Values

In my GT class we are learning about ethics, morals, and values. Yesterday we took a survey to find out what our own values are. In the survey we had to check anything that is important to us. Then we pick our top 5. Then we go on the back and see what each number means to see our most important values.

Mine were:
- Appearance, Beauty, Approval
- Love, Friendship, Personal closeness
- Health, Personal saftey, Security
- Family, Love, Emotional security
- Financial security, Money, Status

I truly believe that these five values describe me perfectly. I am a guy, but I really care about my appearance to others. I always need to look good, so in the morning sometimes I spend five more minutes doing my hair rahter than eating breakfast which my mom made for me. I always want to look perfect, with my hair perfectly gelled up and my clothes looking good. I definetly value love and friendship because I love my friends, especially my really close friends, I will love them for life. I value health and personal saftey because if I am healthy, I will be able to do anything without taking precautions. I need personal saftey so I don't get hurt or jumped and injured. I value family alot. I love my family more than anything and always will. They support me so much and are always there for me sacrificing their time and things for me. They get everything for me and help me whenever I need them. I value emotional security because if I am emotionaly stable this would help keep diseases away and I would be joyful and helpful to to others. Financial security is very valuable to me. I want to be very rich when I grow up. I want to have an amazing house, great cars, and give my family everything. Especially my parents who won't ask for anything, but I want to give them everything they would want.

This value survey was perfectly accurate. It 100% described my values and I am surprised that it was so accurate. I really enjoyed doing this survey because it was fun and I got to better see my values and I like doing surveys like these.

Outliers: The Trouble With Geniuses Part 1 and 2

1. In my GT class we are reading the novel Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. The premise and purpose of the book is about people who are "outliers". This means that they are different than others. This book talks about people who are different in ways than most people. It also talks about many famous and successful people such as Bill Gates for example. It also talks about different theories and explanations for things that we would have never figured out. 

2. Chapters 3 and 4 were about Chris Langan and also had some other information in them. Chris Langan has an IQ of 195, the average human has an IQ of 100 and Einstein's IQ was 150! This shows that Chris Langan is a complete genius! He started talking at six months of age, in school he could walk into a test in a foreign language class, not having studied at all, and if he there were 2 or 3 minutes before the instructor arrived, he could skim through the textbook and ace the test! When he was fifteen he could match Jim Hendrix on the guitar. He didn't attend school at all. He would just show up for tests and ace them and the teachers couldn't do anything about it. Gladwell also stated that once your IQ is above 120 it doesn't matter if someone else's is 130 or 140 because that range isn't as big as 60-70. When your two people have an IQ that high they both have the same chance of winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Gladwell also showed 2 questions from a typical Raven's intelligence test, one question was easy, but the other was very hard and nobody in the class could figure it out. Gladwell compared IQ levels to basketball heights which I agreed with and also didn't. He said that if you aren't six feet or six one you can't play at that level which isn't true. There were an abundance of good basketball players who were under six feet tall. If you know about basketball there are and were many good players under six feet in height. Examples are Nate Robinson, Spud Webb, Jameer Nelson, Mugsy Bogues, Chris Paul, and Allen Iverson. There are others too, but these are some really good ones, Nate Robinson is only 5'7" and he won the dunk contest three years in a row and blocked Yao Ming who is 7'6"! You need to be able to jump high rather than height, because shorter people can jump higher than taller people so they can reach the same height so it doesn' matter. It does matter on some positions, if you are playing center you need to be at least 6'11", if you are forward around 6'3"-6'10", and if you're playing guard you don't need to be tall. I do agree with the statement that just because a guy is 6'8" doesn't mean he is better than someone who is 6'5".  He also talked about different colleges that produced people who won the Nobel Prize. Overall I think this chapter had an immense amount of information which was very interesting to me!

3. I personally think that Chris Langan in a way was successful, but in a way also wasn't successful. Our class definition of successful was to maintain a balance between financial stability and happiness with self and others and to accomplish the goals you want to achieve. He achieved his goal which was to live on a farm. He also is happy with his life. This does make him successful. I don't think he was that financially stable. He was average or less than average in the video we saw about him. He lives on a farm in a small house. This isn't that financially stable. I feel that if he wanted to he could have done much more with his life, he is a complete genius and if he went into a company or opened up a business I honestly feel that he could have been rich. He is very smart and would be able to work well and make good money. He also flunked out of college, if he went back and got a better education he would have been extremely smart and definitely would have been able to make good money. 

