The Truth About Intelligence & Swiss Education | Elsbeth Stern (#28)
Episode Summary
In this episode, I sit down with Elsbeth Stern, a cognitive psychologist and Professor of Teaching-Learning Research at ETH Zurich. We delve into her expertise to gain a deeper understanding of intelligence, its development, and its role in a changing world. The conversation addresses common myths about learning and provides a critical look at modern education.
Expect to learn about what intelligence really is and the influence of both nature and nurture. We discuss the value of early intelligence assessments, and whether the idea of being a “math person” or an “art person” is scientifically supported. The conversation also provides Elsbeth’s assessment of the current Swiss education system, her vision for an ideal school of the future, and the essential skills children need to develop for an AI-influenced world.
Meet Elsbeth
Elsbeth Stern is a German psychologist and professor of teaching-learning research at ETH Zurich. Her work focuses on cognitive psychology, intelligence research, and how humans learn. She is a leading expert on intelligence development and its implications for educational policy and practice in Switzerland and beyond.
Full Transcript
[00:00:00]
Mike: I know you’ve answered this question many times before, but for those not familiar with your work specifically, how do you personally define intelligence?
Elsbeth: Yeah, of course there are many definitions, but as psychologists, we prefer to understand intelligence as a kind of reasoning ability and cognitive flexibility. So it’s really, the mental ability. I know there are many intelligences, like social and emotional intelligence, but I think this is just a bad brand using, I think we should stay with this, with a cognitive definition of intelligence.
And this mainly means the reasoning ability to infer new knowledge from given knowledge, biological reasoning.
People who are good in these aspects, they have a lot of advantages. They often are [00:01:00] smart, although sometimes even intelligent people can be very stupid, no question in certain points. But, really saying it’s, the ability to deal with abstract material and, cognitive flexibility is the best way to , focus on this very important ability where people, whether we like it or not, show big differences.
Mike: Is it valuable to know your own intelligence relative to other people to take an IQ test, do you think?
Elsbeth: I don’t think it’s, I don’t think that everybody should take an IQ test. I even would want, doing it. I think most of, the people have a feeling, they should probably know about the normal distribution, about the bell curve and have a feeling where they can, locate themselves. But I think it’s, it’s not important to know the exact point, but I think you should know whether you are really [00:02:00] gifted.
That means at the high end or whether you are more like average because it helps you to make important decisions. But there are so we can get so much wheat. Back of, yeah, about our intelligence, in everyday context or in academic context that I don’t think it’s necessary for everybody to do it. Some people, gain a lot from taking an IQ test.
Those who for some reasons, couldn’t show their intelligence at school because probably their family background wasn’t appropriate. Teachers didn’t recognize that people were intelligent and some people have the feeling I could do more than I could show at school for whatever reason. And in this case, I really recommend to, take an intelligence test because then people really, get a better self-concept.
Mike: Based on the society that we live in, is it, is it possible to be too [00:03:00] intelligent?
Elsbeth: I don’t think so. I think, intelligent people have a lot of advantages. They, can make better decisions. They probably know what, or can judge dangerous situations. I don’t think so. I think it, it’s a big problem if very intelligent. People are, don’t get the opportunity to invest their intelligence in useful competencies.
If a very intelligent child, is prevented from yeah, dealing with academic material, yeah, then I think this child will become very unhappy. But if intelligent people get the opportunity to invest their intelligence in a way they. Would like to do, they usually are quite happy and intelligent people have an advantage.
They can decide either, yeah, investing their intelligence in a very [00:04:00] complicated area, mathematics, physics or scientific career, whatever. Then of course, they haven’t much time for other things, or they can trust, decide a career which isn’t that demanding. And, they can nonetheless be very good.
The advantage is really that intelligent people can decide having something that doesn’t require too much resources for them because they have good resources and therefore they have time and resources for hobbies or whatever. This is the advantage of intelligence people.
Mike: Conversely, if you knew or found out that you actually have very low intelligence, you’re stumbling through life, how a, how well is societies and governments geared to support people like that, and what, what should you do about it?
Elsbeth: Yeah, I think of course it’s also very important because, there are a lot of fields where you really can [00:05:00] compensate a lack of intelligence by concentrating on, really on investing all your resources in a certain, kind of profession or whatever. I think, that, yeah, people who are really, scoring at the lower end, they should be encouraged to focus on something, that isn’t too abstract, but, they can improve by practice.
