IQ The Educational Elephant in the Room | Richard Summers | TEDxBrighton

Summary

The speaker reflects on their traumatic primary school experiences and their journey to help others become stronger and smarter. They discuss the limitations of IQ as a measure of intelligence and success, emphasizing the importance of Artisan and complexity intelligence. The speaker advocates for a shift in education to focus on developing these aspects, rather than solely on IQ, to better support students' creativity and confidence.

Takeaways

• 😢 The speaker's primary school memories are marred by sexual molestation, physical violence, and emotional cruelty.
• 🧠 The speaker's life mission is to help others become stronger and smarter to achieve happiness, stemming from their own traumatic past.
• 🌟 The speaker has had a diverse career, including being a scientist, entrepreneur, educator, martial artist, and antiterrorism trainer.
• 🔬 The speaker's current work involves understanding the brain's cognitive processes, particularly in the context of digital marketing.
• 📉 The speaker identifies a problem at the core of education: it crushes creativity and destroys confidence.
• 🧐 IQ tests, which are predictive of many life outcomes, are largely inherited and not significantly influenced by education.
• 📚 The speaker argues that schools should focus on developing Artisan intelligence and complexity intelligence, rather than just abstract intelligence (IQ).
• 🎓 Schools should be ranked based on their ability to develop students' personalities and not just their academic performance.
• 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 The speaker suggests that education should prioritize happiness, kindness, contribution, and relationship-building over academic scores.
• 🌐 The speaker believes technology can help bridge the gap between teachers' goals, government measurements, and student outcomes.

Q & A

What are the clearest memories the speaker has of their primary school experience?

The speaker's clearest memories of primary school are of sexual molestation, physical violence, and emotional cruelty.

What mantra did the speaker have during their difficult school years?

The speaker had a mantra of 'if only I was stronger, if only I was smarter' during their difficult school years.

What did the speaker dedicate their life to after their challenging experiences?

After their challenging experiences, the speaker dedicated their life to helping other children and people become stronger and smarter to achieve happiness.

What diverse fields has the speaker worked in throughout their career?

The speaker has worked as a scientist, entrepreneur, educator, martial artist, and antiterrorism trainer, and has even collaborated with Stephen Hawking.

What is the primary focus of the company the speaker currently runs?

The speaker's company focuses on unraveling the mysteries of how the brain works, particularly in the context of digital marketing and consumer interactions with brands.

What is the 'elephant in the room' issue the speaker wants to address in education?

The 'elephant in the room' in education is the problem at its core that crushes creativity and destroys confidence, which the speaker believes is related to the misunderstanding and mishandling of IQ.

Why is IQ significant according to the speaker?

IQ is significant because it is the most predictive psychometric ever discovered, strongly correlating with peak income, likelihood of divorce, and academic performance.

What does the speaker suggest is the inheritability of IQ based on twin studies?

The speaker suggests that IQ is largely inherited, with studies showing that by the age of 12, parental input has been completely wiped out in terms of its influence on a child's IQ.

What is the speaker's view on the effectiveness of schools in raising IQ?

The speaker views schools as ineffective in raising IQ significantly, stating that the difference in performance between the bottom 2% and top 2% of schools is only a 6.5% swing.

What are the three types of intelligence the speaker identifies?

The speaker identifies three types of intelligence: abstraction intelligence (IQ), Artisan intelligence (ability to learn new things), and complexity intelligence (social or emotional intelligence).

What does the speaker propose should be the focus of education instead of IQ?

The speaker proposes that education should focus on Artisan intelligence, encouraging practice and skill development, and on complexity intelligence, nurturing personality development.

