This quote severely contradicts anything I have learned throughout my schooling and what I have come to know by simply being human. I value the idea of human instinct because it keeps human kind off of a pedestal. If human kind has no instincts, then they are that much further from being considered animal. Human kind often wants to be separate, it's own special and unique being. This can only be true if evolution is disregarded, and sadly, it often is. I see that by stating that humans have no instincts leaves no room for any new behavior or new ideas. I see it as stating that people would remain the same throughout time, that human and culture would be static.
This of course is not true. Instincts are what drive people to live, to create, to love, to act, to connect, to have relationships, to mate, to choose.
The quote contradicts what I hold most dear in life, which is the ability for a human being to understand his/her own sexual identity. More specifically, whether someone is gay, straight, lesbian, bisexual, A sexual or any other sexual identity. It is taking away one's own authority, feelings, and drives to love in the way that feels and is best for him/her.
Ashley Montagu holds a superior amount of authority on this matter because she is an anthropologist and a public figure. People listen to her and take her "scientific" word as the truth. By stating that what is learned is what you will become is an example of science as language authority, shaping lives or worse, determining lives.
Which leads me into the way science shaped my life as a young girl by the authority of standardized testing.
I will have to start back in 1996, my first day of 1st grade. A woman walked in to my class room right in the first half of the day, "Amy Johnson", she called, "you can come with me". I was taken out with about four or 5 other students from my class. We would be going all the way to the other end of the school to a "special" class designed to give students more direct help with their reading skills.
I was put into this class because of some type of standardized reading test that I took in kindergarten. I never remembered taking such a test, and my mom was given no knowledge of the class until I told her.
My teacher was great. Her name is "Amy Kust", she loved the Green Bay Packers, had brown frizzy hair, the neatest and most colorful fingernails, the kindest smile and more patience than anyone ever had for me. I would see her everyday for the next two years as she taught me how to read. Amy Kust was an excellent teacher because she knew how to work with us. She never made us feel like we were less smart for being in the class. We worked together as a unit helping each other how to read and spell.
My teacher was great. Her name is "Amy Kust", she loved the Green Bay Packers, had brown frizzy hair, the neatest and most colorful fingernails, the kindest smile and more patience than anyone ever had for me. I would see her everyday for the next two years as she taught me how to read. Amy Kust was an excellent teacher because she knew how to work with us. She never made us feel like we were less smart for being in the class. We worked together as a unit helping each other how to read and spell.
Though there were other students in the class, I constantly felt out of place. Like others were learning and progressing while I was still behind. Specifically I remember learning the word "together". One of the girls, Tiffany, in my class raised her hand to tell the class a trick she found to remember how to spell it. She said "to, get, her". I thought about it and thought about it. It didn't register. I thought, how does together translate to "to, get, her? At the time it was not logical for me to understand words in this way. I looked at words as being their own separate body without any connection to other words. My brain worked differently.
The standardized tests were quantifying my brain as lower. They were determining me as a "slow" reader with a lack of comprehension skills. The tests were looked at to define me and laid out the boundary work for what category described me, the class level to place me in and how I should be taught. My failure to pass tests put me at borderline "special ed."
My mother did not have the patience nor time to devote to help me learn how to read, only the question "why don't you pass the tests?" and her reductionist theory that when she would try to read to me as a toddler I never wanted to listen. According to her, this must be why I didn't know how to read. This relates to the "blank slate" as it's saying that if I would've learned when I was young, I would be able to read now. Since my brain didn't develop those skills while it was still completely blank, those skills may never develop. Reducing my difficulty with reading to not being able to read was not fair or true. It wasn't a matter of not being able to read, but a matter of the way I put words together in order to make sense of them.
