When I was 8 years old, I was pulled out of my 2nd grade class (I missed the cut-off with my October 3rd birthday and started kindergarten a month before my 6th birthday) and taken to a special room with a special teacher to take a special test. The following conversation took place:
Teacher: Randi, I am going to tell you some words. I want you to tell me what those words mean.
Me: OK, but wait. What if you say the word "see" (note, this is all spoken, not written). You could mean see with your eyes or sea like the ocean.
Teacher: Ok, we're done.
The next thing I knew, I was being taken out of class 2.5 times a week to go to "gifted" classes. All I knew was that fun things happened in the gifted class. I was excited. I was GIFTED!!!! Or was I? My parents have never told me the IQ number that came out of that test. There was no need to from their point of view. A number is just that, a number. And, as my mom often told me, this number was subjective and one person's view of my intelligence. I should take this opportunity and make the most of it.
Yes, school was always easy for me. I am good at being a student. Some kids can throw a wicked curve ball. Others play violin. I could do a mean conjugation and follow it up with some serious multiplication tables. Don't get me started on History... those dates just stuck in my head like chewing gum sticks to ponytails. But, does this make me gifted? Does this mean I can rest on my "gifted brain" laurels? Or, could it just be that I am highly verbal, a year older than the youngest person in my class and slightly precocious? Has my academic success thus far (and I consider my academic career to be successful) been because of this "gifted" mind or because I had more opportunities than others? In my gifted classes we did technology projects, design competitions, and simulation games (Oregon Trail groups, U.S. Stock Exchange, America Invents, etc.) Is it any surprise, then, that I went into a STEM field? We constantly talk about lack of females and minorities in STEM, but maybe this is due to less exposure to STEM fields in youth.
The same can work in the reverse. My younger brother took a similar test in 2nd grade. He was pulled into the same room with the same teacher, but this time the test was looking for something else. Why was he doing so poorly in school? Why didn't he complete assignments or get the answers in a test all jumbled? So, he took the test. And wouldn't you know, he had the intelligence. So, there had to be something else at play. Long story short, he had a learning disability, so it wasn't that he didn't know the solution, he just mixed it up or got distracted on another question before answering the last. If my parents hadn't pushed for further testing he may have been deemed slow or learning-disabled and maybe he wouldn't have had the same opportunities. Unfortunately, with today's public school system being labeled SLD or LD typically means a separate class with lower expectations, little resources and a "get-by" mentality. Now, that broken system is a whole different conversation. But, once they identified and managed my brother's problems, he was afforded all the same opportunities. Today, my little brother is a graduate student working towards his master's degree in ocean science while working full-time as a state employee for the Bureau of Radiation reviewing and approving/declining state radiation licenses.
Two successful academic stories. Two very different test scores and school experiences. Maybe IQ and intelligence isn't everything. Maybe it is how we, as educators, perceive our students. If we expect them to do well and give them those opportunities they will do well. If we, however, push them aside, lower expectations, and give them no chance to succeed what do we expect? Like our President says, do we expect the students to lift themselves up by their own boot straps? Or, should we rethink how we label and test our students.
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