Re: The Promise of Forth

On Tue, 1 Apr 2008 01:32:12 -0700, Bernd Paysan wrote
(in article <dh89c5-mlt.ln1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>):

>> I suspect an American high school kid today would be completely lost in
an
>> IQ test written for the same age in 1880. They would look very stupid
and
>> ignorant. Heck, they probably don't even know why a horse would need
steel
>> shoes or how to store ice till summer.
> 
> That's not the kind of questions IQ tests ask. The tests are usually
more
> about pattern matching (visual pattern, number pattern, and word
pattern).
> IQ tests try to avoid knowledge. You can train on IQ tests, though, and
> other mental training can increase your score, too. IQ tests don't test
> intelligence as such, but what they test is supposed to somehow
correlate
> with intelligence.

True, but you have to be able to read the instructions and understand the 
context. Kids from the sixties might find a modern test full of vocabulary

that makes no sense. 

I wonder about video games. My experience with today's kids is that they 
develop a relentless trial and error approach to problem solving -- in
games 
at least. They tend to give up easy in school.  I ran through a
complicated 
game of my nephew's in an afternoon that took him weeks. He just kept
trying 
different things and dying. I could see there was some logic to the game
and 
puzzle solving. It wasn't hard, he just refused to (or couldn't) approach
it 
that way.

I teach high school math and physics and the kids are definitely good at
the 
hand-eye coordination and rapid recognition of friend/foe in an action
game, 
but strangely enough, in reaction time games with each other, I beat them
all 
and I'm 56. They are 14 to 18.

-- Charlie Springer