Melanie Wilkes, Feminist

Recently, Richard Brookhiser (an essential follow for history buffs) tweeted:

What is everyone's favorite historical movie?
Mine: The Leopard. https://t.co/LLeJbxsnvD

— Richard Brookhiser (@RBrookhiser) October 25, 2017

I had a number of picks, none of which was Gone with the Wind, which I consider excellent moviemaking, but risible history. But naturally, someone mentioned it and Brookhiser opened it to the crowd, appropriately mentioning its “lost cause” ideology, while praising it as moviemaking.

I mentioned that Mellie was one of the greatest feminist characters of all time, and someone caviled. Mellie? Scarlett is the one feminists love.

True, Scarlett is the character more typically celebrated by feminists, at least before GWTW became off limits to praise. But when I first read Gone With the Wind in my teens, I was appalled. Scarlett is a loathsome, selfish, vain, cowardly little monster, a characterization the movie does little to soften.

So for a good decade or more, I shrugged off Gone with the Wind.  Eventually I saw it on the big screen and tempered my dislike; the story is beautifully told, the acting from top to bottom is tremendous, and as spectacle it’s impressive.

I’m not sure when I first realized that Melanie Wilkes, played by the great Olivia De Havilland, was the tremendous feminist model that others saw in Scarlett. I do know that from the first time I watched it to now, I preferred Melanie.  Sometime in the 90s, though, I realized that she, not the tempestuous Scarlett, is the exemplar of a powerful female character. De Havilland’s Melanie is, in my view, one of the five great feminist movie roles of all time (the others: Bette Davis in Now, Voyager, Faye Dunaway in Network, Meryl Streep in Out of Africa, and Sigourney Weaver in Aliens.)

You can easily watch GWTW and see only Melanie’s story. She is a happy woman who was given the gift of a man she adored above all others. From the movie’s first moments to the last of her life, her face lights up in his presence. She wants only to give Ashley a home and a family, and to be a mother and wife. But Ashley must  fight for The Cause, so she must  support him and the other brave men fighting for their country and the right to own slaves. She nurses and works endlessly to the extent her body will allow. She gives every bit of her strength to help in the war so that her Ashley can come home. She is warm and accepting based on others’ character and motives, unheeding of social standing.  She deliberately chooses to get pregnant in the middle of a war despite the risk to her health and financial security, because Ashley’s legacy must be carried on. (The movie is quite frank about Ashley and Melanie’s intention on Christmas Eve ; note Scarlett’s reaction as the two of them go up to bed.) She gives up her wedding ring, a cherished symbol of her marriage, to help support the Confederate Army (although Rhett Butler gets it back). And despite Ashley’s helpless infatuation with Scarlett, the Wilkes’ marriage is a strong one. Notice that Scarlett, for all her protestations of devotion, doesn’t waste a second glance on the ex-soldier she thinks is coming to beg. It’s Melanie who instantly recognizes the distant, shabby figure as her beloved husband, in a homecoming ranked second or third to  Sounder’s “running scene” and the two from Best Years of Our Lives.

She’s “just” a wife and mother. What else was possible in the 1860s south?

But Melanie’s onscreen action rarely involves cooking or childcare. She works with Rhett Butler to stage manage a show that gives the wounded Ashley an alibi, protecting him from Ward Bond’s Yankee captain. None of it is planned. She’s using pure wits while following Rhett’s cues. Watch the fine, upright, honest Mellie lie serenely to keep her husband from a Yankee prison, after Ashley, along with Scarlett’s husband Frank Kennedy, went to clear out the shanty town where Scarlett was attacked–“what a great many of our Southern gentleman have been called upon to do for our protection.”

And when those Southern gentlemen aren’t around? Well, notice that same night, when her husband isn’t home, she has a gun nearby to protect her guests. Or, most notably , she grabs her father’s sword to protect her baby from a raiding Yankee soldier who’d fought to free their slaves. Scarlett got there first, of course. But Mellie was ready to fight for her own, despite being “weak as a kitten” from blood loss during child birth.

