In 1994 Richard Herrnstien and Charles Murray wrote “The Bell Curve," a book that explored the implications of intelligence. The central thesis was that native intelligence, what we call IQ, has a greater effect on the outcome of an individual’s life than any other social or economic factor. In short, the smarter you are, the better you are likely to do in your life. As if that wasn’t a controversial enough idea, the authors went on to say that based on their research there were significant differences between the races in intelligence, although they also pointed out that it is debatable whether nature or nurture account for ethnic differences.

The book was a bestseller and a major controversy. Some accused the authors of scientific racism; some applauded them for telling it like it is. In America we like to believe in an individual’s ability to rise above their circumstances, that the unfettered citizen can do anything just by sheer will. Being told your possibilities are determined by something we believe is largely genetic does not go down well. Yet, it is hard to deny the fact some people are smarter than others and that does make a difference in their lives.

The bell curve refers to a mathematical fact about quantities affected by many random or unknowable things. Take height, for example. Your height is determined by many different factors, age, genetics, nutrition, even gravity, which varies from place to place on the Earth. If you were to take 1,000 men and group those by height, a graph of their heights would look like a perfectly symmetrical hill, somewhat like a bell, which is where the graph gets its name. It is also called a “normal” curve.

The interesting thing about the bell curve is that it is predictable. The top of the hill will be 5 feet 10 inches, the average. Two thirds or about 667 will be within 3 inches of that height (between 5-foot-7 and 6-foot-1).  One sixth are above 6-foot-1, one sixth below 5-foot-7. If you ever wondered why chairs and couches are the heights they are or why certain sizes of clothing seem more common than others, there’s your answer. Those things are built for people and most people are a certain height.

Many things are distributed like height. The speed of people walking across the street. The tire pressure of cars in a parking lot. The life span of a light bulb. The number of miles per gallon your model of car gets.  The scientific consensus on intelligence is that it also fits a bell curve.

Obviously, this has big implications for our education system, but you wouldn’t guess that from the way schools are designed. However, Americans are in denial about the impact of intelligence. Consider this fact: half of American children are below average intelligence. For that matter half of all of us are below average in intelligence. I can hear the keyboards typing angry rebuttals already, but, that is the definition of average ... the middle point. Few want to honestly address this point. No one wants to think their child might be below average and no one wants to point out someone else’s child is less than average. In America we think that if you can’t make the grade, you’re just not trying hard enough.

Last year there was a minor controversy about our local high schools making college preparatory classes standard requirements for graduation. Everyone was going to college or bust. Critics of this plan were accused of fostering mediocrity. But I have to point out; most people are, in fact, mediocre. It doesn’t mean they’re bad. Some people are pretty funny. Some are strong. Some can throw a football with precision. Some are beautiful. Some are just decent.

It seems to me we don’t design our schools to account for the variety of students we have. For instance, differences in intelligence don’t necessarily the ability to master a subject, but rather the time it takes to master it. The brighter you are, the less time it takes to learn something. Yet our school schedules are very rigid. I have 50 minutes to teach the topic of the day. When that time is up, I have to move on because tomorrow I have another topic and I have to be at a certain point by the end of the year. I have a schedule that isn’t necessarily the schedule of my students. 

Another example is how students are grouped. We group students by age. Nearly all 7th graders are 12.  Nearly all 10th graders are 15. This makes sense if you consider maturity, but not if you consider ability.  It’s not such a big deal if we accelerate some students, although many schools resist too much acceleration even when ability warrants it. But, allowing students to proceed more slowly is not OK. It’s considered a humiliation and a punishment. I wish we could abolish grades or make a broader group to account for maturity.

Just like designing clothing or furniture, schools need to accommodate all the variation they get in their student population. It’s nice to think of all of our children as being above average, but if we stocked clothing stores like that, few would find a comfortable fit.