Outlines

00:00

🌟 Overcoming Early Trauma Through Education

The speaker begins by sharing their traumatic experiences from primary school, including sexual molestation, physical violence, and emotional cruelty. These experiences felt akin to a Dickens novel and led to a personal mantra of wishing to be stronger and smarter. Despite the mantra being misguided, it propelled the speaker towards a life dedicated to helping others become happier by being stronger and smarter. The speaker's journey has been diverse, including roles as a scientist, entrepreneur, educator, martial artist, and antiterrorism trainer. They've worked with elite forces, traveled the world, and even met Stephen Hawking. Currently, they run a company that explores the brain's mysteries through digital marketing, aiming to understand consumer cognitive processes on an unprecedented scale.

05:02

🧠 The Misunderstanding of IQ in Education

The speaker delves into the topic of IQ, explaining it as a measure of general intelligence with an average of 100 and a range of 85 to 115 for most people. IQ is predictive of peak income, likelihood of divorce, and academic performance. However, the problem lies in the fact that IQ is largely inherited, as shown by studies on twins. The speaker criticizes the education system for ignoring this fact, leading to a series of mistakes. They argue that while IQ is important, it's not the only measure of intelligence and that the focus should shift towards other aspects of intelligence that can be developed, such as Artisan and complexity intelligence.

10:03

🎓 Redefining Education Beyond IQ

The speaker introduces the concept of three types of intelligence: abstraction (IQ), Artisan (learning new skills), and complexity (social and emotional intelligence). They explain that while IQ is singular and inherited, Artisan intelligence is based on practice and complexity intelligence is related to personality development, which is influenced by school life. The speaker suggests that education should focus on developing Artisan intelligence by encouraging practice and skill development in various areas, as well as on nurturing complexity intelligence through positive school experiences. They propose a shift in how schools are measured, suggesting that personality development should be a key indicator of a school's success.

15:04

🌈 A Vision for a More Holistic Education

In the final paragraph, the speaker reflects on the broader goals of education, emphasizing happiness, kindness, contribution to society, and the ability to form relationships over academic performance or professional success. They argue that by focusing on IQ, the education system disenfranchises many students. The speaker envisions a future where teachers and governments work together, using technology to measure and improve educational outcomes that truly matter. They conclude with a call for a reevaluation of what truly matters in education and a hope for a system that supports the holistic development of students.

Keywords

💡Sexual molestation

Sexual molestation refers to any unwanted sexual behavior, often involving children. In the video, the speaker recalls their primary school experiences, which were marred by sexual molestation, physical violence, and emotional cruelty. This sets the stage for the speaker's journey towards helping others become stronger and smarter to overcome such adverse experiences.

💡Emotional cruelty

Emotional cruelty involves inflicting mental or emotional suffering on others. The speaker mentions emotional cruelty as part of their traumatic school memories, highlighting the deep psychological impact it had on them and others. This concept is central to understanding the speaker's motivation to improve educational experiences for children.

💡Mantra

A mantra is a slogan or phrase that encapsulates a belief or intention. The speaker's early mantra, 'if only I was stronger, if only I was smarter,' reflects their misguided belief that their suffering was due to a lack of strength or intelligence. This mantra contrasted with their later realization that such experiences had nothing to do with these attributes.

💡Diversity

Diversity refers to the variety of different elements, in this case, experiences and roles. The speaker's journey included being a scientist, entrepreneur, educator, martial artist, and antiterrorism trainer, showcasing a diverse range of experiences that contributed to their unique perspective on education.

💡Cognitive processes

Cognitive processes are the mental actions or operations involved in thinking, perceiving, remembering, and learning. The speaker's company focuses on understanding these processes in consumers' interactions with brands, which is a departure from traditional educational models and reflects the speaker's broader interest in how the brain works.

💡IQ

IQ, or Intelligence Quotient, is a measure of a person's cognitive abilities. The video discusses IQ as a predictor of academic performance and peak income. The speaker challenges the audience to consider the implications of IQ being largely inherited and what that means for education.

💡Abstraction intelligence

Abstraction intelligence is the ability to deal with abstract concepts and problem-solving. It is part of the broader discussion on the different types of intelligence the speaker identifies. This concept is key to understanding the limitations of a singular measure of intelligence like IQ.

