Dear ,
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Welcome to Issue 190. If you did not receive a previous issue, you may use the archive link below to view it now. The mission of "Marvelous Mondays" is to offer an inspirational thought, a practical exercise, some humor, or a simple tip to jump-start your week and to enhance your life, business, outlook or relationships.
Please feel free to forward "Marvelous Mondays" to others who will enjoy it.
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WHY IS THIS SUBJECT IMPORTANT? |
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We base many of our important decisions and choices on our perception of intelligence (ours and others). So we need to examine the differences between intellectual and emotional intelligence. In this issue we will be discussing the traditional IQ test.
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INTELLIGENT QUOTIENT (IQ TEST) |
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The history of the IQ test reveals that psychologist Dr. Alfred Binet was commissioned by the French government in 1904 to help with a perceived problem in the school system. Children who were considered to be intellectually inferior were considered disruptive, so the government wanted to isolate them in a special school. For that reason the government hired Dr. Binet to create a testing instrument to determine the level of intelligence of certain children.
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THE MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR TESTING INDUSTRY |
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By the 1920's the test evolved into the Standford-Binet Scale and became part of a multi-million dollar testing industry. By 1974 the industry had swelled to an even greater sales volume and was spread among nearly 2500 different testing instruments and organizations.
Then, in 1976 the National Education Association (with 2,000 teacher members) recommended the total elimination of the standardized intelligence, aptitude, and achievement tests, describing them as being "at best wasteful, and at worst, destructive."
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THE TEST INDUSTRY WINS AND CURRENT STATUS OF TESTING |
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While the controversy surrounding testing caused an uproar, the testing industry prevailed and became even more powerful, especially when the National Education Association later decided that comprehensive testing was needed.
Today, opponents of IQ testing assert, among other things, that the tests generally measure what a person has learned rather than what a person's potential is for learning.
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