4. I will take away many things from these two chapters. I learned that once your IQ is at 120 it doesn't matter if it's higher than that or not, so now I won't be like oh his IQ is 130 and your IQ is 125 so he is smarter! I also love what  Gladwell said on page 83. He said "To be a Nobel Prize winner, apparently, you have to be smart enough to get into a college at least as good as Notre Dame or the University of Illinois. This changes my viewpoint on being able to win the Nobel Prize! I always thought you had to be super smart and go to an Ivy League college to even have a slim chance of winning a Nobel Prize, but now I have hope and will  definitely try to go on a path that will help me win a Nobel Prize!

Outliers

1. In GT we are reading the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. The purpose of the book is to tell people about the lives of people who are successful, or unique in a way. It says how they became successful and also about their lives. We have also read about things such as the 10,000 rule which states that to be "good" at something you have to practice it for at least 10,000 hours. So lets say you want to be a soccer player when you grow up, well to become "good" you would have to practice at least 10,000 hours! That's a lot of time isn't it? Well if you are actually dedicated to be "good" at something than you would practice more than 10,000 hours, just like anyone who is a professional at anything, they are dedicated and have definitely practiced for at least 10,000 hours, that is why they are "good."

2. Chapters 3 and 4 were very long, but also contained an immense amount of information. Chapter 3 had an abundance amount of information about Christopher Langan. He isn't a famous person, but he has an IQ of around 193! That is amazingly high! This chapter talked about his life and how smart he was when he was young and how smart he still is. This chapter also talked about IQ and IQ Tests. Towards the end of the chapter Gladwell talked about people who won the Nobel Prize and which colleges they had come from. In Chapter 4 talked more about Chris Langan and more on his life in college and how he had a hard time unfortunately. It also talked about Robert Oppenheimer. It ended of talking about how Chris Langan's life today is.

3. I personally think that Chris Langan in a way is successful and in a way isn't successful. I think that he is successful because he is happy with his life right now even though he lives on a farm in Montana, and isn't that rich. He is happy with his life and doesn't seem to regret any of his actions, this shows that he has accomplished his goal and that means you are successful because once you reach your goal you have got what you wanted. The only reason I feel he isn't successful is because he is so smart and I feel that he could have done much more and could have had at least twice the amount of money he has. I think he could have accomplished something for which he would be remembered for, people are not going to know who he was after he dies, if he had used his brains to do something extraordinary then he would be remembered and also rich.

4. The things that I learned from this chapter is that you don't need to go to Harvard to win a Nobel Prize award. I learned that you can do something even if you don't go to an amazing college. I also learned that once your IQ is at a high level and someone else's is higher, then at that point it doesn't make much of a difference because both of you are smart and are capable enough to handle the same tasks. The thing that I will take away from this chapter is that to be successful all I have to do is reach my goal, I don't have to do what anyone else thinks successful means, because if I can accomplish my goal, than I am successful and happy with my life!

Delaying Kindergarten

This article is very shocking to me. I do agree that schools do make you smarter. I don't think that delaying kindergarten will help a child. I think that if they start to learn earlier, they will become smarter earlier and will grow up and could even start making money earlier! Children who have a delayed start to school will be at a disadvantage to others. Parents would like to provide the best environment for their children and delaying school isn't the right support. Parents who want to give their young children an academic advantage have a powerful tool: school itself. In a large-scale study at 26 Canadian elementary schools, first graders who were young for their year made considerably more progress in reading and math than kindergartners who were old for their year (but just two months younger). This shows that delaying school isn't helpful, instead starting early would be more helpful because you learn new things at school to help you excel and know more than the kids in the grades under you. I strongly belive starting school early is much better than delaying it.

Meeting someone new

My name is Yash and I am in 9th grade. My favorite subjects at school are Gym, Lunch, and GT. I like to learn about sports facts and records set by all-stars. In my free time I like to play sports, playing video games, watching TV, and hanging out with my friends. I love to watch football, basketball, baseball, and soccer. My favorite teams are Dallas Cowboys, New York Knicks, New York Yankees, and FC Barcelona! I don't know what I want to be yet when I get older. The things that make me happy are cracking jokes and messing around with my friends and seeing my favorite sports teams win!