A Lot to Learn

DURING an episode of "Family Ties," big brother Alex P. Keaton, the self-proclaimed genius of the family, forced younger sister Jennifer to undergo a neurotic academic experience, convincing her to read volumes of case law and dress as the Statue of Liberty for her seventh grade oral report on "How a Bill Becomes a Law."

Alex wanted his youngest sister to win the coveted Thomas Dewey Award for Academic Excellence, which he had received for three consecutive years. With his trademark snideness, he lamented the "dry season" in academic awards that his family had experienced during "The Mallory Years"--the time when his ditzy, fashion-concious sister, Mallory, was in junior high school.

There is probably some danger in looking to a situation comedy for serious cultural messages, but Alex's behavior struck me as pretty realistic. It has become standard in this nation for us to judge intelligence--an extremely subjective thing--on a very objective and structural scale of grades, standardized test scores and academic honors.

Intelligence--and by extension, depth of character--is defined almost solely by academic performance. Determinants such as grades, scholarships and SAT scores are used as the definitive barometers of an individual's ability to think and reason, more than as measures of what has been learned in a classroom. This has the unfortunate result of making intelligence only a matter of education, and downplays the roles of wit, imagination and curiosity as equal indications of intelligence and character not generally measured by cold academic statistics.

The emphasis we place on formal education rests on a belief that someone who is intelligent must be "book-smart" or "well-read." Especially at Harvard, we stress that an intelligent person needs to know such information as who Kierkegaard was, what Tolstoy wrote and why the Boer War was fought. While this information may be important in a certain context, it is not a sufficient test of who is "smart."

The tendency to feel that knowledge must be gained from a structural source also creates an alienating process which restricts independent thought. As a child, Albert Einstein's poor academic performance led his teachers to think that he was mentally retarded. In reality, he was simply uninspired by the whole experience.

Different people learn in different ways. Some minds cannot be inspired in a sterile classroom and cannot learn from lecture or rote memorization. Some people can be better educated through an active process, whether it is an intense discussion, dramtization or hands-on experience.

THIS unfair definition of intelligence seems to be partly rooted in childhood insecurities. It is difficult to forget those early years of school when the teacher passed back a corrected quiz and we students fidgeted nervously, anxious over whether we got a smiley-face sticker on the top of our paper. Then some students needed to reassure themselves that they had done well by asserting that someone else had done worse. Then the mean-spiritedness of childhood emerged, and words like "stupid" and "dummy" entered children's vocabularies. These insecurities followed us to adulthood, and our biases about intelligence remain.

Worse yet, these biases go beyond simply judging academic performance--they have a strong impact on other aspects of our culture as well, from politics to employment.

Restricting the definition of intelligence has become a detrimental factor in our political culture, with the treatment of Vice President-elect Dan Quayle as the most obvious example. During the campaign, Quayle was mocked for having spent too much time golfing and drinking beer, rather than attending classes and studying during his days at DePauw University. A minor scandal ensued when he refused to release his college transcript.

There were plenty of other good reasons to criticize Quayle. He has an incredibly unremarkable record in the U.S. Senate, his rhetoric and political personality are as cheap and jingoistic as can be found and his own campaign's advisors had a difficult time explaining his frequent gaffes. But Quayle's academic record has little to do with ability to serve in government.

The perception that Gov. Michael S. Dukakis was a man of far greater substance than Quayle was a correct one, but not because Dukakis was educated at Swathmore and Harvard Law and Quayle attended a much less prestigious university. It was because both Dukakis and Quayle had dedicated their lives to public service, and Dukakis had significantly more accomplishments to point to in that field.

What is most distressing is that the criticisms of Quayle's record came not just from his political opponents or from an academic elite, but also from people like Jay Leno and David Letterman, who hardly received Rhodes scholarships themselves. It isn't just a matter of Ivy League students disparaging people who don't go to college; friends at home, from laborers to the self-employed to college dropouts, claim they sometimes feel inferior and less intelligent because they never received a degree.

Judging people by academic distinctions contributes to the development of a subtle American caste system by making discriminatory judgments about who is a productive member of society. Many people do not attend college or graduate school--whether for reasons of income or inclination--and their intelligence should not be evaluated solely based on that decision.

Many people are excluded from the system of higher education because of economic considerations. While some simply cannot afford an education, many find that the type of education they can afford does not justify the cost and sacrifice to themselves and their family. Others who feel uninspired by the structure of formal schooling may choose not to continue their education, feeling that they would gain no intellectual benefit from it. Since college education is increasingly becoming a pre-professional venture, those who decline the option are increasingly being forced into undesirable levels of a economically stratified society.

As when we were children, our feelings about intelligence are based on competitive values. Just as our economic system tends to categorize people's worth in terms of their titles or salaries, our attitudes about education tend to evaluate people's intelligence in terms of their alma maters and their grade point averages. We still have a lot to learn.