An Incomplete Education
By Mitch Berg
I’m going to go to work as a curriculum writer.
I’ve got some samples I’m going to start sending around to school districts.
Sample 1
This activity illustrates the fact that whether or not your faith believes dogs and pigs are “unclean” or not, dogs and pigs should be regarded as a beneficial. Making dogs and pigs socially acceptable gives us bacon and big warm pillows on cold mornings. 1. Write “Bacon and Fetch” on the board. 2. Explain that Bacon and Fetch are two of life’s great joys and stress relievers, and that people who don’t think so really are weird. 3. Ask students to think of reasons why people in societies would find dogs and pigs unclean would like bacon and “fetch”, and write the responses in a column to the left of “”Bacon and Fetch”. 4. Next, have students think about why people in other societies love bacon and playing “fetch” with a loveable puppy, and list all of their responses in a column to the right of “Bacon and Fetch”.
I’ll give you all $1,000 when it’s accepted by the public school system!
Sample 2
This activity illustrates the fact that whether or not one believes there is a scientific basis to the theory that part of intelligence is genetic, and part of that genetic makeup is ethnic and racial, there is a need to observe this fact. As Will Saletan noted in that conservative tool Slate:
Among white Americans, the average IQ, as of a decade or so ago, was 103. Among Asian-Americans, it was 106. Among Jewish Americans, it was 113. Among Latino Americans, it was 89. Among African-Americans, it was 85. Around the world, studies find the same general pattern: whites 100, East Asians 106, sub-Sarahan Africans 70. One IQ table shows 113 in Hong Kong, 110 in Japan, and 100 in Britain. White populations in Australia, Canada, Europe, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United States score closer to one another than to the worldwide black average. It’s been that way for at least a century…
…So, what should we make of the difference in averages?
We don’t like to think IQ is mostly inherited. But we’ve all known families who are smarter than others. Twin and sibling studies, which can sort genetic from environmental factors, suggest more than half the variation in IQ scores is genetic. A task force report from the American Psychological Association indicates it might be even higher. The report doesn’t conclude that genes explain racial gaps in IQ. But the tests on which racial gaps are biggest happen to be the tests on which genes, as measured by comparative sibling performance, exert the biggest influence.
Admitting the genetic basis for intelligence makes it safer for the who have to deal with intelligence. 1. Write “Emotional Response” and “Scientific Fact” on the board. 2. Explain that 100 is traditionally deemed to be the “average” IQ for people in the world. 3. Ask students to think of reasons why ignoring the scientific evidence of the genetic and ethnic link to intelligence is dumb, and them under “emotional response”. 4. Next, have students think about why it’s smart to think the truth, and list all of their responses in a column under “Scientific Fact”.
I’m told I might have a little trouble getting this one passed, too. Stay tuned. [*]
Sample 3
This one’s on sex-ed. And, unlike the curriculum proposals (albeit not the Will Saletan quote in Sample 2) above, it’s real. Bob Collins writes about the debate:
Where it’s likely to get testy, if this curriculum should actually be adopted in schools statewide, are sections such as this:
This activity illustrates the fact that whether or not abortion is legal, there is a need for the procedure. Making abortion legal makes it safe for the women who access these services. 1. Write “1973” on the board. 2. Explain that 1973 was the year when abortion became legal in the U.S., but that women had abortions before then. 3. Ask students to think of reasons why a woman would have an illegal abortion and write all of their responses in a column to the left of “1973”. 4. Next, have students think about why women have abortions today, and list all of their responses in a column to the right of “1973”.
Over to you, governor.
That proposal is not only real – but unless the governor vetoes the legislation containg the proposal, it’s going to be pretty much law.
Before some leftyblogging hamster yaks up his skull, let me add that Saletan added:
Remember, these are averages, and all groups overlap. You can’t deduce an individual’s intelligence from her ethnicity. The only thing you can reasonably infer is that anyone who presumes to rate your IQ based on the color of your skin is probably dumber than you are.
Add to that “political preference, college diploma, or choice in clothing”, if that helps.
Me? I reject “objective” measurements of intelligence like the IQ score. Don’t look at me.
May 1st, 2008 at 11:37 am
Sample one is a clumsy attempt to impose a social norm on students.
Sample two is a clumsy attempt to impose a faulty scientific belief on students.
Sample three does neither. Regardless of what one thinks about the morality and legality of abortion, it would be good for students to think about the reasons woman might want to terminate a pregnancy and how that would relate to the law.
May 1st, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Sample one is a social norm to you, a matter of deep-rooted faith to others – Moslems in this case. Your attempt to “think about the reasons” people accept dogs and pigs may seem “socially normal” to you, and would be an attack on an article of faith to others (who have a first-amendment right to believe it).
