Victimization Caused by the Social Construction of Intelligence
November 19. 2004
Whether we admit it or not, we’ve all been victimized by the social construction of intelligence. It causes vicious, and unnecessary competition that often destroys an individual’s self-esteem. I’ve already briefly mentioned how lack of ability has pretty harshly labeled my brother in the school system, and how it’s changed his attitude toward school and teachers in general. But even the students deemed successful in the regular school system are at risk of victimization.
I was always labeled the smart kid by students and teachers alike, so it comes as no surprise that after awhile I started to expect the A’s and the scholarship money. I knew if I didn’t receive this level of gratification, life as I knew it, would come crashing down.
Out of the blue, I began struggling early in my Social Studies 30 class. Test after test, I was turning up mediocre grades. At first, I thought it was a reflection on me (i.e. I was having a bad day, or I didn’t understand the curriculum), but after Professor Runte’s comment in class today, I know my grades in no way reflected how well I knew the curriculum. After all, when it came time to write the essay for the diploma exam, I did an awesome job. Plus, my Social Studies 10 and 20 marks were through the roof. The reason I ended up with such a low grade in the course overall was a reflection of my teacher’s assessment practice. He would always produce pages of old multiple choice diploma questions to use as our unit tests. Without fail, I would always become discouraged because I never understood what the questions were asking, and resort to guessing. It now is apparent, that in grade twelve I was not reading at a university level, which is the level of comprehension these multiple choice questions are constructed to model. After barely passing Social Studies 30, it is no surprise I began to doubt my abilities to teach a subject like social studies, and quickly changed my major from Sociology to French. Sadly, this is a prime example of how society and individuals place too much value on grades, which are based on an artificial concept known as intelligence.
On a similar note, my roommate always had a terrible time finding summer employment. Eventually, I agreed to help her improve her resume, and interviewing techniques. One summer, I asked her to keep me updated on the job searching. It surprised and shocked me that she confessed to having failed personality or written exams that she was given by possible employers such as Canadian Tire and Home Depot. Back then I failed to understand how your score on a personality or written exam (with quadratic equations) could have any bearing on whether or not you would make a good employee. After all, how do they expect you to answer the detailed questions they were asking with no prior experience or training? From my point of view, what these employers were asking seemed like impossible tasks, and I had no idea how to help prepare her for future exams of this caliber. Again, after today’s class, I now understand what was going on here. These companies are looking for people who will effectively represent management’s beliefs and values. A person’s score on these exams has no reflection on their actual intelligence. However, the only reason these employers give for not hiring individuals like my roommate is you failed our exam. Thereby communicating the message that “you are stupid” and making unemployed people feel responsible for their situation when ultimately society is to blame for the amount of emphasis they place on the artificial reality of intelligence.
In the intelligence game, everybody is bound to come up a loser at least once, so why do we continue to hold this arbitrary concept in such high esteem? It really makes no sense!
Whether we admit it or not, we’ve all been victimized by the social construction of intelligence. It causes vicious, and unnecessary competition that often destroys an individual’s self-esteem. I’ve already briefly mentioned how lack of ability has pretty harshly labeled my brother in the school system, and how it’s changed his attitude toward school and teachers in general. But even the students deemed successful in the regular school system are at risk of victimization.
I was always labeled the smart kid by students and teachers alike, so it comes as no surprise that after awhile I started to expect the A’s and the scholarship money. I knew if I didn’t receive this level of gratification, life as I knew it, would come crashing down.
Out of the blue, I began struggling early in my Social Studies 30 class. Test after test, I was turning up mediocre grades. At first, I thought it was a reflection on me (i.e. I was having a bad day, or I didn’t understand the curriculum), but after Professor Runte’s comment in class today, I know my grades in no way reflected how well I knew the curriculum. After all, when it came time to write the essay for the diploma exam, I did an awesome job. Plus, my Social Studies 10 and 20 marks were through the roof. The reason I ended up with such a low grade in the course overall was a reflection of my teacher’s assessment practice. He would always produce pages of old multiple choice diploma questions to use as our unit tests. Without fail, I would always become discouraged because I never understood what the questions were asking, and resort to guessing. It now is apparent, that in grade twelve I was not reading at a university level, which is the level of comprehension these multiple choice questions are constructed to model. After barely passing Social Studies 30, it is no surprise I began to doubt my abilities to teach a subject like social studies, and quickly changed my major from Sociology to French. Sadly, this is a prime example of how society and individuals place too much value on grades, which are based on an artificial concept known as intelligence.
On a similar note, my roommate always had a terrible time finding summer employment. Eventually, I agreed to help her improve her resume, and interviewing techniques. One summer, I asked her to keep me updated on the job searching. It surprised and shocked me that she confessed to having failed personality or written exams that she was given by possible employers such as Canadian Tire and Home Depot. Back then I failed to understand how your score on a personality or written exam (with quadratic equations) could have any bearing on whether or not you would make a good employee. After all, how do they expect you to answer the detailed questions they were asking with no prior experience or training? From my point of view, what these employers were asking seemed like impossible tasks, and I had no idea how to help prepare her for future exams of this caliber. Again, after today’s class, I now understand what was going on here. These companies are looking for people who will effectively represent management’s beliefs and values. A person’s score on these exams has no reflection on their actual intelligence. However, the only reason these employers give for not hiring individuals like my roommate is you failed our exam. Thereby communicating the message that “you are stupid” and making unemployed people feel responsible for their situation when ultimately society is to blame for the amount of emphasis they place on the artificial reality of intelligence.
In the intelligence game, everybody is bound to come up a loser at least once, so why do we continue to hold this arbitrary concept in such high esteem? It really makes no sense!
posted by Chantelle @ 11:09 PM
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