The basic function of education is to increase the survival prospects of the group. At the present time, on the average, the individuals within that group tend to find that their survival prospects are optimized with an ability to read somewhere at the Grade 4 or 5 level.[1]
Forty-five per cent of the adult citizens of the United States do not read newspapers. Only 10 percent abstain by choice. Thirty-seven percent of their adults under the age of twenty-one do not read books at all. The United States ranks twenty-fourth in the world in terms of books produced per capita.[2]
How much does the average American adult read? From completion of final schooling until death, one book.[3]
Below fifth grade in the state of California, a zoo story in a textbook may not include such words as beaver, parrot, goat .... and zoo. The word "because" does not appear in most American schoolbooks before the eight grade. Extensive prohibited-word lists are shaping and warping elementary school textbooks to such an extent that adults can no longer understand them. A California anti-junk food lobby's taboo still limits references to ice cream, cake, and pie.[4]
Junior high school teachers consistently fail to identify the most literate one per cent of their students more than half the time. Kindergarten teachers are capable of recognizing no more than ten per cent of the brighter three per cent. Gifted students frequently complain about dull, irrational, or cruel teachers who consider them to be stupid, impertinent, or lazy. Some [gifted students] such as Edison, Ford, and the Wright brothers, actually failed school grades.[5]
[1] interview with a speed-reading specialist, Toronto Star, February 1985.
[2] J.Kozol, Illiterate America, Anchor Press/Doubleday 1985.
[3] P.Wagshall, First Mensa Annual Colloquium, October 1982.
[4] A Debate Over Dumbing Down, Time December 3, 1984
[5] C.R.Yewchuk, "Changing Views of Gifted Education" Education Canada Winter, 1984 quoting from Cradles of Eminence, Goertzel and Goertzel.

This item by George Noviss was included in MC2 (Mensa Canada Communications) October 1985

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