Children Above 180 IQ by Leta S. Hollingworth

The first thing that I have to remember about this book is that it is very old, with a copyright listed as 1942 and much of the data coming from at least 10 years earlier. So, in relation to the numbers that are currently used, this has to be re-interpreted. With the new WISC IV and the Stanford-Binet 5, the IQ scores are coming in much lower, from what I have heard. On the newer scales, I haven't read of any children scoring above 150, let alone 180. So perhaps a qualitative definition of profoundly gifted is a better one.

Optimal Intelligence

I have heard before the concept of optimal intelligence and I am wondering if this is the book / author where the idea was first proposed. The idea is that children there is an optimal range of IQ, between the old scales of 125 and 155 (or what would today be considerd moderately gifted and highly gifted), where children can develop into healthy leaders. To quote Hollingworth (p. 264): "Children and adolescents in this area are enough more intelligent than the average to win the confidence of large numbers of their fellows, which brings about leadership, and to manage their own lives with superior efficiency. Moreover, there are enough of them to afford mutual esteem and understanding. But those of 170 IQ and beyond are too intelligent to be understood by the general run of persons with whom they make contact. They have to contend with loneliness and with personal isolation from their contemporaries throughout the period of immaturity."

To tie this in with another of my "love's", I see this at work in Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow. All of the children in battle school are gifted - so their IQs are probably in the range of 125 to 155. On Earth, they would be (and later are) leaders. In battle school the ultimate leader is Ender. He is probably in the exceptionally gifted range. Since he is probably just above the upper end of the range of the majority of the other children, he can be an effective leader for them, albeit suffering from some of the isolation effects of being a rarity. Bean, on the other hand, is so intelligent that he doesn't and can't understand the other children. He can be a friend to Ender, and can even lead him, but he will never have intellectual peers. Interestingly, I read one review of Ender's Shadow that said that they didn't think that the character of Bean was realistic - no one could be that intelligent. While in certain respects, I think that may be true (hiding in and escaping from a toilet while still an infant), I think it is wrong to discount the possibility of intelligence as high as Bean's. Reading biographies and studies of children with IQs over 180, as in this book and in Miraca Gross' book, Exceptionally Gifted Children, makes children like Bean more plausible.


Curriculum

In the latter part of the book, there is a discussion about the curriculum they are developing at the Speyer School for rapid learners. In many ways, the bare outline of what is proposed here appeals to me. Over the course of the 5 years that they keep the students (ages 7 through 13th birthday), they propose to have the child study a series of units loosely included under the title of "The Evolution of Common Things". This appeals to me, because it seems to follow how I get interested in things - I see something that is NOW and begin to wonder why it is like that. As I look into the background of how it got that what, it leads me back further and further along the path. I know this violates completely the present accepted methods of teaching history and science, chronologically, but it is actually more child-centered to begin with now and look back, rather than to begin at the beginning and work forward. I may even have been more interested in history if it had been taught this way. I don't know if this curriculum was ever published. I will have to look that up.

One thing about the Speyer School that I am still thinking about is the use of 7 years old as the age of entry. The problem with that is that I have seen with my own children that 7 years old may in fact be too late. Kids of this highly exceptional IQ range can already be having relatively serious problems with conventional schooling by 7 years old. Their reasoning is that children this young would have difficulty getting to and from school. That much is probably true, as the school was located in New York City. But nowadays, it is not uncommon for even Kindergarteners to take school busses or for parents to deliver their children in cars right to the schools' doorsteps, so I don't think it should be the effective criterion. I think, rather, the school needs to look at what the children need. There are certainly some 5 and 6 year olds that really NEED a more advanced curriculum. Kids who have been reading since 3 years old can be devastated by a school program where they have to spend hours, days, weeks, and months learning the alphabet.

This will probably be one of the last posts for a while. I have out of town guests coming and then I am traveling myself, so it may be a while before I write again. Meanwhile, I just finished "I Am David" by Anne Holm - a very worthwhile read, fascinating and gripping. Caveat here, though - the dog, once again, dies. Nevertheless, it is an important book.