IQ Tests - Week 2

This week, we split into groups and had the opportunity to explore and examine one of four popular IQ tests. My group examined the Stanford-Binet test. I found it to be very interesting, although confusing at times. As I examined the test, I noticed several striking similarities between some of the components and my experiences in other classes.

I spent my first two years at Etown as an early childhood/special education major, and with it, I completed numerous field placements. One such placement, in the spring of my sophomore year, was in an autism support classroom at a local middle school. Several of the students spent class time working one on one with a teacher who used materials very similar to those found in the Stanford-Binet test. The teacher had a stack of cards containing various tasks. Some would prompt the student to answer a question about everyday objects and locations (ex. "What do you do at a restaurant?"). Some of the items on the Binet test strongly reminded me of these prompting activities. I wondered if this teaching style was based on Binet's test, or at least partially drew inspiration from it. Although the presentation of the items were far different, it was still great to be able to see the connection between these two fields.

Teach-In - Week 1

When the question was posed if IQ is equal between races, my first thought was that yes it is and there are no natural reasons for it to be unequal. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that these differences were most likely caused by circumstances that each family must face. Families in poverty have less access to healthy foods that would give their children the substantial nutrition their brains need to develop. When we think of cities, we think of densely packed and poorly funded schools, which will be less conducive to a high quality education. The factors that account for these differences are problems that our society faces as a whole, and cannot be blamed on individual families.

I work at a daycare center during the summers, and the center prides itself on being a high quality educational experience for children of all ages. The company runs a scholarship contest each year to find a high school senior who previously attended their centers, and this student must submit an essay about how the daycare impacted their future. I have seen firsthand how stressful it is to teach at this daycare, simply from the pressure of corporate for them to do nothing but superior work. The infant room, which contains children under the age of six months, requires weekly lesson plans covering a range of topics (art, science, social activity, reading). Obviously, this company places huge emphasis on education, and the price tag certainly reflects that. Monthly tuition is in the thousands, even more so for infants. Daycare services like this are simply not an option for low income families, which I think further contributes to the divide in IQ scores. Even as I think about it now, I cannot think of a single African American student that attended while I worked there, and I am ashamed that I can't come up with even one name. There are children of other races, but even those numbers are low, at only around 2-3 per classroom of 15-20. The staff is diverse and accurately reflects the diversity of our population, but the student body certainly does not. Even in my county, which is listed as one of the five wealthiest counties in the entire United States, there is a clear divide between race and access to high-quality early childhood education, which may be a factor in IQ scores later in life. It is grossly unfair that all children do not have the same opportunities to grow and learn, and it is even worse that these opportunities are often limited by the child's race.