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Your IQ doesn’t mean jack shit
Schools should give up on standard measures of intelligence.
The girl’s dad told me I was a failure as a teacher. He demanded to know my IQ. When I refused, he threatened to have me fired. Good thing we were on the phone. He sounded kind of stabby.
The problem? His daughter had earned a B on a paper. That had never happened to him before. Emphasis on him.
Throughout grad school, I survived the lean summer months by working for gifted education programs. Like the ones run by Duke, Johns Hopkins, and Northwestern. Which one? That’s classified. I’m not trying to get sued here. Besides, they’re all the same.
Almost every gifted education program exists for the same reasons. To recruit students for their host university. To educate. And to make money while doing it. The parents believe sending their kids to us every summer increases their chances of acceptance at top schools. Not always Ivy League, but one tier above public land grants. Maybe this strategy works for some. For others, I’m sure summer programs for smart kids have the usual benefit of making them even smarter. But a handful of parents just don’t understand.
Every summer, some of them always asked me the same questions. “Are you a Harvard professor?” No.
