#EndTheTest
End the Word
It’s Disability Awareness Month and one of the topics I teach in my Mental Illness course is Intellectual Disability. Part category, part diagnosis, it is something that has changed in definition over time. Yet, we still have so far to go.
We have long ranked humans along an intellectual curve. Instead of seeing all of us as unique in our cognition and thoughts, we have systematized ranking and comparing, creating a hierarchy of intellectual ability.
“the bad news is that the way we determine disability status is the same way that we came to create the rank-comparison system: by IQ. We still give those scores the authority to decide who is what and how valuable we are.”
This has impacted how we value each other. In my class, I reveal the history of how people classified as having lesser intellectual capabilities have been mistreated, and how from the Greek to modern times, they have been ostracized if not outright persecuted.
In the last century, low-ranking people have been institutionalized, sterilized, incarcerated, and “euthanized.” Throughout the 20th century, the clinical category of diagnosis was “retarded,” something so punitive that it has become synonymous with “innately bad” in popular culture.
It wasn’t until the early 2000s that things started to turn around with the introduction of a new term, “intellectually disabled,” and a movement to #EndTheWord “retarded.” But there are still problems with how we draw lines in the sand about our abilities.
End the Test
The turn to redefining disability is ongoing thanks to the Disability Rights movement. The movement has helped raise awareness of just how detrimental ranking and comparing people is, and how stacked against them our social and educational systems are.
However, the bad news is that the way we determine disability status is the same way that we came to create the rank-comparison system: by IQ. We still give those scores the authority to decide who is what and how valuable we are.
I’m writing an article on the SATs and how we need to roll back our standardized testing everywhere possible. First and foremost, I want us to stop assuming that we can learn everything we need to know about people from their standardized test scores.
The same goes for how we treat our differences. I believe every child merits a quality education that is tailored to where they are and where they want to go. Every child also merits the educational accommodations and resources that will serve them best.
Individuals are just that: individuals. We are unique beings who cannot be defined by an IQ or aptitude threshold.