make comments about Cindy. I remember one teacher that said, "What's come over Cindy?" and I said, "What do you mean?" The teacher replied, "Well, until this last grading period, Cindy's always gotten a D or a D- in my class. This period she earned a C," and in another class, the teacher reported that Cindy earned a B. Not only had Cindy learned mathematics, but she had evidently learned that she could and because she now believed that she could, she was not only trying in her basic math class, but in other classes as well. Frankie Frankenstein. Frankie wasn't his real name, but that's what all the kids at summer camp called him. It was an abbreviation for Frankenstein, and indicated how they felt about him. He wasn't that bad looking; however, the sour expression and the way he related to the other campers seemed to explain the nickname. I first became involved with Frankie when he was sitting on the porch outside the building where the other campers were doing reading. A very skilled elementary teacher was trying to reason with Frankie why he should come in and work with the other students, and he was just as firmly refusing to go inside to do reading. Frankie was rather large for his age of ten-and-a-half, and had been playing somewhat the role of a bully. Because of this, and since I was considerably larger than Frankie, I decided I would try something. In what I hoped was a calm and quiet voice I said, "Frankie, I want to be your friend, I know that you need some help in reading. You are not going to get it out here, so I am going to give you a choice. Would you like me to carry you in and sit you down, or shall we walk in together - - the choice is up to you." He looked at me in sort of a strange way. I guess he believed what I said, or at least that I would or could carry him in, and for somebody who was the tough guy, this may have seemed totally unacceptable. At any rate he said, "OK, let's go in together." I not only went in with him, but sat down with him, and the teacher, him and I worked together. The remainder of the day I tried to notice him in a special and friendly way. He continued to have problems with the other campers but was at least relating in a positive way to me, and with some persuasion, to the teachers who were working with him. During the two weeks that included forty hours of instruction alternated with recreational activities, Frankie made just under four years' progress in word attack skills. And while he was not the ideal camper, by the end of the camp, there had been some progress made in his relationship with others. The next time I met Frankie was approximately one year later, on a ball field near where I was preparing another group of teachers to work at a summer reading camp. His expression was so much more pleasant that I wasn't sure at first he was the same boy. I waited to see what would happen. He came to where I was standing and began to talk, and sure enough he remembered me. We discussed how school was going and what he was doing. He had come to stay with his uncle for a week before going to the reading camp, but this year he wanted to take mathematics. He indicated that school had been much easier and that reading was really no longer a problem. At reading camp we not only tested the mathematics but also the reading. He had maintained his progress and I listened to him read orally. With reasonable effort he read an adult book having a ninth-to-tenth-grade reading difficulty. I learned much more about Frankie (Billy) at this camp, for we no longer allowed the other children to call him Frankie. I learned about his background and I learned how sensitive he was. He was an adopted child and something had happened that caused him to be rejected by his adopted mother. Apparently different things Billy did had caused individuals to say he was dumb or stupid or mean, and over a period of time he began to act in just exactly that way. Circumstances became sufficiently strained that he went to live with his adopted grandmother. Fortunately for Billy, she is very loving, skilled, patient, and has tried to help him in many ways. I feel sure his progress not only relates to his recent success but also to the loving rapport I have seen between him and his grandmother. I also learned how sensitive Frankie was inside the gruff exterior that he had adopted. We began the math activities on the first day with a timed test of multiplication facts. Billy was the last to finish and when he recognized this, he covered his face and began to cry to himself. For several days one of the camp staff members or myself worked with Billy individually in an area that was separate from where we were doing mathematics with the rest of the campers so he would not be competing with others. As he saw the charted progress that he was making and we discussed the importance of his not comparing himself with others but simply making sure that he made progress, he became less sensitive. Towards the end of the first week he asked to go back and work where the other students were working. Billy made about two years' progress in mathematics. However, he is still below grade level and has a difficult