What do you think about intelligence? Do you have
preconceived notions about what intelligence looks like? Do you imagine a
rocket scientist or a wise old professor with glasses giving lectures about
Plato? As the film “Intelligent Lives” points out, 49 out of 50 states still
use intelligence tests to sort people, but what if the use of intelligence
tests has been perverted and is biased in many ways including racially and
culturally? What if intelligence doesn’t fit so neatly into a scored box?
Alfred Binet developed the first IQ test in the early 20th century, but from all
accounts he didn’t mean for the test to be used in the ways that it has been. As
is pointed out in the preview version of “Intelligent Lives,” IQ tests were
used to further eugenics movements including those in Nazi Germany and the US. Thankfully, we are no longer living
in those times, but many people still believe that a number on an IQ test will
dictate how a person can live their life. While IQ tests might be instructive
in certain circumstances, they were never intended as something to base a
person’s life on.
The film “Intelligent Lives” breaks this idea that people
are nothing more than their IQ scores. In this documentary “filmmaker Dan Habib will explore how the segregation of people with intellectual disabilities
became the norm, why this segregation is slowly being dismantled, and how some
people with intellectual disabilities are blazing a bold new path” (Intelligent Lives Website: About-Project).
Actor Chris Cooper,
who is the narrator of the film, talks about his son Jesse (who had cerebral palsy) and how IQ tests could tell
them “nothing about Jesse’s potential. About who he was as a person” (Psychology Today, 2016).
As well, Habib shared with Psychology Today that “because his son uses a
wheelchair, he is sometimes not treated as a teenager, but rather infantilized:
‘The perception of someone’s intelligence; the perception of someone’s
capacity, dramatically affects their opportunities in life.’” (Psychology
Today, 2016). In the preview for the film we meet a man named Micah Fialka-Feldman who
has an intellectual disability, and is a teacher/student at Syracuse
University. We also meet Naieer Shaheed who is going to school, is artistically
gifted, and has an intellectual disability. These are just a few of the “intelligent
lives” that Habib shares in the film.
In addition, please check out the TEDTalk documentary below given by filmmaker Dan Habib.
To see our prior post about "Intelligent Lives," click this link.
Citations:
Psychology Today, https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/welcoming-intellectual-disability/201606/intelligent-lives
Intelligent Lives Website, https://iod.unh.edu/projects/intelligent-lives
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