Intelligence: Product Of Social Construction

6 Pages 1389 Words

Intelligence: A Product of Social Construction

Since the development of the intelligence quotient, schools in every part of the world have been using the IQ test to categorize millions of students into three groups. These three groups, which are the gifted, the average, and the retarded, are falsifications that perpetuate in our world culture and cause many gifted students to be deemed retarded and vice a versa. Why then is the IQ test so heavily relied on in our school systems? For schools the answer is simple, an I.Q. test is a reliable predictor of a students later performance in academics. This answer is relatively true, but where the I.Q. test falls extremely short is with testing the multiple intelligences of the human brain. The intelligence quotient test, developed by Alfred Binet, was created to evaluate ones intelligence with a test that would yield a numerical value that could be compared with a collective average to determine ones level of intelligence. However, the questions of an I.Q. test, or even the SAT’s for that matter, are testing only the verbal-mathematical forms of intelligence. The human brain is extremely complicated and advanced, and to assume that the indicators of intelligence are only found in logical and linguistic intelligences is a poor assumption at best. A more comprehensive test, which can test all seven types of intelligence, should be implemented into the educational system to ensure every student an education tailored to their strongest abilities.
In every elementary school in America third graders are forced to take a test that will greatly impact their academic careers. The G.A.T.E. program, which stands for gifted and talented education, is designed to separate the gifted children from the average and below average kids. However, the G.A.T.E. test is comprised of questions the children do not have the answers for. In other words, the kids are being tested on their innate knowl...