And there are a lot of, professions of, yeah, opportunities to, yeah, earn your money and become a respected member of the society if you do, in a certain thing. Do certain things very good. If you don’t invest too broad and don’t, be, distracted by too many things, then even, people who score on the lower end, they can do some jobs very well.
And I think that’s an important feedback they should get.
Mike: Are there character traits of intelligent people? Very highly intelligent [00:06:00] people.
Elsbeth: No, that’s a funny thing that intelligence is, almost uncorrelated with all kinds of, traits there. Of course, we have this big five, yeah, psychology traits where, you know, properly like, introversion and neuroticism and so on. There’s one thing, openness to new experience that is a slightly correlated, to intelligence.
And this makes sense of course, because if you, feel already, yeah, overtaxed, by new situations you aren’t too open and intelligent people have the feeling they can cope with some challenges and some new information, therefore, they are a little bit more open. But, the other traits are not correlated, so it means they are intelligent people who are extroverted, they’re intelligent people who are introverted. Some, are a little bit neurotic. Others are not the opposite. Therefore, intelligent is a quite [00:07:00] isolated, is quite independent of other traits.
Mike: Hmm. I think, something, my understanding of intelligence is it’s very much genetic and then perhaps your environment is something where you can let your intelligence flourish. Is that fairly accurate? Is it what, what’s the balance between genetic environment?
Elsbeth: Yeah. It’s important. With, formally it was always a question, nature versus nurture. That means, the idea that, yeah, you have to find out what is, just what are the genes and what is the environment Nowadays, we say it’s nature via nurture.
That means, the DNA. We are born with, we didn’t choose it. We just got, it has a big impact on the development of intelligence, given that we have an environment that provides a good, that yeah. Gives us the opportunity to develop our [00:08:00] intelligence. So if two people with different DNA, yeah, undergo the same environmental influences, then the intelligence outcomes will be very different because some people have better, yeah.
Resources to exploit the environment. Yeah. But of course it’s not, for the individual we can say whether, yeah, if somebody has an IQ of 120, we can say a hundred points come from the gene and, and they are 20 points come from the environment. We only can, say, they only refer to the variance of groups.
So it’s very important to, to see that there is no fixed number, but, the better the environment is, the more get everybody the chance to develop his or her intelligence due to the genetic, preconditions we bring.
Mike: Has it been looked at? Intelli in that sense. If you had [00:09:00] twins in an identical situation, would the, would the expectation be that the intelligence is the same or is it also a little bit like height or foot body features? There is still this natural variance between them, unless they are identical.
Elsbeth: Yeah. But, there are, identical twins are very sim if they were race together. They are very similar in intelligence. Of course, intelligence tests have a measurement error, and this means that one twin probably, yeah, has for some reasons. The measurement isn’t, as exact for one twin than it is for another, therefore can be a little deviation.
But the final, proof for the strong genetic impact was the comparison between identical twins and fraternal twins. That means fraternal twins. They, their genetic similarity is similar to normal siblings. Also they share a [00:10:00] lot of environmental impact, much more than normal, siblings do. But nonetheless, the correlation between paternal twins and, normal siblings is almost similar. And this, and, and it’s much lower than the correlation between identical twins.
Mike: so there’s a good chance. So there is a big vari. It can be a big variance in intelligence between siblings.
Elsbeth: yeah. Yeah. It can be because, siblings, yeah. In on average. Only share 50% of their genetic, of their genes. On average, it can be a hundred. Theoretically it could be a hundred or zero, but of course it’s something in between. And, yeah. In terms of genetics similarities, paternal twins are similar to normal siblings.
Mike: Hmm.
Elsbeth: And if the environment would be so important, then as fraternal twins should be [00:11:00] much more similar than normal siblings, because fraternal twins share a lot of, common environment. They, yeah, spend their time together in the womb and, they probably had similar birth experience and so on. But nonetheless, these factors, seem of course, they seem not to be that important because, they are not, two different from, siblings, but identical twins, they, yeah, almost are identical, in iq.
Of course there are some deviations, but they are quite small.
Mike: Is the correlation, if any, between people who are analytical versus creative, or the classic math versus arts mindset, or the people who like to work on problems versus be more creative? Is there any correlation between those that separation and intelligence?
