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January 22, 2007
Half of Today's Students Are below Average in Intelligence (!)
Heading is a quote from the first of a series of three back-to-back editorials in last week's Wall Street Journal. Written by Charles Murray, the editorials examine the limits created by intelligence in educational experience. In the first, he wonders if we are not attempting to educate students beyond their capacities to learn:
"Our ability to improve the academic accomplishment of students in the lower half of the distribution of intelligence is severely limited. It is a matter of ceilings. Suppose a girl in the 99th percentile of intelligence, corresponding to an IQ of 135, is getting a C in English. She is underachieving, and someone who sets out to raise her performance might be able to get a spectacular result. Now suppose the boy sitting behind her is getting a D, but his IQ is a bit below 100, at the 49th percentile."We can hope to raise his grade. But teaching him more vocabulary words or drilling him on the parts of speech will not open up new vistas for him. It is not within his power to learn to follow an exposition written beyond a limited level of complexity, any more than it is within my power to follow a proof in the American Journal of Mathematics. In both cases, the problem is not that we have not been taught enough, but that we are not smart enough."
Posted by DavidK at January 22, 2007 10:02 AM | Permalink