Intelligence and Interest

Intelligence and Interest 

Hiworks 2019/12/06 14:55

Every child is intelligent but whether that will reflect in school work is a different ballgame altogether.

A child scored 95% in Mathematics but 20% in Literature. Another child scored 95% in fine art but 10% in Mathematics.

Another child can sing all the top chatting songs; local and international, but he or she is very poorly in school work.

If a teacher or a parent or guardian labels any of these a dullard, that will be a misjudgment of that child's intuition and it is very unfortunate.

None of the children described is lacking in intelligence; they have only failed to display the virtue in organized learning, resulting in poor credit scores.

A lot of factors may be responsible for that, the major being lack of interest.

In dealing with a lack of interest, the parent or guardian of the child must be careful not to label a child a dullard as that may adversely affect the self-confidence of the ward when such a statement is made from trusted adult(s).

This is one of the challenges of today's educational programs and it was hoped that the proliferation of private schools from basic to higher education institutions would address that educational gap. 

Building a child's confidence level must start from the kindergarten and be built through to college. The ability of a child to robustly build interest across talents and academic works must be core to the program. The same brain that will remember Tuface songs back to back will also remember Social Studies back to back.

 Unfortunately, effective standardized Montessori private schools serve very privileged few that can afford to pay the premium cost.

It is better to just leave a child to coast through those subjects he lacks interest in than to label such with such degenerating phrase, like a dullard.

We can't but mentioned that lack of interest most times is a product of poor quality teaching, lack of teaching aids like pictures and videos and learning methodology such that under a different way of approach, some of the wards performances actually improve, because intelligence was never the challenge but interest.

You will see a lot of this displayed by those wards with overall poor performance but they can sing back to back all the songs from Backstreet Boys,  or 2face Idibia, Vector or Dbanj or............... See I am having difficulty remembering their names, not for lack of intelligence, but a strong interest in that area.

Some of the wards have been allowed to growth interest in various distracting activities like gaming and watching TV at a very young age and they are at the mercy of their unguided judgement to do whatever they like at anytime they so choose. Now,  they are teenagers and uncontrollable and addicted to various distractions to learning.

Like it is said, a problem identified is half solved. Addressing the educational gaps is a collective responsibility of government, teachers, guardians and parents. But while that is an ongoing process, let's not add to the challenge of the children by labeling them negatively. We should, all of us responsible for the development of the ward, help the child buildup interest in the areas such are poorly or help them find their strength and nurture them.

Some children have been found to improve generally just by boosting their morale and celebrating every effort they put in for improvement.

When we as parents do not know what to do about the performance improvement of our children, we should seek help prayerfully and also find  counselors professionally trained to provide such support.

More comments are welcomed. 

Hiworks

2019/12/06 14:55