Elsbeth: Yeah, it doesn’t, yeah, I, it doesn’t make sense to have this division [00:12:00] because, creative people, of creativity, of course is, a much more sub a fussy concept, than intelligence is because creativity, also depends on whether something is accepted by society or not. And it’s very often the case that, yeah, somebody who comes up with a new idea at first, there is a lot of reluctance, and it takes some time before this idea is accepted.
And this has a lot to do with, yeah, people more stick to the, to familiar things. So people who are, who are creative. They often, have a very good knowledge in their field or they have to have a good knowledge in their field. For instance, a create a creative cook or chef, he of course, or he will, mix things together.
You feel where we wouldn’t probably dare to do, and. But, it’s not that they just by chance mix things together. They really have [00:13:00] an idea. So they really have to know their field very well, create people who are, get benefit for the creative ideas. They often need very good knowledge in this field. So in really to plan new ideas, not by chance mixing some things.
And of course, they have to deal with frustration. They have to be, they have to persevere. They have to make sure that, they will not be dis, disappointed and discouraged if their idea isn’t. Yeah. Yeah. Immediately they need really, they have to come up with the idea again and again, and try not to be too frustrated if it take some time before others recognize the wonderful idea.
And also people who are good in art, they, of course, they invested their intelligence in a different way, but they very often are also very intelligent.
Mike: Hmm.
Does our [00:14:00] intelligent, not, it’s for the average person, does. How does the intelligence track over time? Does it, is it natural that be when the be in the beginning, when you’re young, you’re being trained by your parents, you’re being exposed to all these new things, you’re constantly growing and does that plateau as you get older, as you stop experiencing new things?
Elsbeth: Yeah. Of course, think the plateau will be reached, around adolescence or late adolescence. A number, of school years is a big predictor of intelligence. One could show that in con in many countries, of course, in the last, 50 years, the number of years, everybody spends in school has increased very much.
So my father, for instance, went to school for seven years now. People go to school for 12 years almost. And this has, really increased the average, intelligence, value scores, but the difference remained the [00:15:00] same. So that means, that’s a funny thing that of course we always could get better, but the differences remain the same.
And the stability, the individual stability, is approached, in adolescence and at this time, that, yeah, there, we currently don’t know any factors which will further increase intelligence afterwards.
Mike: How much do you think is in the classroom versus, parents now being more focused on educating their children? Like, do you, how, how much do you give to schools in this context?
Elsbeth: Yeah. Schools, we wouldn’t have intelligence without schooling, so it was really, yes, the simple systems we learned in school. Reading, writing, and mathematics is very important for developing intelligence. No matter [00:16:00] how good your genes are, if you wouldn’t get the opportunity to go to school and learn about logical reasoning, learn about symbols, they’re representing information in symbols.
You couldn’t, yeah, develop the intelligence, to the extent your genes would allow it. So school is very important. It’s the biggest booster of intelligence we ever had. Of course it’s also important from early childhood on that children get the opportunity to develop their vocabulary. That means to be exposed to new words, to be exposed to correct, c grammar and so on.
These are very important factors, but, I think most of the families, or if the families can’t, then other in, institutions could really, provide this opportunity, nonetheless. I think, yeah, you, you could train, a child of eight or 9-year-old. You could train it a little [00:17:00] bit beyond, his or her real abilities.
But when he or he will be, 18 years old, you probably would really, recognize, the real intelligence. The problem is of course, that nonetheless, their parents who have better opportunities, they are much, they are quite good in navigating, their children through the educational system, even if they don’t have the intelligence to do so.
This is a big problem we have in all, yeah. Countries, in western countries currently that parents are very eager to get every child to a kind of university education and they invest a lot and, yeah. It may, in most cases it works. But this doesn’t mean that the child really brings the right intelligence, but it just yeah.
Is adapted to the system, and the system adapts to less intelligent children, by lowering [00:18:00] the standards or whatever. This is currently our biggest problem that, yeah, intelligent children who don’t have the right family background, they have, yeah, less chances, to get, to the university track.
Mike: How important is it for a parent to identify the intelligence of their child when they’re at a young age?
Elsbeth: Yeah, I think it’s not, yeah, it depe parents, should understand that they, they are, that their impact on their child’s intelligence is as big as they probably think. So if, of course they should do a lot to help the child develop cognitive abilities, talk with him, read with, him or her, and if she, he or she’s interested in numbers, they should really, do some number games with the child.
