Black History Month

Looking back to its origins, Black History Month brings us over a century of promoting awareness, boosting understanding, and inspiring celebration.  While such work is to be a year-round pursuit, the dedicated month is, at its core, a charge to us all to learn more.  During this year’s Black History Month, I have decided to share a piece of history relevant to all of us thinking about learning and schools, followed by one specific experience underway at Stevenson.

My own work in and outside of Stevenson involves a look at Gifted Education’s problems, promises, and potential, and for today, I’d like to highlight a fascinating, important piece of history that exists at the intersection of Black History Month and the Gifted Education field.  

To begin, here’s some background. In the mid-to-late 19th century, Sir Francis Galton published Hereditary Genius (1869/1892).  Aside from Shakespeare’s brief mention of nature and nurture (*citation below), Galton provided one of the earliest looks at the nature-nurture debate in such terms.  As the aforementioned title suggests, Galton’s work involved an argument that genius–and the factors leading to it–is heritable.  In other words, nature wins.  The terrible reality was that Galton’s argument was clearly driven by, and openly supportive of, racist ideas.  Readers need only dive into Hereditary Genius’s (1892) Prefatory Chapter to find mention of an hierarchical look at races.  In broad historical strokes, what followed Galton’s argument were beliefs that scientific measurements could prove racial superiority/inferiority and that support was warranted for eugenics movements prominent in the early 20th century. Galton’s 19th-century argument (with which, by the way, there was disagreement voiced by his cousin Charles Darwin), included assumptions and approaches to measuring intelligence that have framed intelligence studies, intelligence testing, and conceptions of giftedness ever since. 

That brief background of racist a priori beliefs shaping studies of intelligence and giftedness is important in order to understand the contributions made and risks taken by Professor Martin Jenkins most notably from the 1930s and into the 1970s.  Surrounded by national discussions about race-based inferiority, Dr. Jenkins called into question such thinking advanced by those like Galton and, instead, drew attention to what he described as giftedness in the Black community.  That he did this while surrounded by racial conversations questioning his own ability makes the work all the more impressive.  

Although it is impressive that he did such work, there also exists a fascinating story found in what work Dr. Jenkins produced.  Dr. Jenkins worked closely with a 9-year-old Black student in Chicago to whom he referred as “B.”  In that work, B earned a Stanford-Binet IQ of 200.  To get a sense of what B’s performance involved, consider that on many prompts for which one minute was allotted as a response time for each, B responded in 25 or fewer seconds and often responded in 10 or fewer seconds.  The quantitative look at response time is equaled by her qualitative input.  In a vocabulary section, here are two of the responses B offered to word prompts:

Mosaic–”A number of brightly colored stones–no, tiles–put together to form a design”

Orange–”A citrous fruit; orange in color–fruit is named therefrom.”

With reliability in mind, B took part in multiple follow-up tests.  In doing so, B demonstrated not just consistent performance with the initial test but also provided further evidence of her genius, scoring, for example, a 66 on a test for which the norm for testers of her age was 18.  Now, what we mean, or want to mean, with concepts like gifted is neither straightforward nor settled, but as a girl reciting nursery rhymes at age 2 and reading independently at age 4, B presents a great challenge for anyone who would not apply the descriptor to her.  By highlighting B’s performance, Dr. Jenkins countered contemporary race-based assumptions about intelligence and provided us ongoing encouragement to seek excellence in all students.

Extending a look at excellence to Stevenson, Lauren Teresa and Rochelle Greenidge are implementing a Black History Month effort that highlights Black composers.  Thanks to The Town Hall Foundation, Stevenson students have access to curated historical resources about Black composers and to a performance featuring The Harlem Chamber Players.  Hosted by Terrance McKnight and featuring both past and current performers, The Town Hall resources are intended to “illuminate the history and legacy of the Black composers and performers.”  I am confident that such an illumination is exactly the type of work that would resonate with Dr. Martin Jenkins.

Chris Ongaro, Ed.D
Head of School

*In The Tempest’s Act 4, Scene 1, readers hear that “[a] devil, a born devil, on whose nature / Nurture can never stick” (4.1.179-180).