Sample two – faulty? Did you bother to read the links (since that’s the standard you apply to everyone else on every other question)? What’s faulty? Seriously; look into the study methodology and tell us the fault.
Sample three: Would it then also be good for students to think about reasons a person might kill another person? After all, there are eminently pragmatic reasons to do so!
Answer those, and then I have another round of followup for you.
May 1st, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Uh-oh. You’ve raised the ethnicity vs. IQ issue and put it on the record. Better delete it now & claim someone hacked your site & wrote that post.
May 1st, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Mitch wrote:
1. “Sample one is a social norm to you, a matter of deep-rooted faith to others”
Yes, that is why it should not be imposed on school children. Sample 3 does not do that. It does not say abortion is right or wrong. It does not say it should be legal or illegal.
2. “look into the study methodology and tell us the fault”
Well for starters I more or less agree with you “I reject “objective” measurements of intelligence like the IQ score”. If IQ can not measure a real trait, then it can not measure a heritable trait.
For a more in depth refutation of Saletan:
http://www.slate.com/id/2179073
My favorite part:
“Rushton and Jensen admire the famous “Minnesota twin study,” in which black, white, and mixed-race adoptees were placed into white families. It has become a kind of gold standard for the researchers who believe the IQ gap is hereditary, and Rushton and Jensen devote a full seven paragraphs to it. Here is what you would never know about the Minnesota study from reading Jensen and Rushton, or, for that matter, Saletan. It held neither race nor expected IQ constant; the black children were adopted at a later age than the other children, which the study’s own authors note is associated with depressed IQ; the black children’s mothers had lower educational levels than those of the white children; the “quality of placement” for the white children was higher than for the other children; and as the study’s own authors have noted, the black and mixed-race children experienced severe adjustment problems as they grew up.”
Letting what should be constants get all variable in an experiment, is a major scientific flaw.
3. “Would it then also be good for students to think about reasons a person might kill another person? After all, there are eminently pragmatic reasons to do so!”
I guess that would depend on the context. You could substitute murder for abortion in sample 3, making the case a hypothetical not actual example. Listing motives for murder in both legal and illegal situation would quickly show that murder laws prevent lots of people from killing each other. Not exactly an interesting exercise, but not harmful.
May 1st, 2008 at 4:09 pm
RickDFL-
Well for starters I more or less agree with you “I reject “objective” measurements of intelligence like the IQ score”. If IQ can not measure a real trait, then it can not measure a heritable trait.
Sheer and utter nonsense. IQ measures something real, or it would be distributed evenly across populations. Physicists and MD’s cluster at the high end of the IQ scale, custodians and the manual trades are at the bottom.
The next time you need a lawyer or a surgeon, RickDFL, I suggest you test your theories about intelligence by choosing one with an IQ between 80-90.
May 1st, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Terry writes:
“IQ measures something real, or it would be distributed evenly across populations”
Nonsense. Distribution of a trait has no relation to its reality. Number of fingers is a real trait evenly distributed across the population. Sickle cell anemia is a real trait unequally distributed. The ‘distribution’ of an unreal trait will depend entirely on the motives of the reasearcher. Unreal traits are easy to ‘identify’ in particular populations exactly because there is no objective test for them.
May 1st, 2008 at 6:18 pm
You’re not making sense, RickDFL. Number of fingers is not evenly distributed. There are many, many people with fewer than five fingers on each hand and there are a very few people with more than five fingers on each hand.
What non-real trait do you think IQ measures?
May 1st, 2008 at 6:42 pm
Terry:
Sigh. The ratio of people born with and without five fingers in the overall population stays constant if you look at subsets of the population like males, blondes, ect. That is not the case with sickle cell which shows up disproportionately in Africans. That is what makes the first evenly distributed and the second not. But the point is simply that distribution of a trait has no relation to its reality. Some real traits are evenly distributed, some are not.
May 1st, 2008 at 6:58 pm
So now you’re saying ‘born with five fingers on each hand’ is evenly distributed? But only in regards to males, blonds & etc?
Unreal traits cannot be measured because they don’t exist. IQ tests show differentiation between subject individuals & groups. They are measuring some real trait, even if it’s ‘measure of likeliness to become a doctor or a custodian’.
Please cite a peer reviewed paper that claims that intelligence is not a real trait.
May 2nd, 2008 at 9:07 am
Terry wrote:
“So now you’re saying ‘born with five fingers on each hand’ is evenly distributed?”
Did I ever say different? If you don’t like that example pick your own. The simple and rather obvious point is that some real properties are evenly distributed across a given population some are not. You argued that real properties can not be evenly distributed across a population. That was stupid.
“They are measuring some real trait”
Fair enough. Mitch’s point, I think, was simply that IQ tests do not measure some generic natural property of intelligence. I agree. What standard IQ tests actually measure is a good question.