But parents probably quite quickly understand, yeah, [00:19:00] the cognitive potential of their children.
They probably see that there are differences between the siblings, but they often have difficulties in accepting that, not every child, has the genetic, resources for an academic career. And they probably should accept that there are many other ways, for children to, yeah, really, pursue careers, which don’t, require university education, but some parents, accept it.
Others have difficulties and they invest a lot of money to make sure that children, yeah, go on this track.
I think if parents, really want to be clear, get clear of whether that child has probably different cognitive profile.
I would recommend they go to a psychologist and have an intelligence test. And if they see, their child, has acquired robust intelligence is, [00:20:00] average but not top, they should accept it and they should think about careers, that, yeah. Have some, yeah, go in different directions. If they see that child is very intelligent, they probably should encourage him or her, to invest a little bit more time in school, to, in order to get, the opportunity for academic career.
Mike: Well, that was what I was gonna ask you next. So if you do find out, even if your child is not really intelligent, but what are some practical things parents can do with young children to really bring the most out of it? You said, you said at a very young age that language and new words is very helpful.
So maybe
Elsbeth: all
Mike: I gotta ask, sorry. I’m also, I’m gonna ask you two questions in one ’cause I’ve been dying to ask. How does multiple languages or bi or trilingual parents and households help in the development of a kid’s intelligence?
Elsbeth: I think of [00:21:00] course it’s a bit, yeah, growing up with two languages is a big present because then, you learn both of them, more or less incidentally. And, yeah, one should use the opportunity. But the impact on general intelligence of a multi legalism isn’t that strong. Or if there isn’t a correlation, it’s probably more selection effect because, you are more intelligent.
Parents are more likely, to find a partner with another language, but nonetheless have a common language. And therefore can offer their children a bilingual, bilingual environment. So usually bilingual families, score, more on the upper half of the intelligence scale.
I don’t think that it would be a good idea if you don’t, are bilingual in a family, if even if two intelligent people, yeah, have the same mother tongue. I wouldn’t [00:22:00] recommend to speak English, or to speak another language with the children, even if the parents master it, because it would be very artificial and there isn’t really this big effect.
The advantage is really, of bilingual environment that it really happens in a natural setting. And, there are a lot of, yeah, ideas that you would already should, go to bilingual kindergarten, because it would boost intelligence. That’s just not true though.
Mike: Hmm.
Elsbeth: only if you really are in a bilingual environment.
For instance, in Switzerland, in some areas French and German is used in the same city, then it could make sense to bring the child to French kindergarten, even if the families, speaks German because, then the child has a lot, a lot of verbal input. And yeah, in, this kindergarten, then the child would learn French, just, almost like a mother tongue.[00:23:00]
But the impact on intelligence, if any, wouldn’t be that big. But it would be, of course, a big present to learn a language and second language without the effort. Yeah. Yeah. One usually has to take, when one has to learn it, just in the way schools teach it.
Mike: That’s interesting. My, my wife is Swiss and I’m Australian and my German is not good enough to be speaking it on a podcast like this, but that makes me think we have a child then, based on what you’re saying in the household, it doesn’t make sense for me to speak German to our child,
I should be speaking English ’cause that’s my mother
Elsbeth: Yeah, I would really recommend, strongly recommend, that you speak English with your child and your wife speaks German with your child. Yeah, because, then, you have basic understanding of German understand, so you, it, you wouldn’t be isolated if she if completely, and then your child really gets [00:24:00] the opportunity to learn two languages without big effort.
So I really would recommend, doing this.
Mike: mm. Now zooming in a bit and focusing a little bit more on Switzerland, how do you assess the current state of the Swiss education system today? Do you feel they’re doing a good job?
Elsbeth: Yeah, I what may Education is complex and education is based on traditions, which, you can change, very quickly. So it’s a very complex thing, and we know, of course, a lot of interacting factors are in educational systems. I think Switzer Island has, one big advantage, and this is that only 20% are supposed to undergo university education and the others really get the opportunity for very good vocational education.
So there is really no need. If you see your child wouldn’t, [00:25:00] like this academic branch, there is no need to force your child to do it because he or she would have a lot of other opportunities, to follow a career. And I think this is a big advantage. It’s all, they have this tracking system with gymnasium and the regular schools.