“Scarlett, you killed him! I’m glad you killed him.”  And then Mellie, still  faint and dizzy, helps Scarlett pilfer his pockets and hid the body, being quickheaded enough to lie about the noise. (She also takes off her nightgown to absorb the soldier’s blood, giving her the movie’s only nude scene.)

After the war, Melanie more won’t hear a word bad about Scarlett,  not from  Belle Watling, who helped save her husband, not from her other sister-in-law India, not from anyone. The only cross word she ever has for her husband came when he tried to escape Scarlett’s attentions and move his family away from Atlanta. Scarlett wouldn’t hear of it and starts to cry. Melanie is outraged at her husband’s ungrateful, ungentlemanly behavior.

Melanie’s staunch, unquestioning devotion to Scarlett leads many to dismiss her as saccharine, but she is manifestly not a a goody goody. When her sister-in-law and husband are caught in a compromising position, and Rhett forces his wife to go to Ashley’s birthday party, Melanie shoves all that social disapproval right back in the town’s face, insisting they recognize Scarlett’s existence.

For some number of years, I considered Melanie’s only weakness to be her bizarre refusal to see Scarlett as evil, conniving, and weak.  Then one day I suddenly noticed that Melanie never once called Scarlett nice, or warm, or loyal, or any of the qualities that she herself had. Instead, she talks about Scarlett’s bravery. Scarlett saved them in Atlanta. Scarlett protected Melanie and her son. Scarlett found a way to help the families survive. Scarlett rebuilt their family’s fortune by marrying her sister’s fiancee.

I realized that all of these things were, well, true. Scarlett could have left Melanie in Atlanta.  She could have been the model of helpless futility through Mellie’s childbirth, running screaming from the house at the sight of bodily fluids just as she did from the hospital during a soldier’s amputation. But she boils water and hangs tough, encouraging the nobler Mellie to scream as loud as she wanted. She could have ignored Mellie’s desire to preserve her father’s sword but wraps it up to give her some peace of mind.  She saved Melanie and Beau, and got them all out of Atlanta, including the annoying Prissie. She could have run away from her family, leaving them all there to starve.  Instead she rebuilt her family’s fortune, which her sister never could have done with Frank Kennedy. She went to Ashley’s birthday party, even expecting Mellie and the town’s society to wither her with rejection. She did almost nothing without a hefty dose of whining. She did many loathsome things, hiring prisoners and hitting slaves. But everyone who hated her benefited from her courage and furious willfulness, and only Melanie understood that.

Through Melanie’s admiration, I’ve come to a reluctant and qualified admiration of Scarlett herself. Scarlett was awful, yes, but her actions do show her to be worthy of Melanie’s trust and support. And yes, precisely because she continually does the right thing even when she longs not to, Scarlett is a great feminist character, for good and bad. (She’s still not in my top five, though.)

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Gone with the Wind is going through hard times right now.  If in a year or three it’s banished from TCM and movie revival houses and the AFI top 100 (much less the top 10 position it now holds), I won’t be surprised. It’s not a perfect film. But Ingrid Bergman has very little to do in Casablanca, and Diane Keaton even less in The Godfather , both perfect films about men.  It’s another dozen movies down the AFI list until we find All About Eve and Double Indemnity, movies where women as heroes and villains drive the plot.

If I were going to show GWTW in a history class, I would use it as a means of exploring early movie attitudes on race. When I teach US history I focus more attention on the early 1900s than 1965 and beyond. The debate between Booker T. Washington and WEB Dubois is still compelling and relevant to our lives today. Booker and W.E.B. and black society had to build political power during the Jim Crow era, without TV, before the Great Migration had transformed cities and created voting blocs.  We explore the degree to which blacks could simultaneously use their political clout yet be virtually banned from voting in many states.

My students were surprised to learn that in the Jim Crow era, African Americans were able to protest Birth of a Nation in Boston and other cities, leading several states to ban the movie. The NAACP grew its membership considerably during this era, and while the racist Woodrow Wilson may or may not have called the movie “history written in lightning”, the resulting tensions led him to retract his endorsement.  Warren G. Harding was in many ways a terrible president, but his Birmingham civil rights speech, followed by Calvin Coolidge’s open and engaged support also enabled further extension of civil rights, although the Depression and Herbert Hoover led blacks to switch to the Democrats. But by 1938, blacks had sufficient political and ecnomic clout that David O. Selznick sought script approval from the NAACP, and (reluctantly) dropped the use of the n-word. (Selznick thought that it would be okay if blacks used the word.)

