Borderland

Clay Burell threw down a fun little quiz challenge yesterday, and I took it. My result said I’m smarter than 97.64% of the population (whoever that is) which, according to his preliminary results, puts me behind his 98.3% score, and Stephen Downes’ 98.98%. I left a comment asking, What does it mean to be smart? because I think that tests only show a certain kind of intelligence.

In my comment on Clay’s results post, I elaborate the point:

The question of what is smart came up in the car driving home with my two middle schoolers today. My son said that he was given a set of questions to answer in school (kind of like this test, just for fun) with an item that asked, “Which of these is not a planet?” a)Mars; b)Earth; c)Pluto; d)the Moon. He said a lot of kids chose Pluto. He also said he noticed a 1997 copyright date on the bottom of the page, which explained the answer choices for him.

I told him that being smart on a test is it’s own kind of smart. It means figuring out what the test writer wants you to say, not what’s right, or what you really think. Looking for ambiguity and understanding what the test is designed to do helps. And that’s a whole different way of thinking about taking a test than simply trying to answer the questions correctly.

Compliance and a desire to please is often mistaken for intelligence. Many years ago I read Tom Sawyer to my class of second graders, and it inspired one of the bolder little boys to organize his friends out on the playground to act suspicious so the teacher on duty would “think they were doing something wrong.” He was a thinker, that kid.

On the subject of intelligence, Gerald Bracey asks, Yo! Bill Gates! If You’re So Rich, How Come You Ain’t Smart? (Again), and responds to Gates’ call for national standards:

Why is it incredible that we have no national standard? Remember “Only in America?” It used to be a statement of pride that we did things different from the rest of the world. National standards in and of themselves mean nothing. A study of the results of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study in 1995 found that in math, 8 of the 10 highest scoring nations had centralized curricula and national standards. But so did 8 of the 10 lowest scoring nations. In science 8 of the 10 highest scoring nations had national standards, but so did 9 of the 10 lowest scoring countries.

National standards aren’t smart if they’re only applied to curriculum and ignore the welfare of children. National standards aren’t smart if the results will only be measured by multiple choice test scores, without regard for other performance measures, like Homeland Insecurity: American Children at Risk by Michael R. Petit [link to pdf], where we are reminded that millions of US children are without health insurance. How about some standards that would make a difference to people, and not just raise test scores? According to the PDK/Gallup pole, people are getting tired of the test score drum beat. But Gates may not understand that.

Update: Mike Klonsky linked to the Parade Magazine article that Bracey cited, which is ironically titled Intelligence Report, and he observes:

Then, Bill, sounding like some right-wing yahoo, holds forth on some of his favorite topics, like standardized testing—it’s “the only objective measurement of our students,” and reading instruction—“ “when we gave up phonics, we destroyed the reading ability of those kids.”

When exactly, did we “gave up phonics,” Bill? And what objectively is it that you are measuring with standardized tests?< .p>

I suspect that living in an 11,500 sq. ft. home, and all that comes with it, would affect your ability to see what’s going on in some parts of the world. Seems like income is another objective way to measure students. But would that be fair?