Why Do I Need a Teacher When I’ve Got Google

learning to be found in schools have not shown any significant increase and have even shown declines. What’s more, the biggest gains have taken place at the lower end of the intelligence scale with the higher end remaining pretty much the same. In other words, all over the world stupid people are becoming cleverer. (Although, in the UK, this growth in intelligence of young people peaked in the 1980s and has held steady since then. I don’t know about you but I get a warm glow from being part of such a peak.) What’s more, if you extrapolate backwards, according to controversial professor Arthur Jensen, 3 Aristotle would have an IQ of -1000.
    So, here, as we have seen elsewhere, the whole idea of measuring intelligence in a meaningful way is a very tangled web. That said, it still seems to be the most consistent way of roughly saying – this child is ‘intelligent’. Which brings us back to genes. No-one has yet discovered an ‘intelligence gene’ (although Ridley does point out that one gene that does seem to play a part in IQ contains a repeating code that always begins with the amino acids isoleucine and glutamine or, to give them their standard abbreviation, IQ). But there do appear to be genetic factors at play. For example, there is a correlation between brain volume and IQ of around 40 per cent. Having a big brain doesn’t guarantee you are a genius but it starts to tip things in your favour. Yet environment still plays a part with studies of twins showing it to be around the nice and non-confrontational 50–50 mark. But there are other factors at play too, as research shows that how well you inherit your parents’ IQ depends on your socio-economic status too. If you’re middle class or well off, your environment doesn’t make much difference to the brainpower you were born with. If you’re poor, that poverty outweighs practically any of the IQ-related potential you were born with.
    Think about the implications of that at a national level – where should governments be targeting their resources if they want a ‘cleverer’ population? But also think about it with regard to schools. What can you do to work with the poorest families in your catchment area to help to try and make a difference and, if you are in a secondary school, why are you waiting until they come to you at the age of 11?
    On the subject of age, throw into the IQ pot too the research thrown up by
New Scientist
in July 2009 showing that, as we progress from childhood through adolescence to young adulthood the part genes play in the variation in our intelligence changes too. 4 As children it can account for 40 per cent of this variation, as adolescents it is 55 per cent and as young adults it rises to 66 per cent. But, as we have seen, being born that way doesn’t mean you need to stay that way. Research shows that you cantap into the brain’s wonderful ability to be moulded, its plasticity, and make a difference, with researchers finding that the biggest gains in IQ tests were in individuals who had the lower scores in the beginning. Again, what does that mean for where governments at national level and schools at community level target their resources?
    The brain’s yearning to be great, stifled by both genetic and environmental factors in our most needy young people, can be addressed if we can be bothered to do so. How? Well, apart from specific training in how to use our brains, a curriculum that actually responds to the needs of the individual will help. Research from Robert Planin from King’s College in London quoted in
New Scientist
found that these genetic differences are even greater when everyone endures the same curriculum rather than one that is better matched to the child’s natural strengths and abilities. Our challenge, then, is to strive to match the curriculum to children’s natural abilities with a special focus on those currently struggling the most.
    Which brings us back to multiple intelligences, which, as a theory, may have its detractors from a scientific point of view but has a powerful role to play in what I call the ‘dumbing up’ of learning – giving more people access to the knowledge that is there rather than dumbing it down so only those with good IQ scores – those who have high logical/mathematical and verbal/linguistic skills – can access the pure knowledge. As an example of what I mean take the example of a young man I met who was working as an IT technician at a further education