It’s better than in Germany because it starts later in Germany. It starts already at age 10, which is by far too early as I think.
Nonetheless, we see that, social background plays a big role also in Switzerland when it comes to the academic track, to the gymnasium. I have data. A lot of other colleagues have data which show that, yeah, in, that there are about, there are 30 to 40% of the children at the gymnasium who are not the top 20% as it is supposed to be.
And there are a lot of others., More intelligent students [00:26:00] who don’t come from an academic background. Who, go to the vocational education branch, which, which is fine if it would be their free decision, but it’s not fine if, it’s just taken for granted that the parents’, background, really, yeah, is the factor that determines whether the children go to university or not.
But currently, all countries, have this problem. Yeah. Many of us also, Ivy, grew up in so-called, golden Age of Social Mobility in Germany and in Switzerland and so on. The percentage of students who were supposed to go to the academic, branch increased a lot, and so a lot of children from non-academic families had the opportunity.
To go to the gymnasium. But now, the, yeah, the, the boat is full, so to say. Switzerland doesn’t want, more than 20% [00:27:00] going to undergoing university education, which makes some sense. In Germany, we have already 50%, which is a little bit problem, because, too many. But anyhow, we can’t increase the number.
It doesn’t make sense to increase the number of students going to the gymnasium any longer. And now, it’s really that the academic families, yeah, really want their children to stay in this track. And therefore, they just, fill the places. In former times, intelligent students from non-academic background, could fill and this remains a very big problem, and it, will increase in the next years.
Mike: Do you think that the, in the younger years before you’re at the age of where you can decide which direction you go in terms of choices of classes, do you think that. The, what kids learned in school needs to change to [00:28:00] keep up with the world today and specifically. I remember when I’m, when I was in school, you know, a big part of your classes is you go to school, you learn about history.
You learn in Switzerland, you learn all of the names of all of the different mountains in your region. You take it one or two languages. Do you think, given the access to the internet, globalization, and now even ai, do you think that the way kids had to learn before is outdated and needs to change?
Elsbeth: Yeah, I think of course we always have to think about yeah, the, the curriculum and what is necessary in Switzerland. There’s still at the gymnasium Latin, I don’t, yeah. Also in Germany we had to learn Latin at the gymnasium. It was more a selection, criteria rather than acquiring useful information. I still think mathematics and science and language. Will re remain important.
And I think in Switzerland, the idea that everybody should, learn at least two [00:29:00] languages spoken in Switzerland is also important. It’s not so important in monolingual countries, but in order to keep the Swiss culture, I think it makes sense because, yeah, what we learn at school, yeah. Or the reasons, the rationale for this is really very broad.
There are cultural traditions which may often make sense to keep, also to keep the variety, yeah. In the world. If, if everybody would speak back engli bad English, I think it would make the world better. Therefore, it’s very important to keep the different languages in all countries, because they all contribute, something to, the culture.
And it also makes sense to learn history. But of course, it doesn’t make sense to learn. It’s, you cannot, really, yeah, combine with, with understanding and with meaningful, knowledge. When I went to school, we had to learn all capitals of European countries at this time, we have [00:30:00] traveling wasn’t that usual, so we just learned them by heart.
It would be much better to learn about countries and then being told, and this is the capital. Then you could, integrate it much better into your knowledge network. So learning isolated fact. Without integrating them in a larger network doesn’t make sense and shouldn’t be done at any in schools. Of course, for learning a foreign language, you have to learn vocabulary, but you shouldn’t of course learn vocabularies, for weeks, and nothing else but your foot from the very beginning.
Use them in sentences.
Mike: So if you had a blank slate, and to make the perfect education program for an optimal society, I mean, you’ve mentioned already a couple of things in there that are important. What would that look like?
Elsbeth: Yeah, with school is complex and complicated and we will never have an [00:31:00] ideal system because there are many things to consider the big individual differences in intelligence we have to consider.
But I think a society should always think about, yeah, knowledge and competences everybody should acquire in order to really, be a member of the society and to really, yeah. For inclusion, for being an inclusive society, we should carefully think what everybody should know. We don’t need different school branches, which, because this only, has a Yeah. An impact on self-concept.
