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
After she was graduated from high school, funds were not available
for Elizabeth to attend college away from home or to pay tuition.
Consequently, because she must live at home she enrolled in a State
Teachers College, though she had no desire to become a teacher.
She was 15 years 8 months old at this time, and her work was very
uneven in excellence. When the time arrived for practice teaching,
she was assigned to teach high school pupils of about her own
age, and failed in this branch of the work, so that she was not
graduated. She received, however, an honorable discharge from the
college. During these years, 1929-1933, her situation was further
complicated by the passing of a state law prohibiting students
below 17 years of age from attending the State Teachers College.
As Elizabeth was then still below the age specified in the new
law, she was forced to withdraw and wait for time to pass, resuming
her studies as soon as she fell within the law.
When Elizabeth was discharged from the Teachers College, interested
friends made attempts to secure for her a subsistence and tuition
scholarship at some good liberal arts college, but no such
opportunities were found. One college otherwise interested in
granting a tuition scholarship now found her "too old," she being
then aged 19 years.
The scholastic history of Elizabeth is too long to be told here
in greater detail. It affords an instructive and tragic example
of the blindness of current educational practice in dealing with
children who test in the highest ranges of intellect. At 22 years
of age Elizabeth lives at home, without suitable occupation,
writing poetry and helping with the tasks of the household. Her
education as conducted has not provided her with any recognized
equipment for enter for entering into the intellectual life of
her world, although she possesses one of the best intellects
of her generation.
_The case of J. M._ The history of J. M., a 10-year-old girl
of IQ 190 (S-B), was presented by Washburne (34) in 1924. This
girl was a pupil in the public schools of Winnetka, Illinois,
where the plan of individualized instruction is followed, with
individual subject promotions.
At the age of 10 years 6 months, J. M. was 54.5 inches tall and
weighed 88.5 pounds. This is decidedly in excess of the standards
for average children, as regards size. She was doing work of good
quality in the eighth grade, and could have been in high school
had not the school authorities checked her progress in the seventh
grade by giving her a large amount of extra work to do. Her school
record shows that she entered the public schools of Chicago in the
first grade, in September, 1919. The teacher of first grade
immediately discovered that she knew too much for that grade and
brought about her placement in the second grade. There she remained
until the following April, when her family moved to Winnetka.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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