11/18/2014 06:04:00 PM
I've always believed in the growth mindset, how intelligence is a fluid thing and it can be changed if you worked hard (or slacked, maybe) though I do believe that maybe a portion of it is genetic. (But isn't the attitude to work hard also genetic?)
I have conflicting ideas of what is "smartness" sigh. Firstly, there's the genetic part that everyone believes in. It explains why some people seem to score super super well and look like they can balance everything in their life, or ace an exam with only a few days of studying, maybe take up leadership positions, do sports, and ace their a levels at the same time. It's something that I admittedly believed in when I was in primary school, when I secretly believed I was smart oops (okay don't hit me I was a naive kid) so I had to score well :/ I just had to. I guess I did study, but there was definitely a part of me that believed I could do well without studying much sigh. Since I never really knew what it meant not to score well... Until psle of course. When it hit me right back in the face. After psle I thought it was because of the English essay, or the maths section c that killed me, but in sec sch I believed it was the gaming. Thinking about it now, I think it was really the mindset. I was super complacent about maths, did science only because it was interesting :/ (okay I just suck at languages though) Okay, there must be something genetic about learning, since I find maths and science easier to grasp and languages too difficult and impossible.
But there must be a portion attributed to working hard (and attitude)? After all my maths skills deteriorated after all those years of not putting any effort to do mental calculations, and my physics understanding dropped a lot after putting all my focus on humanities in a bid to save it. Or maybe it was due me focusing all my time on CCA? (I used to read physics books for fun in primary school; now I don't even understand electric fields and gravitational fields deeply) I'm not sure, but I guess we all have limited time and what we use for that limited time is what we specialize in and what we become good at. Everyone must have something they are good at if this argument holds?
Maybe what is meant by the usual "smartness" is the genetic portion of things and results are a proxy to deducing such genetic smartness. But what if you "created" that smartness with hard work? Isit possible at all? Could a radical change in attitude and mindset and hard work allow you to leapfrog people who are supposedly "genetically smart"? (Or maybe the money to have good tuition lol, with plenty of resources)
I really really love to have the 100% growth mindset that everything can be changed with hard work but then it can't explain how some people can learn at crazy speeds (maybe put in less work and still score better) or "just have a natural talent" for something.
But whatever, I think it's good to believe that u can somehow change your "smartness" through determination and hard work, since it gives some purpose and meaning behind the hard work. If not, what exactly are you working for? Maybe I'm just stubborn and refuse to admit that smartness cannot be changed so I can't do anything about it. Oh well.
Wtf a freaking long post haha.
All because I read http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/dweck and it got me thinking about a topic that is so sensitive I can't really discuss it freely with anyone sooooooooo here's my reflections over the past years haha. It's a question I've been asking myself for a really long time I guess.