💡Artisan intelligence

Artisan intelligence refers to the ability to learn and master new skills, such as music or chess. The speaker emphasizes the importance of recognizing and nurturing this type of intelligence in education, as it is more closely tied to practice and personal development than inherited abilities.

💡Complexity intelligence

Complexity intelligence involves social and emotional intelligence, as well as aesthetic intelligence. It is one of the three types of intelligence discussed by the speaker and is linked to personality development, which the speaker argues should be a focus in education.

💡Big five

The big five refers to the five broad factors or dimensions of personality traits, often used in psychology to describe human personality. The speaker discusses how the school environment can significantly influence these traits, suggesting that education should focus on nurturing well-rounded personalities.

💡Use it or lose it

Use it or lose it is a principle that suggests that skills or abilities can deteriorate from disuse. The speaker mentions this in relation to the brain's cognitive processes, emphasizing the importance of practice and engagement in developing and maintaining intelligence.

Highlights

The speaker's most vivid childhood memories were of sexual molestation, physical violence, and emotional cruelty.

Their early life experiences led to a lifelong dedication to helping others become stronger and smarter.

The speaker has had a diverse career as a scientist, entrepreneur, educator, martial artist, and antiterrorism trainer.

They worked with Stephen Hawking at Cambridge, traveled the world, and worked with elite forces.

Currently, they run a company that explores the mysteries of how the brain works, particularly in digital marketing.

Their company interacts with up to 26 million people a day, providing unprecedented data on cognitive processes.

The speaker believes there is an 'elephant in the room' in education that has been ignored for decades.

IQ tests were trying to tell us something important about education 30 years ago, but society didn't want to listen.

IQ is the most predictive psychometric ever discovered, strongly correlating with peak income, academic performance, and even likelihood of divorce.

IQ is largely inherited, with studies showing that by age 12, parental influence on a child's IQ is negligible.

The speaker argues that education should focus on what can be changed, rather than on inherited IQ.

They propose that there are three types of intelligence: abstraction, Artisan, and complexity.

Artisan intelligence is about learning new skills and is heavily influenced by practice and behavior.

Complexity intelligence is related to personality development and can be influenced by school life.

The speaker suggests ranking schools by their ability to develop students' personalities, not just academic performance.

They argue for a reevaluation of what truly matters in education, focusing on happiness, kindness, contribution, and relationship-building.

The speaker concludes by expressing hope that technology can help resolve the conflict between teachers and governments over educational goals.

Transcripts

[Music]