Standardized test after standardized test, and year after year I was still in the lowest reading classes. I felt like a real "blank slate" (Pinker, 3), nothing was coming in and nothing was going out. I didn't learn like the school wanted me to. I couldn't pass the tests and therefore I wasn't getting anywhere. Grades were determining if I would pass fourth grade or not. The new grade at that time was the "U" which stood for "unsatisfactory". What science came up with that word to describe the work of a 10 year old? Unsatisfactory for who? I was TRYING. I was going to school, I was working hard, I was paying attention, but words are processed differently for me. Each sentence I see I put it together word by word to allow it to make sense to me. But they wanted it to make sense to me in the way and as fast as it made sense to them and the "average" student.
Once I was about 11, the importance of defining myself started settling in. I didn't want to be in the lower classes anymore. I didn't want tests to tell me what I was going to achieve. I worked even harder, spending hours on my homework (this hasn't changed), but tests were still able to define me as far as school went. I failed the 8th grade math section of the Basic Standardized Test (BST) two times, but I was way above average for the reading portion. The school couldn't allow me to be exceptional at one thing and bad at another. I needed to be at least "average" on both. I passed the math portion on my third try in 10th grade. I never understood why it was so important for students to take that test so many times. If a student didn't pass the test by 12th grade, he/she was not able to graduate high school. It shows nothing of ones potential though. It simply separates students and says these students are superior and these students are inferior. It is a way for science to tell you what you're brain is worth and then for you to believe it.
What was going on in my head was constantly being scrutinized by the standards that others had on me. They wanted to quantify my biological brain ability to to their standards in order to define it as inferior or superior, as genetic difference is described in Richard Lewontin's article, "The Politics of Biological Determinism". I was supposed to stay away from the "average" learning environment because I was not smart enough. According to the tests I wouldn't have been able to keep up. However, I have to say, 16 years later (from 1st grade) I am in my senior year at college and I have kept up and I do pretty dang well. It still takes me twice as long to do my homework, but this is the way I learn and this is the way I succeed. If I worked as fast as the tests wanted me to, I would be forcing myself to work at an non-instinctual level for myself.
Standardized test after standardized test, and year after year I was still in the lowest reading classes. I felt like a real "blank slate" (Pinker, 3), nothing was coming in and nothing was going out. I didn't learn like the school wanted me to. I couldn't pass the tests and therefore I wasn't getting anywhere. Grades were determining if I would pass fourth grade or not. The new grade at that time was the "U" which stood for "unsatisfactory". What science came up with that word to describe the work of a 10 year old? Unsatisfactory for who? I was TRYING. I was going to school, I was working hard, I was paying attention, but words are processed differently for me. Each sentence I see I put it together word by word to allow it to make sense to me. But they wanted it to make sense to me in the way and as fast as it made sense to them and the "average" student.
Once I was about 11, the importance of defining myself started settling in. I didn't want to be in the lower classes anymore. I didn't want tests to tell me what I was going to achieve. I worked even harder, spending hours on my homework (this hasn't changed), but tests were still able to define me as far as school went. I failed the 8th grade math section of the Basic Standardized Test (BST) two times, but I was way above average for the reading portion. The school couldn't allow me to be exceptional at one thing and bad at another. I needed to be at least "average" on both. I passed the math portion on my third try in 10th grade. I never understood why it was so important for students to take that test so many times. If a student didn't pass the test by 12th grade, he/she was not able to graduate high school. It shows nothing of ones potential though. It simply separates students and says these students are superior and these students are inferior. It is a way for science to tell you what you're brain is worth and then for you to believe it.
What was going on in my head was constantly being scrutinized by the standards that others had on me. They wanted to quantify my biological brain ability to to their standards in order to define it as inferior or superior, as genetic difference is described in Richard Lewontin's article, "The Politics of Biological Determinism". I was supposed to stay away from the "average" learning environment because I was not smart enough. According to the tests I wouldn't have been able to keep up. However, I have to say, 16 years later (from 1st grade) I am in my senior year at college and I have kept up and I do pretty dang well. It still takes me twice as long to do my homework, but this is the way I learn and this is the way I succeed. If I worked as fast as the tests wanted me to, I would be forcing myself to work at an non-instinctual level for myself.
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