And some people, some students develop very early bad self-concept if they are, if we do it too officially. But we could have a much more informal, flexible system at school by really mixing up, the different, age groups. When I started [00:32:00] school about more than 60 years ago, it was not a planned, but it was, it was in a small village.
My teacher had eight greats in the same class. Eight, yeah, we people from age, yeah. How do you say yang? Eight. That means we had,
Mike: in the same
Elsbeth: yeah, eight grades in the same class. So the seven, WAIS had to work, silently on reading or writing something, and the teacher taught one, grade, in front of the blackboard, but there were some mixing.
So I was quite good in numbers. So I was allowed to come to the blackboard when the fourth grade was learning something about mathematics. Yeah. It was a big challenge for this teacher and not, every teacher did this very well, therefore, it’s not a model for going on, but really don’t sticking to the age, but really see that, some children already could do mathematics.
Yeah, 6-year-old children could do mathematics with 10-year-old [00:33:00] childrens, but probably they should do reading with the same with the, with the age group or the other way around. So being more flexible without being too formal, I think this would be very important. And, what we know is teachers are very important.
And another question would of course be are there countries which are more successful than others? And, this. There’s, and of course also, we have selection effects. We have different cultural impacts. So I wouldn’t say we should copy the system of Singapore or Finland or whatever. It doesn’t make sense.
But what we know is that countries who are in the luxury situation, that they really can choose teachers from a bigger pool of capable teachers, they do better. So we know quite good. What a good, what makes a good teacher. He or she really needs, this. To know the subject very well. So you [00:34:00] can’t be a good mathematics teacher without really knowing mathematics far beyond what is on the curriculum.
So if you are mathematics teacher in, elementary school, you have also to be good in mathematics in secondary and high school because you have to get a feeling where students have to approach to. But this is not enough. Teachers also have to understand the difficulties students have, with the material.
They have to understand what kind of misconceptions are likely to appear, which has been intensively researched in physics that students have a very different understanding of force or all the other concepts. Yeah,
They must be motivated to see progress in their children. So they, and they, we know what makes a good teacher and what doesn’t make a good teacher. But in many countries a teacher is, being a teacher isn’t very [00:35:00] prestigious, so that means they are, they don’t have the, yeah, really, the support they should probably have.
Therefore, at least currently in Germany and Switzerland, we are short of teachers. So, schools have to take everybody and in countries where they can select between teachers, where it’s really a hundreds like to become teachers, but there’s only space for 20. These countries do much better job in international tests because, in this countries, one can really look for the best teachers.
Okay.
Mike: Which countries are they?
Elsbeth: Yeah. Finland was a, an example of this because in Finland, all, yeah, the people weren’t, very rich in usual, but they also were quite more, they had a good life, so it didn’t matter so much, whether you earn some or Euro more or less. But being a teacher, was really something that, got a lot of, yeah.
Prestige and de yeah. [00:36:00] Society and the parents trusted the teachers that they wanted the best for the children, that they really tried to get out the best of the children. so it’s really the reputation of Yeah. It, the profession of the, of a teacher has in a society, and this is a societies, where teachers have a higher reputation. They do better job because, yeah.
Then the best people want to become teacher.
Mike: I mean, it does sound like a. Simple solution just to pay double the salary of teachers and then make people want to be teachers and no.
Elsbeth: No, no, that’s not, of course the way, on the one hand, you would also have to pay, the double, the cel, the salary of the existing teachers. Otherwise, their property would, really yeah, become very lazy and be, become even worse than they are. And it’s not just the salary. Also in Finland, the salary isn’t that high.
It’s, it’s modest. It’s okay, but you can [00:37:00] live on it. But, we all know that money is, yeah, money only is important to a certain degree and, to have read a really satisfactory life. You, you want to see progress, you want to see that you really, yeah, change something in society and, have a lot of self-control.
It also depends a little bit, on the prestige of other professions. For instance, in the former GDR in the communi communist time, nobody wants it property back, but in the formative. GTR they had very good teachers, particularly in natural science and in mathematics, because there wasn’t the profession of being a manager and earning a million.
Yeah, they hadn’t too much choices. But being a doctor or being a teacher, these were traditional professions and if you were teaching mathematics or physics, yeah, you wouldn’t be involved too much in silly si political [00:38:00] discussions. So very intelligent people in the former CTR became mathematics and physics teachers.
