The Dangers of Intelligence

Alberto Franco

9/1/12

Smith 5th

The Dangers of Intelligence

What is intelligence? Many people (those who have a fixed mindset) would say that intelligence is a quality that you either have or don't. Others would disagree (those with a growth mindset) and say that it is something that you can develop and nourish. I think that intelligence is something that you can develop and not a quality that you have or don't.

Every student wants to be smart, but a lot don't bother to learn how to become smarter because they believe that they are already as smart as they'll ever be, which is not true. All you really need to do to become smarter is to put forth effort and challenge yourself so you can learn from your mistakes and overtime you'll be smarter. Everyone is born smart but each individual has to work hard to stay that way and to develop our intelligence. That is why some individuals appear smarter, they have simply challenged themselves more as well as put more effort into their studies to be able to expand their capacities. In another article, Transforming Students' Motivation to Learn, it states "We praised the children in one group for their intelligence, telling them, '"Wow, that's a really good score. You must be smart at this." We praised the children in the other group for their effort: "Wow, that's a really good score. You must have worked really hard." That's all we did, but the results were dramatic." The one's that were praised for their effort performed better than the ones who were praised for their intelligence, that is because effort creates ability. To get a student to show a lot of effort YOU have to praise them on their effort, but be careful to not give too much praise, as too much praise can also dampen a student's motivation. Another thing that can motivate students is trust, if students feel that they are trusted they will be likely to care more and show motivation. A last thing you can do is to make sure they don't feel obligated by you to have to be motivated, although they should feel obligated to be motivated by themselves, but if the motivation is forced and not genuine the results will be the same as if they weren't motivated. However, no matter how hard you try to motivate students, at the end it will still always be up to them whether they want to fulfill their responsibilities as a student to learn or not. Some of their responsibilities include doing all their work to their full abilities, listening/ paying attention, turning assignments in on time, and listening to directions.

Intelligence is something you can develop over time through effort and by staying motivated through help of others so that you can complete