I’d be much more tempted to show GWTW in an English class, though. I want my students to feel the kind of passion that leads people to debate and care and argue about fictional characters, and I think this film inspires that kind of passion.

Yes, GWTW promotes the  false “lost cause” view of the Civil War. Yes, the characters hate the Yankees who  died to free the slaves. Yes, Prissie is a terrible caricature. But Hattie McDaniel, who beat out De Havilland for Best Supporting Actress, creates a spectacular character in Mammy, a performance that black actors weren’t really allowed to match until Sidney Poitier’s work in the 50s and 60s. Watch this amazing, single shot up the stairs by Mammy and Mellie. We never see the rage between Rhett and Scarlett as they mourn their daughter’s death. We don’t have to. It’s all in McDaniel’s voice and de Havilland’s muted reactions. How can we show our students the amazing talent of African Americans shining through despite their restricted opportunities if we demand all the movies meet our current norms?

And now, some words about De Havilland who, unlike every other white starlet in Hollywood, wanted to play Melanie, not Scarlett. A much bigger star than Vivian Leigh ever was, de Havilland uses her charisma and presence in service of Melanie’s character, which she  well understood, to create a warm and compelling character out of a role that many other actresses made vapid and sickly sweet.

At 101, she’s still with us. She’s suing the producers and director of  Feud;  her case has survived an attempt to dismiss and begins in November. She changed the history of Hollywood  by suing, so who knows how this will turn out?

She is amazing as Melanie and charming as Maid Marian, but her finest performance is as Catherine Sloper in The Heiress, for which she received her second Oscar. Both movies originate from American fiction to which both stayed amazingly faithful, but while GWTW never aspired to be literature, Washington Square by Henry James is an American classic. The movie is quotable, beautiful, and one of the most psychologically painful movies you will ever run into.  Don’t take my word for it. Ask Martin Scorcese.

 

 

Coaching Teachers

In 2011’s Personal Best, Atul Gawande recounts his desire to “up his game”, by hiring a retired surgeon who had once trained him, Robert Osteen, to act as a coach.  I often reread the article just for the best passage in an already great piece: when  Osteen gives Gawande feedback for the first time.

Prior to his own coaching experience, Gawande explores the difference between “coaching” and “teaching” in the teaching career itself. He sits in on a lesson and coaching session with  an 8th grade math teacher. One of the coaches was a history teacher, the other a math teacher who’d given up teaching to work at the district. While Gawande implies coaching is unusual, many school districts have coaching staffs, usually made up of history teachers and middle school math teachers, just like this one.

Everything that crackles and glows when Gawande describes Osteen’s observations falls with a thud in the teaching section. The lesson on simplifying radicals sounded fairly traditional, but seemed dull in the telling. The coaching feedback was similar to what I’ve experienced–banal platitudes. Socratic questioning. “What do you think you could do to make it better?” (Translated: I personally have no idea.) Not the same assertive advice Osteen gave Gawande, but carefully scripted prompts. Critzer seemed to like the “feedback”, such as it was, but I found the whole exchange extremely antiseptic. In no way were the two coaches “operating” (heh) on the same level as Osteen’s expert.

In 2011 I was a newbie. Now I’m edging towards a full decade of teaching and have now mentored  three teachers through induction and one student teacher. I’m better prepared to think about coaching, both as provider and recipient, and the stark differences in those two passages keep coming back to me.

My ed school supervisor , a full-metal discovery proponent, gave me one of the great learning experiences of my entire life. She never tried to convert me or push particular lesson approaches.  I can still remember the excitement I felt as she pushed me to think of new methods to achieve my goals, while I realized that regardless of teaching philosophy, teaching objectives remain resolutely the same: are the kids engaged? Are they learning, or parroting back what they think I want to hear? Am I using time effectively?  Osteen’s feedback reminded me of those conversations, and as I moved into a mentor role, she became my model.

