3. PRETEND INTELLIGENCE

SORTING PEOPLE OUT

M

ost people in developed countries have prob ably taken an intelli-

gence test at some time in their lives. Th ey might have been con-

fused by how a few questions and puzzles could really mea sure

their potential as human beings; wondered what decisions about them,

personally, it might lead to; yet never challenged the fatal verdict. Such

has been the power of the IQ ideology.

I remember taking my fi rst intelligence test, though I did not know

what it was at the time, nor that such a thing was supposed to mea sure

my potential for future learning. I remember stalling over what seemed

like trick questions and puzzles, the likes of which I had never seen before.

But I was in good com pany. Few children in the mining village where

I grew up passed the United Kingdom’s 11+ exam. In fact, over the whole

period of my six years at a primary school of about eighty pupils, I can

only remember two passing.

So we all got shipped off to second- rate secondary school to be readied

for mine and factory as soon as we reached the age of fi ft een. By then our

teachers (occasionally to be overheard referring to “poor stock,” or “in-

breeding” or asking “what else would you expect?”) had done their stuff

and convinced us that we had little in the way of brains anyway.

Th en, as now, I suspected that this sorting of children in the job and

wealth stakes had more to do with social class background than science.

Th e terms “bright” and “dull,” used then (as now) to rationalize a class

structure, are hardly scientifi c. But in a society claiming to be demo cratic,

the sorting must somehow be made to seem fair and just.

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