When I was a little boy in elementary school (and it might have continued through 7th or 8th grade- I’m not sure what year they stopped), we had an annual occurrence. We were administered the Stanford-Binet IQ tests.
Interestingly, these tests did not seem to be updated from year to year. So, if you took them often enough (and actually spent time trying to determine if you came up with the right answers), it was clear by year three or four, that they did not provide any relevant information. (After all, if one knew most of the answers in advance, what sort of intelligence was the test measuring.)
My school was really into this. Our year (we entered the school in its fourth year of existence) had the largest class for the school ever. (As a matter of fact, we actually comprised almost half the students in the school that first year.) So, it decided to do an experiment- it divided our year into a “smart class” and a “dumb class”.
Now, you might think this was a really bad thing. You will be sure to think so when I tell you that to be in the dumb class, you needed an IQ of about 120- so you could handle the full regular school curriculum (in 3 or 4 hours a day), plus the same number of hours studying Hebrew, the Tora, the Talmud, and other religious subjects. (Our school day, Monday through Thursday, was from 8:30 to 4:30 PM; Fridays ended between 1 and 2:30, depending on the season.)
It hadn’t been many years back then that the widely held belief (teachers and shrinks) that the concept that intelligence was inherited- and immutable at birth- reigned supreme. (Can you imagine how they would react as my scores rose over the years… [Dr. Lewis Terman (Stanford)- one of the major adherents of this now quashed concept- also was a strong believer that the inferior folks should be bred out of existence. I kid you not.] )
It was some pretty wise shrinks and researchers from Iowa, who studied a bunch of orphans in their state, and realized that potential wasn’t a fixed commodity. Nope- if one nurtured, cared, stimulated, and educated these folks, they would not just thrive, but flourish. But, my school was a strong believer in IQ tests- and taught accordingly.
The dumb class had regular curricula- but more akin to the advanced programs that existed in public schools (plus the religious component). It’s the reason why two of my friends had a hard time when they graduated and went to the local public school. (They were in the same school district as I; most of our classmates lived far away. Our daily commute to school was about 45 minutes each way.) These two were told that they had finished most of the courses they would need to graduate high school already (4 years of language, American History, World History, 3 years of English and literature, advanced sciences, and the like). That was mind-blowing, since they had been conditioned to believe they were dumb.
My class (for those kids whose IQ exceeded 140) got special curricula. As a matter of fact, for math and science, we stopped getting textbooks back in the fourth or fifth grade. We were given poorly bound paper volumes that were still going through editing. (To give you an idea of how far ahead these texts were, my biology text was finally codified when my sister-in-law was in 10th grade. Eight years after I used the text. ) And, we were taught number bases (other than the conventional base 10 with which we are all familiar), rules of logic, set theory, and the like before we entered junior high school. This is why I had no use for high school…
But, I’m pleased that my kids were never subjected to annual IQ tests and that sort of stratification. Sure, there were gifted and talented (GT) programs [unfortunately, biased teacher evaluations were employed to determine who belonged there], but nothing like what my generation endured.
The problem is that these GT programs don’t seem to be universally successful. Drs. Jason Grissom (Vanderbilt) and Christopher Redding (Florida) reported in their analysis, “Do Students in Gifted Programs Perform Better?”, that student outcomes- academic and non-academic- do not seem to reflect the “benefits” of GT programs. (The goal of these GT programs seem to be enrichment and not advancement or acceleration.)
Maybe it’s time their focus was changed and we truly try to advance the curriculum?
“If one nurtured, cared, stimulated, and educated these folks, they would not just thrive, but flourish. ”
Wow! What a concept, huh? There is a lot that is wrong with the public school system when it comes to education. And, it looks like a lot is wrong (or was) with some private education as well.
It reminds me of what Albert Einstein wrote, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
Paul Taubman recently posted..Why Should I Remove Unused WordPress Plugins?
Forgot about that Einstein quip, Paul.. .
Too many education systems seek an easy way out to addressing the needs of their student.
We didn’t have a gifted and talented program but we had AP classes. My son went to a GT middle school and ended up with a bunch of college credits. He’s a sophomore in college now.
I wonder about IQs. I thought I had an IQ test when I was 6 but my parents denied ever doing that.
Dominique recently posted..Get Back on Track with Your Health
Thanks for those cools facts, Dominique! Good luck to your son in college.
How I remember those IQ tests and the separation of gifted and not so gifted students. Every child learns at they own speed and to classify them as “dumb” is so wrong. My granddaughter couldn’t read hardly at all in school and instead not them helping her the teacher would read her the test questions and she would write the answers. It wasn’t until after she graduated she learned in her own and now she is never without a book. She was determined to teach her 2 young boys to read before they started school and now the 7 year old is one of the too readers in his grade.
Great tale to amplify the discussion, Martha! Thanks for doing so.