A couple weeks ago, a district curriculum meeting ended early and I went back to school just in time for fourth block to observe my newest induction mentee.  This was an unscheduled observation, but she welcomed me into her pre-algebra class for a lesson on simplifying fractions prior to multiplication. Through the lesson, the students worked on this worksheet. The concepts involved are not dissimilar from the ones in Jennie Critzer’s lesson.

Here’s my feedback, delivered immediately after the bell rang.

“Okay, I’m going to split my feedback into three categories. First up are issues involving safety and management that you should take action on immediately. Everything subsequent is my opinion and advice  based on my teaching preferences as well as what I saw of your teaching style. I will try to separate objective from method. If you agree with the objective but not the method, then we’ll brainstorm other ideas. If you disagree with the objective, fine! Argue back. OK?” She agreed.

“For immediate action, make students put their skateboards under that back table, or in a corner completely away from foot traffic. The administration will support you in this in the unlikely event a student refuses to obey you, I’d also suggest making all the students put their backpacks completely under the desk. It’s like ski week around here, you nearly tripped twice. Now for the suggestions…”

“Wait. That’s the only mandatory change? My classroom management is good?”

“Yes. Kids were attentive and on task. But I want you to move about the room more, as you’ll see, and the way your kids strew their stuff around the floor, you’ll kill yourself.”

“I was worried about management because the students often seem…slow to respond.”

“We can talk more about your concerns before our formal observation so I can watch that closely. I’d like more enthusiasm, more interest, but that’s a subjective thing we’ll get into next. They listen to you and follow your requests. They’re trying to learn. You’ve got buy-in. You’re waiting for quiet. All good.”

“Phew. I’m relieved.”

“Now, some opinions. I’d like you to work more on your delivery and pacing.  You are anchored to the front of the class during your explanation time. Move about! Walk around the room. Own it. It’s your space.”

“I am never sure how to do that.”

“Practice. When you have a few sentences nailed down, just walk to the back by the door,  stand there for a minute or so, then move to another point, all while talking. Then go back up front. Do that until it feels comfortable. Then ask a question while away from the front. Then practice introducing a new topic while away, and so on.”

“I didn’t think of practicing. I thought it would come naturally.”

“I’m as big a  movie star teacher as they get, and what I just described is how I escaped the front-left cellblock.”

“OK.”

“Next up: you’re killing the flow of the lesson.  Here’s what you did today: give a brief description of method, work an example, assign two problems, go around the room looking at student work, come back up, work the problems. Then assign two more, go around the room looking at student work, come back up, work the problems. Lather, rinse, repeat. This precludes any concentrated work periods and it’s hurting your ability to help your top students. It’s also really boring.”

“Yes, many of my students have worked all the way through the handout. But I have to help the students who don’t get it right away and that takes time, right?”

“Sure.  So give a brief lecture with your own examples that illustrate two or three key concepts–NOT the ones on the worksheet. And while that lesson is going on, my advice is to insist that all students watch you. Right now, the strong students are completely ignoring your lesson to work the handout–and from what I can tell, occasionally getting things wrong.”

“Yes, they don’t know as much as they think they do in every case. But it’s good that they’re working, right? They’re interested?”

“Not if they aren’t paying attention to you. You are the diva. Attention must be paid.”

“But if they know it all…”

“Then they can finish it quickly after your lesson–as you say, they sometimes make mistakes you covered. So do an up front lesson of 15-20 minutes or less, depending on the topic. Then release them to work on the entire page or assignment. Let them work at their own pace. You walk around the room, giving them feedback. Don’t let the stronger kids move ahead in your packet. Have another handout ready that challenges them further You might have an answer sheet ready so kids can check their own work.”

She was taking notes. “How do I get these more challenging handouts?”

“Ask other teachers. Or I’ll show you how to build some. I know you’re using  someone else’s curriculum, but you can have additional challenges ready to keep your top kids humble. Math gets much harder. They need to be pushed.”

“So then I teach upfront and give them 30-45 minutes to do all the work, giving the kids who finish more work. Maybe a brief review at the end.”

“Bingo.”

“Got it. I’m going to try this.”

