When reading the sources for this blog post, I immediately was reminded of two other but highly relevant situations; one being the ‘creation’ of IQ testing, and the other of how it feels to suddenly be perceived (both internally and externally) of being stupid when communicating in a new or 2nd language.
The first situation, the history of IQ testing, began in France during the ealy 1900s by a man named Alfred Binet, who in an attempt to do something to help young school children who seemed to be falling behind, created a form of universal intelligence testing. The test was highly flawed even by Binets own admission, it lacked for 2nd language acquisition, cultural norms (for example is the test being held in what would otherwise be a break or lunch time? Is this a time for prayer or helping younger siblings?) but despite it’s really rather extreme flaws it was at the very least an attempt to help young students. Binet himself waned others not to make this a standardized unit of intelligence, but rather a jumping off point for further development.
Alas, the test was taken and used to radically harm not just POC communities but even force ‘the unintelligent’ into military service and even dictate their rank. Essentially, the IQ test he created to help ended up being a tool of oppression, propaganda, and even forced death in the military. The test was taken into the arms of Eugenicists and used to systematically and ‘scientifically’ oppress and segregate people of other races.
A fair question is, how could it do this? How was the test written to deliberately make upper-middle-class white men the intellectual standard? The test was twisted into a specific understanding of information retention (prior education, not innate understanding) no testing for innate skills such as empathy, and worst of all, use of language. Should you have a foreign accent or working class accen,t you were already in a disadvantage. The tests understanding of logic was designed to be catered to the western gaze; it didn’t account for how other races and their cultures handled problem solving. A great example here is the Aboriginal peoples of Australia, who had an entirely separate system for life and problem solving than the white British who came to colonise their land, and using IQ tests, they were deemed ‘feeble-minded’ due to their race.
I’m trying to respect the word count, so I’ll quickly mention the second situation I referenced above. The story is of a young Korean boy who talks about the pain of suddenly being ‘unintelligent’ when he came to America because he couldn’t speak English. Being perceived as unintelligent is devastating, but when your race is used as an explanation, it has wide-ranging impacts on other people of your race and can be used as systemic justification as to why you deserve to be othered. Sadly I can’t find the original link to his talk! Within my own practice, I have many students from a bilingual background and we often have to work together in tandem with the English language support team to make sure we are all communicating to the best extent. I think verbalizing to the students that quite literally, ‘you’re doing a great job, it’s my responsibility to make sure we communicate adequately, not your burden to shoulder entirely’ could be a nice way to reinforce that we are working together, not apart, and I care about their contributions.
Bibliography:
Royal College of Psychiatrists (2023) Francis Galton. Available at: https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/news-and-features/blogs/detail/history-archives-and-library-blog/2023/02/22/francis-galton
Monash Lens (2022) How should we reckon with history’s uncomfortable truths about disability? Available at: https://lens.monash.edu/@education/2022/12/07/1385335/how-should-we-reckon-with-historys-uncomfortable-truths-about-disability
Johnson, S. (2017) IQ, Equality, and the Supreme Court: How the IQ Test Shaped Judicial Understanding of Intellectual Disability, DePaul Law Review, 66(3), pp. 687–719. Available at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1270&context=law-review
Hardy, I. (2023) Deaf Education in Canada: Eugenics and the Normalisation of Difference, Historical Studies in Education / Revue d’histoire de l’éducation, 35(1), pp. 72–94. Available at: https://historicalstudiesineducation.ca/index.php/edu_hse-rhe/article/download/5021/5397
Bombay, A., Matheson, K. and Anisman, H. (2014) Indian Residential Schools in Canada: Persistent Impacts on Aboriginal Students’ Psychological Development and Functioning. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326215022_Indian_Residential_Schools_in_Canada_Persistent_Impacts_on_Aboriginal_Students’_Psychological_Development_and_Functioning
Cherry, K. (2022) Alfred Binet Biography (1857–1911). Verywell Mind. Available at: https://www.verywellmind.com/alfred-binet-biography-2795503
Butrymowicz, S. (2016) Even the father of IQ tests thought the results weren’t written in stone. The Hechinger Report. Available at: https://hechingerreport.org/reporters-notebook-even-the-father-of-iq-tests-thought-the-results-werent-written-in-stone/
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