I was devastated.
I had just completed a test and the results were in.
And they weren’t good.
Not what I wanted or expected.
But it wasn’t an ordinary test.
It was the standardized “IQ” test developed by Alfred Binet in the early 1900’s that many of us have had to endure.
The findings had revealed that I wasn’t a genius.
But as a young impressionable 10 year old student my potential was seemingly limited.
What I didn’t know was that Binet had created this test not as a fixed measurement of human potential but as a guide and benchmark.
His motivation for creating it was the belief that “Education and practice could bring about fundamental changes in Intelligence“.
But somehow it became distorted over the decades years and was used as a determination of a fixed intelligence.
Well meaning education experts had turned it into something that it was never intended to be.
Don’t let other people (or tests) define you
The humble IQ test had become the judge and jury of your human potential.
Something that defined you for the rest of your life.
Since then the scientists have discovered that the reality is somewhat different.
Our brains are elastic and what matters more is a mindset that will not accept limitations.
Carol S. Dweck in her book “Mindset – The New Psychology of Success and How We can Learn to Fulfill Our Potential” reveals her…