“Last thing on delivery: you’ve got a Promethean. Use it. It will free you from the document camera.”

“I don’t know how. I asked the tech guy for guidance and he said you were one of the most knowledgeable people on this brand.”

“Well, let’s do that next. Now, onto the much more difficult third topic: your curriculum. I could see you often backtracking from your own, authentic instruction method to return to the worksheet which forcefeeds one method: find the Greatest Common Factor or bust.  I could tell you didn’t like this approach, because you kept on saying ‘they want you to use GCF’, meaning the folks who developed the worksheet.”

“Yes, I kept forgetting to avoid my own method and  support the worksheet’s method.”

“Why?”

“Well, I have to use that worksheet.”

“Toots, you don’t have to use a thing. You’re the teacher. They can’t require you to teach it. I don’t dislike the curriculum, but that particular worksheet is flawed. As I walked round your room, I saw kids who just cancelled the first factor they saw, and then had an incomplete simplification. So 9/27 became 3/9 because the kid turned 9 into 3×3 and 27 into 9×3.”

“Yes, that’s what I saw, too. They didn’t realize it wasn’t fully simplified, because they weren’t realizing the need to find the GCF.”

“That’s because the method isn’t as important as the end result.  Who cares if they use that method? That’s what the one student said who challenged you, right? You were trying to push her to find the GCF, and she pushed back, saying ‘what difference does it make?’ and you were stuck because you agreed with her, but felt forced into this method.”

“God, that’s so right,” she groaned.

“But you weren’t giving them any plan B, any way to see if they’d achieved the goal. How much advanced math have you taught? Algebra 2, Trig, Precalc? None? You should observe some classes to see how essential factoring is. I talked to many of your students, and none have any real idea what the lesson’s purpose was. Why do we simplify at all? What was the difference between simplifying fractions and multiplying them?  What are factors? Why do we use factors?  I suggest returning to this tomorrow and confess that the student was correct, that in the case of simplifying fractions by eliminating common factors, there are many ways to get to the end result. Acknowledge you were trying to be a good sport and use the method in the handout, but it’s not the method you use.”

She wrote all this down. “And then I need to tell them how to know that they have fully simplified.”

“Exactly. Here’s what I saw as the two failures of the worksheet and your lesson: first, you didn’t tell them how they could test their results for completeness. Then, you didn’t tell them the reason for this activity. Namely, SIMPLIFY FIRST. When using numbers, it’s just an annoying few extra steps. But when you start working with binomials, failing to factor is disastrous for novices.”

“OK, but how can I circle back on this? Just tell them that I’m going to revisit this because of what I saw yesterday?”

“Yes! I recommend a simple explanation of  relatively prime. That’s the goal, right? The method doesn’t matter if that’s the end result.  And then, here’s a fun question that will startle your top kids. Given “two fourths”, why can we simplify by changing it to 2×1 over 2×2 and ‘canceling out’ the twos, but we can’t simplify by changing it to 1+1 over 1+3 and ‘cancel out’ the ones? Why don’t we tell them to simplify across fractiosn when adding? ”

“Wow. That’s a great question.”

“Yes. Then come up with a good, complicated fraction multiplication example and show them why all these things are true. Make them experience the truth by multiplying, say, 13/42 and 14/65. They might not retain all the information. But here’s what’s important, in my view: they’ll remember that the explanation made sense at the time. They’ll have faith. Furthermore, they’ll see you as an expert, not just someone who’s going through a packet that someone else built for her.”

“Ouch. But that’s how I feel.”

“Even when you’re going through someone else’s curriculum, you have to spend time thinking about the explanation you give, the examples you use. This isn’t a terrible curriculum, I like a lot of it. But fill in gaps as needed. Maybe try a graphic organizer to reinforce key issues.  Also, try mixing it up. Build your own activities that take them through the problems in a different way. Vary it up. You’ve got a good start. The kids trust you. You can push off in new directions.”

I then gave her a brief Promethean tutorial and told her I’d like to  see a lesson with some hands on activities or “cold starts” (activities or problems with no lecture first), if she’s interested in trying.

