Amanda Ripley takes on the thing that educators often struggle with in today’s excerpt from her book, The Smartest Kids In The World: How figure out if kids care about school.
Over the next three decades, more and more studies showed that when it came to predicting which kids grew up to be thriving adults—who succeeded in life and in their jobs—cognitive abilities only went so far.
Something else mattered just as much, and sometimes more, to kids’ life chances. This other dark matter had more to do with attitude than the ability to solve a calculus problem. In one study of U.S. eighth graders, for example, the best predictor of academic performance was not the children’s IQ scores—but their self-discipline.
Don’t forget, join us for a chat (sub. req.) with Ripley today at noon.
