Mathematics and IQ Boot Camps – Do They Work

While I was in high school, I was on the cross country team, and I played soccer, and ran track. I was always looking for an edge such as a better diet, better workout plan, better shoes, and better coaching and training. I learned very quickly that if I went to a running camp, or soccer camp that I could improve immensely in a mere one-week period. Well, for soccer I decided to go to soccer summer camp two weeks in a row.By the time I finished that second week, my soccer skills were better than anyone else on the team, and luckily I had good speed, so I was able to take that into the next season. I had a running buddy whose parents were very into school, and made him study at least four hours a day, on top of his schooling. They sent him to summer camp to improve his SAT scores, and mathematics camp to improve his math scores.In fact, I was amazed at how much better he was at math, after he got out of the math camp, and as soon as the school year started; from that point on he was always in the top three in our advanced mathematics classes, and also in physics. It wasn’t that he was any smarter, it’s that the summer camp seemed to have boost his mathematical abilities. Wow, impressive, much better than any online math tutor affiliate marketing program.Whatever they did there, they must done right, and it was probably worth the $360 his parents paid for it. I imagine in today’s money it probably would be more like 1200 dollars, but it’s probably worth it, as he did get accepted to Stanford, on a partial academic scholarship even – yes, for math and science.There was an interesting article recently in the Wall Street Journal on June 11, 2011 titled “Boot Camp for Boosting IQ” by Jonah Lehrer, in which the author explains the findings of a University of Michigan study showing how kids were able to significantly boost their IQ by merely practicing mental problem solving 15-minutes a day, which could also explain why mathematics and IQ camps for kids appear to work so well.The article stated that the same process works for both crystallized intelligence (specific types of knowledge) and fluid intelligence (problem solving and recognizing unfamiliar patterns). This actually makes perfect sense to me, because my friend did score extremely high on the SAT tests as well, in fact he was rather impressive all the way around, and he did graduate as our valedictorian and a varsity track star to boot, oh yah and Vice President of the ASB. Therefore, perhaps this is something to think about, maybe it can help you or your child get the edge. I hope you will please consider all this and think on it.