Children Above 180 IQ Stanford-Binet: Origin and DevelopmentHollingworth, Leta Stetter
Science
Children Above 180 IQ Stanford-Binet: Origin and Development
Hollingworth, Leta Stetter
Gifted children; Stanford-Binet Test
Two classes for rapid learners were included in the setup of this
school, to accommodate twenty-five pupils each. These classes have
now (1939) been in progress for three years. Their chief purpose
has been to find experimentally and to establish a curriculum that
would provide a genuine education for children of mental calibers
above 130 IQ (S-B); an education that would extend their minds and
interest them in the interests of society during the years of the
elementary school.
Pupils were selected for this experiment on the basis of three
criteria: (1) they must test at or above 130 IQ (S-B); (2) they
must be at least 7 years 0 months old, and at most 9 years 6 months
old; (3) they must be representative as a group of the various
ethnic stocks composing the population of New York City. This
constitutes what we consider a perfectly democratic selection.
Nothing "counts" toward selection except the tested quality
of the pupil himself.
The organization is that of an 8B elementary school, designed
to run for five years as an experiment. Promotion to the ninth
grade of the senior high schools at the age of 13 years was
planned for our pupils. The school also includes seven classes
for slow learners (IQ 75-90), the pupils of which mingle freely
with those of the rapid learner classes except for purposes
of classroom instruction.
The teachers were selected from a long list of applicants for the
posts among licensed elementary-school teachers of New York City.
Criteria for selection rested on personality, degree of education,
and desire to undertake experimental work.
Enrichment of the curriculum has been going forward for three
years. Pupils at and above 130 [IQ] (S-B) need, on the average,
about one half of their time in the elementary school for mastering
the standard curriculum set up for "all the children." "Mastering"
here means not "passing" with a mark of 65 per cent, but genuine
_mastery_ with marks of 90 per cent and above.
In the half day thus left to spare, an enrichment curriculum
has been pursued, which has elsewhere been described in some
detail. [4] The chief features of this enrichment curriculum
are a series of units, one each term in each class, on "The
Evolution of Common Things" and the French language and literature.
TRANSITION FROM ELEMENTARY TO SECONDARY SCHOOL
The time comes when pupils thus selected and educated are to
pass to the ninth grade of the senior high school. At this point
questions arise which call urgently for discussion as a joint
responsibility of both elementary and secondary schools. Some of
these questions are as follows:
1. Why is 13 years to be chosen as the optimum age for the
transition?
2. Why is junior high school omitted from the picture?
3. What ceremony, if any, should mark the transition to senior
high school?
4. What items of cumulative record should accompany the pupil
as he or she enters high school?
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