time in learning and remembering arithmetic concepts. We have established a systematic program and are continuing to work with him. His attitudes have become very positive and he is making progress but is still unable to concentrate for extended periods of time without some physical activity. Fred. Fred was going into the eighth grade, appeared bright, but was very down on arithmetic. As we talked initially, he indicated that he was going to take the minimum math necessary to get through high school and would never consider taking algebra. As it turned out, Fred was quite bright but somehow in one of his arithmetic classes he had learned something other than arithmetic, he had learned to believe that he couldn't do arithmetic. We started out by giving a diagnostic test and identifying those things that Fred could and couldn't do. He was weak in the area of addition and multiplication facts. However, he quickly developed speed and accuracy with systematic drill and practice. We then took one area at a time where he had difficulty. As he learned how to do a new process, we would have him work a set of problems involving every type of problem that he could do to this point plus the new types he had just learned. About half of the worksheets or "tests" were timed. Each problem that he missed was analyzed to determine why he missed the problem and the mistake was corrected. Fred's computational scores on normed tests moved from well below grade level to well above the eighth grade level. What seemed just as important as the progress in arithmetic was his change in attitude. Fred wants to come back to math camp next year so we can help him get ready to take algebra. In fact, he thinks that maybe he can begin to learn algebra during the forty hours of instruction in the two weeks of camp. Fred is sufficiently bright that not only might he learn some algebra but perhaps with a good programmed text and his current level of motivation, he might complete most of the course. Charlie. Charlie was a third-grader in a school that Andrews University Reading Center was asked to assist in some intensive reading programs. When the clinician and the graduate students began to work in Charlie's room, Charlie announced to them, "I can't read." And sure enough, he couldn't. Not only couldn't Charlie read, but it appeared to have made him rather negative toward what was happening at school. The program in Charlie's room involved a highly structured, intensive program in reading where the students did nothing but reading during the entire instructional day for a week. Toward the end of the week, Charlie made the statement to one of the clinicians, "You know, I can read now," and seemed to be quite positive and excited about what was happening. We wondered to what extent his new word attack skills would carry over after the intensive reading program ended. We got an answer in a way that we didn't expect. About a month after the program had completed in Charlie's room, the class was given one of the regular reading tests which were part of the normal reading program. Charlie missed only two points, as did another girl who initially was a non-reader when the program began. The two children were so excited that they asked the teacher for permission to go and call home. Each went and called their parents to tell them how well they had done. Charlie was so excited that he had to do something else, so on the way back to the room he stopped by the restroom and jumped up so he could swing on the bar across one of the restroom stalls. He began to swing back and forth, chanting "I only missed two." It was so loud that the school principal, walking by the hall, heard the disturbance. Now, the school principal is about six-feet-four, and weights over two hundred pounds, and is well-respected by all of the students, especially the younger ones. He began to chew Charlie out for swinging from the bar and making so much noise, but Charlie acted as though he didn't even hear, he just turned and grinned at the principal, and looked at him saying, "I only missed two." When the principal found out what he was talking about, he got Charlie down and back to the room and related the story to one of the clinicians. He commented, "You know, when Charlie told me that and I understood what he was talking about, I almost cried." BIBLIOGRAPHY Blair, Glenn Myers, R. Stewart Jones, Ray H. Simpson. Educational Psychology. 4th ed. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, Inc., 1975. Bowlby, John. Maternal Care and Mental Health. 2d ed. New York: Schocken Books, 1967 Cooper, Robert K. and Sawaf, Ayman. Executive EQ: Emotional Intelligence in Leadership & Organizations Penguin Putman, Inc. 1997. ISBN 0-339-14294-0 Guilford, J.P. "Intelligence: 1965 Model." The American Psychologist 21 (1966) : 21. Skeels, Harold M. "Adult Status of Children with Contrasting Early Life Experiences." Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development. Vol. 31 (3), No. 105, 1966. Wechsler, David. Measurement of Adult Intelligence. 3d ed. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1944.
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