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Mid-career teachers, like those in any other profession, are going to vary in their desire and interest in improving their game. Twitter and the blogosphere are filled with teachers who write about their practice.  Perusing social media is a much better form of  development than a district coach that isn’t experienced in working with the same population and subject. Conversations with motivated colleagues interested in exploring their practice, but hared to find the time or interested participants.

But  unlike other professions, we teachers are given ample, and often paid, opportunity to be coaches, and not the weak-tea district sorts. Induction and other new teacher programs give us a chance to push others to find their best.  I find these activities also lead me to review and improve my own practice.

If you’re tasked with helping beginning teachers, then really dig in. Challenge them. Encourage them to push back, but do more than ask a few questions. They’ll thank you later. Often, they’ll thank you right away.

 

Restriction of Range

I read Scott Alexander because he’s a pretty good weathervane for insight into the respectable crowd. For reasons I don’t understand, he periodically gets raves from writers way up the food chain, so he’s clearly writing about sensitive subjects without activating their panic buttons.  I once read this book on Highly Sensitive People, and the author was like “OK, this may be painful, so stop and take a breath before you move on. Sense how you’re feeling. Breathe again. Now turn the page.” I found this extremely irritating, and Scott reminds me of that author. Who, by the way and despite the offputting habits and an entirely unscientific theory, provided me with a successful frameworks and some useful tips. Yes,  I am a Highly Sensitive Person. Go ahead, laugh; it’s 20 years and I still think it’s funny.

Anyway. While this may seem like insider baseball, I’m writing this because the issue at hand illustrates an important point.

Recently, Scott wrote a soothing reassurance to the many people writing him “heartfelt letters complaining about their low IQs”.

See, the correct response to “heartfelt letters complaining about their low IQs” is a gagging noise or, perhaps more maturely, a discreet eye-roll. But that’s just me.

Scott quotes a Reddit commenter echoing a typical concern:

I never got a chance to have a discussion with the psychologist about the results, so I was left to interpret them with me, myself, and the big I known as the Internet – a dangerous activity, I know. This meant two years to date of armchair research, and subsequently, an incessant fear of the implications of my below-average IQ, which stands at a pitiful 94…I still struggle in certain areas of comprehension. I received a score of 1070 on the SAT, (540 Reading & 530 Math), and am barely scraping by in my college algebra class. Honestly, I would be ashamed if any of my coworkers knew I barely could do high school-level algebra.

Scott does something like five paragraphs on the measurement and meaning of IQ and how it’s great for groups but not terribly valuable for the individual. All that is just duck and weave, though, because basically, his response is “Well, your IQ test wasn’t accurate”.  But Scott’s worried that if he says that, it will undo all the hard work he’s put in convincing people that IQ has meaning.

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So reading the post, the reddit thread, and the comments, I’ve concluded that my–well, somewhat undue–frustration has two sources. First, I  believe abrupt, brusque and occasionally rude responses are not immoral and frankly necessary. But more importantly, I’m dumbfounded that Scott would treat these queries as worthy of a treatise, so I’m wondering why.

I don’t usually quote Malcolm Gladwell unless it’s his ketchup piece, but this is instructive:

Of course, Gladwell was actually quoting someone with actual expertise, Arthur Jensen:

While individual IQs are irrelevant, the tiers are pretty useful. Those who interact regularly with all three tiers can place people pretty accurately in those tiers.  My various occupations have given me access to the entire range of  IQs, from the occasional low 80s to third standard deviation and possibly beyond. As a result, I don’t know a 98 from a 105, but I would never place either in the below 90 or above 115 group.

And from that vantage point, I can’t figure out why Scott is equivocating, because there is simply no way the Reddit poster, or indeed anyone who reads Scott’s blog, has an IQ much south of 115. The idea is ludicrous. Instantly risible.

Alexander is clearly aware of this. His characterization: “Help, I got a low IQ score, I’ve double-checked the standard deviation of all of my subscores and found some slight discrepancy but I’m not sure if that counts as Bayesian evidence that the global value is erroneous” oh so gently mocks his emailers–and mocks them in a manner that only higher IQs could understand.

