The rhetorical techniques that Hambrick and Meinz use to appeal to their audience are very effective. The write with a large appeal to the logos of the audience because Hambrick and Meinz write about three different scientific research studies: one conducted by Florida State University, one conducted by Vanderbilt University, and one they conducted. This technique establishes Hambrick and Meinz as creditable authors with the audience. The descriptions of the studies prove that they know what they are talking about and that they did their research before compiling it all into the article. This article really makes the audience think about practice and intellectual ability when it comes to talent. One particular line that showed the authors' opinions was "None of this is to deny the power of practice. Nor is it to say that it's impossible for a person with an average I.Q. to say, earn a Ph.D. in physics. It's just unlikely, relatively speaking. Sometimes the story that science tells us isn't the story we want to hear," (Hambrick, Meinz 1). David Hambrick and Elizabeth Meinz write a convincing informative article about the need for intellectual ability to have a specific talent.
Source: Hambrick, David Z. , and Elizabeth J. Meinz. "Sorry, Strivers: Talent Matters." The New York Times 19 Nov. 2011, Sunday ed., sec. Opinion: n. pag. The New York Times. Web. 20 Nov. 2011.
"Sorry, Talents: Strivers Matter"
ReplyDelete[A response to "Sorry, Strivers: Talent Matters," 19 November 2011, New York Times]
Chris Thinnes is a parent and an educator who lives in Los Angeles. He is the Head of the Upper Elementary School & Academic Dean at Curtis School, a member of the Advisory Group of EdLeader21, and the director of the Center for the Future of Elementary Education at Curtis School (www.CurtisCFEE.org), which recently brought together educators from 103 schools and districts for "Transforming Elementary Education: An Evening with Sir Ken Robinson."
David Hambrick and Elizabeth Meinz -- formerly intellectually precocious youths who are publishing papers as Ph.D.s in the university system -- assert in their Op-Ed last Sunday ("Sorry, Strivers: Talent Matters") the "remarkable finding" that "intellectually precocious youths," as measured by high SAT scores, are "more likely to go on to earn a doctorate, secure a patent, publish an article in a scientific journal or publish a literary work."
Stunning!
Tellingly, they furnish a backhanded tribute to every other long-term study of the merits of effort versus intelligence, in childhood development and education, that we have on hand to review: "It would be nice if intellectual ability . . . were important for success only up to a point. . . But wishing doesn't make it so."
It would be nice if Drs. Hambrick and Meinz understood the self-evidence that academic success in school bodes well for success in an academic career. It would be nicer, still, if they reviewed research demonstrating the capacity of successful schools to remediate "gaps in working memory" in school age children, alongside other differences in students' proficiencies that they dangerously imply to be part of the natural order of things. It would be nicest of all, if the Associate Professors would explain how a doctorate, a patent, an article, or a book were a necessary and sufficient condition for 'success' in the twenty-first century.
But wishing doesn't make it so.
Most of us know the fundamental limitation of Hambrick and Meinz's argument: 'intellectual ability' is not a fixed trait that can be forecast by schools or tests, as they would have it, but a set of malleable skills that can be developed with mindful learning strategies and by motivated, consistent efforts. Parents and schools no longer have the right merely to identify and promote children with 'intellectual ability,' but the responsibility and the opportunity to create them.
None of this is to deny the power of 'intelligence.' Nor is it to say that it’s impossible for a person with a high I.Q. to, say, understand the limited capacity of a study on SAT scores, to inform a sweeping dismissal of a decade's prevailing research on neuroplasticity in the departments of medicine and education. It’s just unlikely, relatively speaking. Sometimes the stories that harder work and more thorough research reveal to us aren't the stories we want to hear.
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My parents have always told me that "Practice makes perfect."
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