so my clearest memories of primary

school um and you can guess from the

title this is what I'm going to talk

about my clearest memories are of sexual

molestation physical violence and

emotional cruelty and for me I always

look back when I talk to my peers about

my schooling and I feel that what I

experience was closer to a Dickens novel

than what most people do it little far

obviously inside me I had a a mantra if

only I was Stronger if only I was

smarter um and that kind of that Mantra

although it's very unstable and and it's

very misguided obviously what happened

to me had nothing to do about being

strong or by about being smart and it

also has nothing about being happy which

is what I then dedicated my life to is

how do I help other children other

people people get stronger and smarter

so they can be happier but what I find

interesting is I'm luckily or wisely I

don't really know how it happened I made

my life about trying to achieve that for

other people and even though I had this

sort of my misguided sense of the world

of where I was trying to go it put me on

this amazing journey which has been

incredibly diverse um I hope it's a

unique perspective on the world um it's

taken me in all sorts of areas so I'm a

scientist I'm a entrepreneur uh I've

been an educator um and yes I've even

worked as as a martial artist and an

antiterrorism trainer um I've got to

work with Steven Hawking which was a

great privilege when I was at Cambridge

I have um traveled the world and worked

with all sorts of of elite forces and

tried to save lives there but I've also

traveled to Libya and um seen firsthand

uh what that was like when Colonel

Gaddafi was in power so I've been into a

number of places and where that's led me

now is is I now run a company I spent

most of my days running a company where

what we do is roll back the great

mysteries of how the brain works and we

do it in a way that you wouldn't imagine

you'd think that was some sort of

Education business and it's not we work

in digital marketing what we do is we

map and measure and respond to the

cognitive processes that consumers uh go

through as they interact with Brands but

interestingly we get to work with as

many as 26 million people in a day and

it's it's kind of like a lab on a scale

that's utterly unprecedented

and it gives me the chance to it's kind

of a dream come true to look into the

Mysteries that kind of always perplexed

me before I got into this area because

they just didn't have enough information

or data to solve

them and what I want to talk about today

is what I call the elephant in the room

with education it's something that has

been dear to my heart for well I mean

since the beginning but this particular

topic for at least 10 years um and what

I think is true is that there's a

problem at the heart of Education that

we all know we know that although it

works for some for many it crushes

creativity and it destroys their

confidence and the reason for that or

one of the reasons I believe is that

about 30 years ago essentially IQ was

trying to tell us something and we

didn't want to listen we didn't want to

hear what it was trying to tell us

because it seemed so

unpalatable and so because we wanted

lives to be better for our kids we kind

of ignored it we didn't know you might

not know directly that's what you did

but that's what happened and ever since

then we've been kind of making mistake

after mistake in education what I want

to do today is to take you on a journey

I want to turn the world upside down I

want to talk go straight into that

uncomfortable place with what IQ is

telling us but then to show you that if

you've got the courage to sit with that

to not try and deny it but also to not

accept it straight away there's a

journey through that and interesting

what I found is that journey goes back

to what we all know is true what we

really want for our kids and what we

know is right for if you like for

education so I suppose the best place to

start is well what is IQ um it's

obviously a very well-known thing it is

basic your general intelligence your

ability to solve problems the average is

100 most people range from 85 to 115 and

there's the odd genius out there one in

a million that's over

170 um so what does IQ why is it so

important because it's the most

predictive psychometric that's ever been

discovered it strongly predicts your

Peak income for instance it even

predicts How likely you are to get

divorced um and most significantly it is

incredibly strongly correlated with your

academic performance so what's the

problem the problem's really simple IQ

is basically inherited how do we know

that well we knew that 30 Years Ago by

studying what happens to twins for

instance when they're adopted and

brought up in different families um

obviously if they're brought up in the

same family by comparing it and by doing

that they create studies that could show

which bits of your IQ came from your

genes which bits came from your family

from your parents putting input in and

which bit came from your school

essentially um the most interesting of

those I find is this one which was a a

fantastic study that looked at a group

of uh I think it was 250 children

roughly through their lifetime and what

I find the most scary thing about this

is if you look at the age of five as a

parent you're contributing hugely maybe

not the dominant thing but you're all

almost as equally to to their genes in

terms of their IQ but the message here

if you look at the chart sort of goes

downwards is not just that as the child

approaches 12 we're no longer inputting

into their IQ it's that our input has

been completely wiped

out

