The Disadvantages of Being Stupid, by David H Freedman, The Atlantic
Masha Yudin stashed this in education
Stashed in: Poverty, Intelligence, Poverty
"We must stop glorifying intelligence and treating our society as a playground for the smart minority. We should instead begin shaping our economy, our schools, even our culture with an eye to the abilities and needs of the majority, and to the full range of human capacity."
That makes sense given this:
Many people who have benefited from the current system like to tell themselves that they’re working hard to help the unintelligent become intelligent. This is a marvelous goal, and decades of research have shown that it’s achievable through two approaches: dramatically reducing poverty, and getting young children who are at risk of poor academic performance into intensive early-education programs. The strength of the link between poverty and struggling in school is as close to ironclad as social science gets. Still, there’s little point in discussing alleviating poverty as a solution, because our government and society are not seriously considering any initiatives capable of making a significant dent in the numbers or conditions of the poor.
Harrison Bergeron would agree. But Masha, do you know what a red queen race is?
Who is that?
"Well, in our country," said Alice, still panting a little, "you'd generally get to somewhere else—if you run very fast for a long time, as we've been doing."
"A slow sort of country!" said the Queen. "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!" [1]
I can see how this idea applies to our education system, having just been through college application process :)
That's life on a treadmill. Feels like progress, but it isn't.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron "In the year 2081, amendments to the Constitution dictate that all Americans are fully equal and not allowed to be smarter, better-looking, or more physically able than anyone else. The Handicapper General's agents enforce the equality laws, forcing citizens to wear "handicaps": masks for those who are too beautiful, radios inside the ears of intelligent people, and heavy weights for the strong or athletic." - With our cult of beauty and fitness, I do not think we'll get there... But intelligence is another story, looks like...
I do not want radios in my ears!
10:03 AM Jun 21 2016