Re:Many gifted children fail academically
by xiaoma on Monday May 10, 2010 @10:49AM
(#1334564)
>If a child is gifted, and does not succeed, does that not mean they are not gifted?
If an athlete is muscular and does not succeed, does that mean they are not muscular? Adjectives are useful for talking and thinking about things, but it's a mistake to try to reduce every attribute of an individual into a metric for "success" or failure in some area. Being intelligent no more guarantees success, whatever that means, than being beautiful or tall or diligent. Those are still useful descriptive characteristics, though.
If an athlete is muscular and does not succeed, does that mean they are not muscular? Adjectives are useful for talking and thinking about things, but it's a mistake to try to reduce every attribute of an individual into a metric for "success" or failure in some area. Being intelligent no more guarantees success, whatever that means, than being beautiful or tall or diligent. Those are still useful descriptive characteristics, though.