now the thing is with IQ is you don't

need infinite amounts of it in fact by

the time you reach 115 points you can

pretty much do anything you want so IQ

is really predictive between 85 and 115

where most of us sit

the problem is yes if we could raise IQ

on average in education by 15 points

then lives would be transformed but

science is telling us you can only raise

it by about four points and reality is

saying you're not even doing that so

what do I mean by

reality one of the things we do with

schools is we rank them through sat

tests the standardized academic test

they correlate very well with IQ and we

use that as somehow a way of

benchmarking how good a school is but

what we're actually doing is

benchmarking how smart the children were

always destined to be in terms of

IQ when they enter the school and when

they left the school it's all the same

now if we take that away if we just look

at what's the difference between When

the Children enter the school and when

they leave the school we get a radically

different picture between the bottom 2%

of schools and the top 2% of schools

there is only a 6 and a half% swing in

performance now I don't know if that

sounds significant but it shouldn't it

should be 100% it should be 200% it

should be m passive but it isn't it's

tiny and that's practically saying

something that is very difficult to hear

we're born with a certain amount of IQ

or destined to have a certain amount of

IQ that determines a certain amount of

factors one of those is how well you're

going to do at school and there is

nothing you can do from the day that

you're born to the day you finished

school to change that very much now

there'll always be exceptions to that

rule but I'm talking about the rule of

the average and yet we're using that to

measure the performance of education so

that's what I mean by the doc place the

place that was unpalatable and we didn't

want to go now what's interesting to me

as a neuroscientist is it's the last

thing I would ever expect to be true of

the human brain that there would be this

one parameter this one thing that could

measure your intelligence there's a sort

of a single number and I don't mean that

from kind of my heart place that I look

around me and there's such diversity in

the world of people that's true too but

the brain isn't really built in a way

that you'd think that would work so just

as a starting point I just wanted to

bring across the power of the brain so

when I start in computers the big the

most powerful computer in the world is a

cray 2 it's shown up there at the moment

it was this massive thing it would at

least fill the stage probably more it

was so powerful it had to have liquid

nitrogen to cool its cause and it's

roughly the power of the iPhone 6 in

your pocket today right now if the

iPhone 6 is a walking pace in terms of

computers then it would take you about a

year to walk from here to

Sydney as your foot touched the pavement

on your first step your brain would go

around the world 200,000 times

that's the difference between your

iPhone 6 and what you're carrying in

your head right now it's absolutely vast

but even more interestingly it's so

diverse it's nothing it's the last thing

you would expect from what I just told

you you're not one computer you're 100

billion computers and in fact the

intelligence that you are is encoded in

a 100 trillion connections between those

computers are those connections built

from your genes no they're not they're

built on a use it or lose it principle

in fact your brain goes through the

equivalent of a trillion years of human

evolution over its lifetime it's also a

very it's got lots of little localized

clusters of of of things that that work

so there's a little bit that deals with

grammar and there's a little bit that

deals with recognizing faces and there

are hundreds of these centers across the

brain so when you look at it you

wouldn't think that there would be a

single measure of intelligence you'd

think that there would be thousands and

they would be based on the environment

not on

genetics Now by the work that I've done

and simply the the number of people

we've been able to unlock this a little

bit further and then to understand other

studies that have been there about kind

of other properties that people have and

in fact what we've discovered what we're

working with is there are actually three

sorts of intelligence one is abstraction

intelligence what we've been talking

about the ability to layer abstract

ideas IQ problem solving then there's

Artisan our ability to learn new things

whether that's Chess music you know all

those skills that we can pick up and

then complexity intelligence which is

the last thing you expect to mean if

it's social it's more like an emotional

intelligence and if it's kind of pointed

inwards it's an aesthetic intelligence

so like I said not not quite what you

might expect and although um you can't

study them exactly we've worked out a

huge amount about these and been able to

relate them to various functions and and

studies around the brain now the first

thing I want to cover of is how on Earth

can IQ be singular and the best way I

can explain that to you is that although

the IQ test it's misunderstood it's a

very varied test it's got verbal

reasoning numer skills spatial awareness

it works using your conscious mind all

the time and by doing that there's a

feature it's very hard to define

consciousness but there's a feature you

can Define quite easily and that can be

seen in these pictures if you look at

the pictures you can either see um one

version or the other your mind can flip

between the two but seeing both at the