But why would he spend so much time on the topic? Maybe it’s my (extremely low) opinion of the SSC groupies, but it’s pretty obvious that the emailers are looking for validation from their hero.

“I’ll tell Scott or random people on the internet that I’ve got a low IQ and they’ll go, pish tosh! and tell me how smart I am.” . Write an intellectual email, tossing in all the right buzzwords, worrying about their IQ, in order to get a reassuring  “Don’t be silly! You’re far too intelligent for a 90 IQ!” that they can brag about.

In short, I think Scott’s emailers are lying to get an ego boost.

Sure, it’s possible that IQ tests are routinely handing out scores of 90 to  people with 80th percentile SAT results. It’s just extremely unlikely.  Alternatively, these folks could be IQ-denialists lying to seed doubt and confusion about IQ tests. “We’ll be, like Russian agents and post fake news through Scott. No one will trust these foul instruments!”

I’ll take “Needy Validation” for $1000, Scott.

He may simply be too polite to say “I don’t believe you”. But no one else did, either, in all the megabillion comments he gets on each blog. Some of the reddit folks gently pointed this out, but their views didn’t catch on.

Hence I wonder about restriction of range. Are the people in the discussion, from Scott Alexander on down, so unfamiliar with the intellectual capabilities of a 94 IQ that he thinks it merely unlikely that the IQs are inaccurate, as opposed to a possibility that can be instantly dismissed?

Maybe that’s it. After all,  most of the educated world is setting their intellect standards like the second graph of this grip strength study illustrating the essay title:

 

As the author says, note the change in the x axis.

In perhaps his most famous piece, Scott characterizes the other, the people outside his inadvertently constructed social bubble as “dark matter”. These people exist. They are legion. But somehow he never runs into them, never has any contact.

It’s a neat little metaphor, but really all he’s describing are social bubbles that restrict your range pf experience or understanding. Just as most progressives never run into a conservative, so too are most college graduates who aren’t teaching in high poverty districts rarely going to meet an average IQ,  much less sub-90 intellects.

Steve Sailer, with the ruthless accuracy and snarkiness that (wrongly) inspires disdain for his excellent observational skills,  once observed that Rachel Jeantel, who testified at George Zimmerman’s trial  was a high school student. Steve, who notices things, was pointing out that our expectations for high school students must include Jeantel, when in fact most people yapping about at risk black high school students have Will Smith in mind. Wrong. Smith is a bright guy.

Rachel was 19 when she testified, and graduated the next year from high school at 20. The media reports that “extensive tutoring” helped her graduate, but high schools will graduate anyone who tries hard enough. In my opinion, the support and the attention, not the tutoring, is what helped Jeantel graduate.  I can’t find much about her life since then, but no news in this case is pretty good. I’d guess Jeantel below the 90 tier, but she might be right above it. She’s pretty functional. She’s savvy about how to handle her moment in the sun. She took advantage of the support offered her.

Listen to some of Jeantel’s testimony. Go back up and read that Reddit post that Scott says is typical of the worried emails he gets from people who are saying that they have roughly the same IQ as the young woman in that video.

Perhaps then you’ll see why I think the emailers deserve derision, gentle or otherwise.

Derision not because a low IQ is to be mocked or dismissed.  Derision in part because I believe these people are seeking validation and ego boosts. But mostly, derision to reinforce  and educate people about these tiers. The more people understand the basic realities of a 90 IQ as opposed to one of 115, the more we’ll understand the challenges of educating and employing them. The more people who engage in these debates understand how cocooned they are, the less foolishly optimistic they’ll be in considering education policy debates.

Educators, the peasants of the cognitive elite, can offer some guidance. Many educators deliberately ignore cognitive reality; I’m not saying we all have the right answers, or that I do. But I would like all educated people who think they understand American education to look at the whole picture, rather than be allowed to ignore the “dark matter”.

I really don’t  know if Scott himself is refraining from mocking these IQ queries or if he really doesn’t understand that their fears are impossible.

Ending where I began: I read Scott Alexander because he’s a pretty good weathervane for insight into the respectable crowd that prides itself on its skeptical humanism.  Unfortunately, either interpretation of his behavior is consistent with that set.  I remain befuddled.