No Fixed Stars: Thoughts on I.Q. Testing

In This Essay

The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything by Ken Robinson, Ph.D., with Lou Aronica

Alfred Binet, Wikipedia

Lewis Terman, Wikipedia

I have always been aware of ideas of intelligence and, therefore, ideas of Intelligence Quotient (I.Q.).

Unless you count a silly Internet test I took in college, I have never taken an I.Q. test. Often I have wondered what my I.Q. was, assuming as I did that I.Q. was a valid measure of intelligence. Since I did well in my scholastic subjects, I thought I would score high on an I.Q. test and I wanted in my insecurity about my own talents an objective verification of what I wanted to believe about myself but doubted.

When I moved to Ohio for college, I learned from friends that administering I.Q. tests is routine procedure in Ohio. I felt cheated then that Massachusetts did not do the same.

Now, however, having read more about the history of the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales, I am thankful not to have had my I.Q. measured in this way.

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Weekly Review: October 23rd to October 29th

What is the common phrasing of the Biblical proverb? “Seven years of feast, seven years of famine”?

Keeping in line with our rapidly shrinking sense of time and of being overwhelmed, when I look back on writing the Weekly Reviews, I feel like there are seven days of feast and seven days of famine.

This week has been a feast week. I emailed myself twenty-seven (27) stories for consideration for this week’s post. In fact, part of the reason why I did not post on Friday is because I had so much material to sort through.

These Things Caught My Eye

• Books Are Just Dead Trees
• The Lost Art of Reading
• Learning Takes Time
• Reminded of Mortality by Eating an Apple
• Single Parenting and Cognitive Development
• Mirror Writing

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