Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Book on IQ tests and school reorganization (1922)

Here are three excerpts from this 1922 book Intelligence Tests and School Reorganization by Lewis M. Terman, who was Chairman of Subcommittee on Use of Intelligence Tests in Revision of Elementary Education. It appears this was written about 11 years after Binet's test method was published in America.

http://books.google.com/books?id=DM0DAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover

Page 3: "Intelligence tests have demonstrated the great extent and frequency of individual differences in the mental ability of unselected school children, and common sense tells us how necessary it is to take such differences into account in the framing of curricula and methods in the classification of children for instruction and in their educational and vocational guidance."

Page 28: "The average school devotes more time and effort to its dullards than to its children of superior ability. The latter are expected to take care of themselves. As a matter of fact, many of them are not discovered. Yet it may be of more value to society to discover a single gifted child and aid in his proper development than to train a thousand dullards to the limit of their educability or to prevent the birth of a thousand feeble-minded. Investigations show that the brightest children, those who have IQ's above 130 or 140, are usually located from one to three grades below that which corresponds to their mental age. They are not encouraged to live up to their possibilities. Their school work is so easy for them that their wills are in danger of becoming flabby from lack of exertion. How can character develop normally a child who during all the years when character is molded, never meets a task that calls forth his best effort? The school's first task is to find its gifted and to set them tasks more commensurate with their ability."

Page 73: "For every genius who has achieved in proportion to his capacity, probably two or more have been wasted. Education is partly responsible, for methods of education should include the selection and special treatment of supernormal children. Deviates in intelligence in either direction from the mean are equally out of place in a normal classroom; yet, although much work has been done in the segregation and special treatment of subnormal children, little if any consideration has been given the problem of the supernormal. Nature has made lavish investments in nervous systems, investments which have never yielded proportional social dividends."

Thoughts?

Thoughts? Yeah.

Probably best summarized as; CLEARLY, some things never change. Heh.

Take out the politically incorrect verbiage and he's saying the same things that modern advocates for gifted education have been saying for the past decade or so.

It's lovely to recognize that children who are struggling to meet basic age-expectations need education that meets their needs...

but we as a society seem to continue treating this as a zero-sum game, and that is foolish, shortsighted, and more-- it's morally wrong, as well. Happily, we seem to have finally understood that for those we consider to be "less fortunate" in cognitive/learning terms. Less happily, we (societally, I mean) still can't seem to let go of the mythology surrounding being at the high end of the curve there, and the terminology alone worsens that... why should anything MORE be given to those who are already "gifted" with so much... (ugh)

The page 73 quote has always been my personal rallying cry--

Deviates in intelligence in either direction from the mean are equally out of place in a normal classroom; yet, although much work has been done in the segregation and special treatment of subnormal children, little if any consideration has been given the problem of the supernormal

Again, I realize that some of this language is offensive by modern standards, and I don't disagree... but what if... what if we started TRULY seeing "Special Education" for what it ought to mean? Why make "gifted" education something so-- so-- well, so status-laden? Shouldn't it be about meeting unusual NEEDS? That's Special Education, isn't it?

I would be more than content with my child to be labeled thusly, and I think that most HG+ parents feel the same way. Fine. I see no stigma, because for us this has never been a matter of "status" in the first place.

The other thing that I find ironic is when people imply that we should be "proud" of our daughter's PG nature...

why?? Okay, I get the mindset that goes along with that (well, I don't really, but I can kind of see the logic).

Should my friends then be ashamed of their DD with trisomy??

Maybe we should both be proud of who our daughters are-- not WHAT they are.