And you could see it in the achi in students achievement even after the re reunification. I come from Western Germany, but I was in a professor in shortly after the, reunification. And I was really impressed by many teachers how intelligent they were. And also, yeah, what, the way they taught mathematics.
But of course this has changed also now because, yeah, people who would’ve become teacher, 40 years ago in the former GDR, they nowadays become manager or whatever, because they get much more money. There wasn’t money in the former GDR, therefore, it’s nothing you can really steer. That’s, that’s the, the big problem.
Mike: I would regret it deeply if I didn’t get to, have, take, take this opportunity. Speaking to an [00:39:00] intelligence expert to ask you about artificial intelligence, what is your opinion on the last explosion in the last two years of large language models and artificial intelligence?
Elsbeth: Yeah, it’s of course a very big challenge, we know of course, tools are as good as you use them. You can misuse them, you can use them appropriately and currently, yeah, particularly I’m a university teacher and particularly at the university, we have to change a lot because, we know that, yeah, written, texts you know, of course I can distinguish between a good and a bad test, text, but not all text from students are good.
So I don’t, I don’t think I can distinguish between a student’s text and a chat, a chat GBT text. And this becomes a big problem because, we know that writing. It’s a very important tool for cognitive development. In order to become more [00:40:00] competent, in order to organize your thinking, you have to write.
And if we don’t bring students, no matter at what age level to writing, we’ll really lose cognitive competencies. You can’t just delegate a writing to a machine. You can delegate sports to somebody else and hope you will get, powerful and, develop muscles. And the same is of course for writing. So we have to provide learning spaces where, students don’t have access to ICT.
I think this is very important. We have to put students into a room just with, yeah, some writing material, but no access to ICT and they have to write an essay. I think, that’s, very important. On the other hand, of course, we can use ICT very well. Computers can give, feedback very precisely and [00:41:00] timely.
I think we should use the computer, for teaching. Also because we are short of teachers, of good teachers, we have to delegate a lot to ICT. But you have to do it in a way that it’s really helpful for students.
For instance, if they make a mistake, we wouldn’t adjust, let the computer or the program correct the mistake, but say to the students, you made a mistake and you only can go forward if you first listen to an explanation for why you did this mistake. This kind of feedback isn’t too difficult to implement and it should be used.
And what I also think is, particularly large language models, yeah, they also provide opportunities for learning to ask the right questions. Usually students are used to answer the questions asked by the teachers. Yeah, that’s a normal game. But, in order to use [00:42:00] large language models appropriately, you have to write the right to ask the right questions and to get better answers If you ask your question in a more precise way.
And this could also be a learning opportunity and students should, yeah, use it as a learning opportunities. Teachers should encourage to do it. So I would say on the one hand, you should have learning opportunities without any ICT to, acquire the classical competencies and to make sure you really acquire and don’t let it do by the computer.
And on the other hand, you really should, learn to use ICT appropriately.
Mike: I mean, it seems inevitable that it’s just going to be in every corner of everyone’s life unless blockers are put in place, forcefully given that kids as young as five years old now are building websites. ’cause they have all these tools to be able to do so. But it’s really using a tool to do it on their behalf.
With all of this influence in [00:43:00] technology, are you optimistic about the future of education?
Elsbeth: I think, it, it’s not, inevitable that, , we will lose control or, so I think we have to be active. We shouldn’t wait for a better world, but we should really see there is nothing good or bad in pedagogy. You, it’s always a question, yeah. How to use things, and I think it’s still under our control to make sure that it’s used appropriately. And, that, yeah, we really don’t lose some competencies. Of course. We always lost competencies. In former times people were much better in horse riding than we are nowadays, because we have cars. And now horse riding is only a hobby. That’s fine, because, we have a full compensation of it, but we will never be able to compensate, yeah, for writing because the cognitive pros, we, we, we developed other kinds of sports, but the, the [00:44:00] competencies we acquire by writing, we can just compensate by cha GBT If young children already say, please write me an essay about this, although they aren’t able to write it, of would be of course a very strange development.
So we still have to make sure that basic competencies like, numerosity, getting an idea of, mathematical concepts and yeah, really being literate in terms of reading and writing. We can’t compensate it. We have to make sure that everybody gets and uses the opportunity, opportunity to become better.