same time is pretty much impossible your

conscious brain brings the world into a

single scene it's the most amazing thing

our brain does it's done by billions of

connections bringing your whole

neocortex your upper brain into

synchrony in about half a second and IQ

has to do with the performance of that

system which is why it's a single

measure now let's go to something else

Artisan intelligence the clearest bit of

information I give you about that is

when scientists studied what I call

skill athletes chess players musicians

and they looked at the difference

between the world's best and the

professionals and sort of the people in

the middle they found one consistent

thing that linked them together and that

was the number of hours of practice the

people at the top about 20,000 the

people who are just kind of on the

professional ladder 5,000 everyone else

in between what's interesting is we've

gone from having something that's

completely almost inherited to something

that's completely based on our behavior

and

choices um now the next thing complexity

intelligence is very hard to study

whether that's aesthetic or or social or

emotional but what we have discovered by

studing a number of these kind of

thousands of factors that make it up is

it is related to your personality

development and what I'm showing on the

screen is is called the big five it's

your fundamental P kind of set of traits

in personality and what you should be

able to see here is really interesting

that yes you do inherit it to an extent

but the pivotal part of this that you

that isn't inherited comes from your

school

life so what does that mean for

Education what should we be doing and I

just want to propose something that

isn't really groundbreaking that we

should be firstly focusing on what we

can actually change what we can actually

Empower people to do and not on a very

narrow perspective of something that's

hard to change or or or we can make a

little difference in so if we look at

education through that principle we see

two things will actually shine out the

top two things on that list the first is

to focus on Artisan intelligence what

does that mean it means understanding

that everybody's got a different brain

that they're actually on a creative

Journey from you know the moment they

kind of they're born all the way through

their lives working out what matters to

them how they work and how they can use

themselves to get what matters to them

and a lot of people think oh if you're

talking about Artisan intelligence

you're talking about just you know a bit

of Design Technology and will you be an

apprentice and are you going to go into

cometry but I'm not I mean music and

martial arts are more pure but actually

what we're talking about is inspiring

kids to practice it could be BMX writing

it could be Tiddly Winks it really

couldn't matter less because what

they're doing is discovering how they

work how to get themselves to be better

at something um and that's immensely

important that's something that 100%

that we can change and the second Factor

which I think is utterly critical is

that schools play this pivotal role in

terms of our personality development and

there is the science there to measure

whether they're doing a good job now

personality is very individual I'm not

suggesting we're all trying to conform

people like sat tests to one thing but

think about personality a different way

if you've been nourished you've had good

loving experiences your personality is

kind of well-rounded and smooth and it's

comfortable with itself and if you

haven't it's Jagged and kind of a little

offset uncomfortable it's not about the

sort of General space it it fills it's

about its sort of shape and quality but

we can measure that can you imagine a

school system where we ranked schools by

measuring the personality development of

the children within them and how well

they were supporting each teacher in

each classroom each year each school was

doing that it would be a radically

different process right at the bottom

you'll see I've put abstract

intelligence because that's about

discovering if you've got those

abilities and then taking them further

but it's not not a place of this is

Central I think what we need to do is

really ask the question what matters and

I think we do know what matters the

problem is by making everything about

SAT scores by making it all about Peak

incomes or a limited amount of

professional development we focus on IQ

and we disenfranchise a lot of kids by

doing it but if we ask ourselves what we

want for our kids I've got five of them

I couldn't give a stuff how much they

earn in their lives and I don't care if

they turn into doctors or lawyers but

what I care about is are they happy

are they kind do they contribute to the

world around them can they form great

relationships and in fact economically I

haven't got time to go into here there's

a great you know there's a lot of

evidence there that actually what you're

looking at with educational performance

isn't a full predictor of that so really

what I wanted to say was by looking at

that idea of IQ and by going through it

we come to a completely different place

with with education and by going to

somewhere dark and Having the courage to

face it you come through to something

kind of a different vision and what I

hope now is here we have teachers with

what they're trying to achieve and the

skills they have and actually they they

can do this job we have governments that

need to measure it and they've been at

War for 20 30 years with kids in the

middle and we actually have the

technology to overcome that war and to

end that fight thank

[Applause]

you for