Mike: Mm. That was my final question, but you’ve already answered half of it, which is, with AI becoming such a significant force, what are the most critical skills and knowledge that children need to develop independent of the technology? So it sounds like we’ve got writing, we’ve got critical thinking and problem solving are some of the biggest ones.
They still need to learn [00:45:00] themselves.
Elsbeth: yeah. Problem solving, really an indicator of intelligence is mathematical word problems. These are, of course, logical problems. You derive, new information, from given information. And mathematical work problems are an example where you really learn problem solving, where you really, learn to organize, knowledge in a way and, to, yeah, organize your, the goals, in a problem that’s very
Mike: Can you give an example of a mathematical word problem?
Elsbeth: Oh, yes. Tom has five marbles. Peter has six marbles more than Tom. How many to both have altogether?
Mike: I see. I see.
Elsbeth: This is a very nice verb. Problem, which highly correlates with intelligence because it requires, some inferences. Yeah, I, and, yeah. These things are very important for children to develop their problem solving [00:46:00] competencies, and of course, critical thinking, also means that you, look for different explanations for this also of intelligence means, of course, to look for the best explanation, but it also could mean to look for different explanations, which both could be valid or, which, exclude each other.
This is also very important to be faced with more complex problems, with more, as we call it, ill-defined problems, which don’t have a single best solution, but where you really have, to wait a little bit of what’s more important in this context or more important in other context. Of course, when it comes to, yeah.
To law problems, than to law. Then you really have to, yeah. Judge different solutions. This, this is kind of critical thinking, not taking the first, solution, but really thinking about alternatives.
Mike: Hmm. Do you have one more time for one [00:47:00] more question? I thought of another one, which to be honest, I should have asked earlier, but I’ll, I’ll move it there. And maybe this is not your area of expertise, but have you looked into the correlation between intelligence and autism and autistic children?
Elsbeth: Not myself, but I know of, I know some of this, pre autism, of course, can go along with normal intelligence, but, yeah. Currently I’m not happy with this idea of autism spectrum disorder, autism is real.
In the classical sense is really that you don’t have a theory of mind, that you really don’t know what’s going on in other people’s, mind, that you don’t know what other people know and can know and so on. This is really mean, this kind of empathy and, autistic people differ a lot in the intelligence they can acquire.
But what I don’t like is this idea that sometimes a little bit introverted people [00:48:00] who are focusing on mathematics or whatever, that they are now classified as autistic. This is what I don’t like. Really, people who have this deficit in the theory of mind, they also, they can’t, reach the highest level of intelligence because intelligence always means, or acquiring intelligence means to interact with other, other people to interact with material.
And so, they can’t do only do it to a certain extent, and therefore we don’t have autistic genius people. Also, some people think it’s so people who really are genius, they say are sometimes a little bit strange or whatever, but they are not autistic. They often are not very much interested in interacting with other people, but they can do it.
And, autistic people really have their, deficits in interaction with other people. And, some, don’t have such co [00:49:00] cognitive, severe impairments, but nonetheless, they couldn’t lead. Yeah, they wouldn’t be able to, yeah, really, live independently and develop, independent ideas.
Therefore. I think, autistic people probably can get an average intelligence or a little bit above int inte, average intelligence, but they won’t, get really the highest intelligence in this case. They are not, yeah, autistic. It’s not my, main area, I don’t know whether you know Uta Frith and, she’s the expert on, on autism.
She also is very unhappy with this recent development that you have this, idea of autistic spectrum disorder and classify very intelligent people who are a little bit strange because they are interested in things like physics and mathematics to classify them as autistic. Because it’s, it doesn’t help anybody.
It doesn’t help [00:50:00] the people who really have this impairment or who really need support. And, it only, it build stereotypes that, or it, supports stereotypes that really, are not appropriate. Therefore, I would say of course, the main, the main cause for autism is this impairment in reading other people’s mind. And this also, yeah. Limits the opportunity to become, to, reach a certain intelligence. Also, I know some artistic people who really are good in reading and writing. That’s not the problem. They have some special interests, but they are limited to a certain extent. Yeah.
Mike: Interesting.
Elsbeth: Mm.
Mike: Elizabeth, it’s been absolute pleasure having this conversation. Thank you very much.
Elsbeth: I’m happy and I hope you can use most of it. Yeah. Okay.
Mike: so. All right. Well, have a great evening. Lovely to meet you.
Elsbeth: Thank you. Bye-bye.
