Leezer

In Washington, a student who reaches the age of eighteen may request the disclosure of his complete school records.  I’m not sure what is in these records, but in my case they likely include notes that read, among other things, has trouble spilling food.  Or, Should listen more and talk less.  My report cards usually included these notes, so seeing them repeated in a mysteriously private file really woudn’t be worth the effort.   

I vaguely recall hearing that school records contain IQ scores.  I remember taking a battery of standardized tests during those twelve years, but I don’t know whether an IQ test was among them.  Whether or not I took an IQ test is inconsequential because I’m convinced that, unless someone falls at either end of the IQ continuum, a raw score is nothing more than an indication of how well one can take a test.  An IQ test can’t measure the infinite ways in which an individual adapts, creates, listens to his instincts, or drives himself forward when getting out of bed seems impossible.  Is IQ responsible for a woman’s spontaneous decision to get out of an elevator carrying another seemingly harmless stranger?  Is IQ responsible for my daughter’s uncanny ability to sing with perfect pitch?  Is IQ responsible for someone’s ability to distinguish among 153 shades of gray?   

Nor do I believe that standardized college entrance tests are a good indication of how well someone will perform in his or her chosen field.  On the Washington Pre-College Test I scored uniformly in all areas, however, I scored a 13 (thirteenth-percentile) in spatial orientation – those annoying puzzles in which the solution depends upon deciding which way the cogs of a wheel will turn when held upside down or buried under mashed potatoes or shot with a rifle or whatever.  I’m rather proud of having achieved a certain amount of professional success despite such an abysmal score.  When I related this failure to Mystery Man, a successful attorney, he said, “I’ve got you beat.  I scored a 6.”  Neither of us is particularly dull-witted, we simply chose professions that didn’t require us to take dishwashers apart and put them back together again. 

To test my theory that IQ measures only how well one can take tests, I found an IQ test online.  Each question had to be answered in twenty seconds, and I couldn’t use a pen, pencil, or calculator.  I moved along rather easily until I came to this statement requiring a true or false answer:  

Three congruent regular hexagons can be drawn in such a way that all of them overlap each other and create exactly ten distinct areas or compartments.  

The internal dialogue that played out as I tried to answer the question went something like this: 

WTF?  Doesn’t congruent mean all the points of the hexagon touch when superimposed?  If I’m right, then there’s only ONE hexagon, because they’re all sitting on top of each other.  Then it doesn’t make sense to ask me about three hexagons! . . . What in the hell do they mean by “distinct” or “areas,” or “compartments.”  I’m going to need some definitions before I bust my ass trying to figure out the answer.  Even though I have no spatial orientation, I still know that just because I can’t see a distance between two points doesn’t mean that there is no distance.  An “area” might be a distance between two points imperceptible to the naked eye.  F**k this  stupid test.   

See how unhealthy it is to take an IQ test?  And how can such a test measure the native intelligence of a person who has never heard of a hexagon?  What if Jungle Boy, raised by chimpanzees, living naked in the Amazon with dreadlocks and cooties in his hair is given such a test?  Jungle Boy might have a MENSA-level IQ but because he hasn’t completed tenth grade geometry, not to mention basic toilet training, we can’t know how intelligent he really is.   

I hit the Compute Your Score!- button.  The next page asked me to enter my American Express, Mastercard, or Visa number in order to obtain the results to the test.  I might be dumb but I’m not stupid.  

IQ intelligence quotient emotional spatial SAT test scrappy daughter children magic

When I was in the tenth grade, I wanted desperately to play softball or volleyball in high school.  Moparman (my Dad) kept at me to join the marching band instead.  He was a talented cornet player in his youth, and he said I’d never have more fun.  I didn’t believe him at first, but finally conceded after some prodding.  I didn’t want to be a “band geek” and - at least where I grew up - the girls who played sports were quite popular.  

I’m glad I looked beyond the surface.  Our marching band consisted of 300 people, had an awesome drum line, and it rivaled any college marching band.  We won awards in our state and outside the state.  Miraculously, my “status” didn’t suffer - probably because I didn’t care what other people thought.  I was having fun.  I’d like to think I helped to make it cool to be in band. 

There is a term I recall from band; I think it comes from the military.   When marching in block formation, the squad leader yells “cover down” when the line becomes crooked.  Each member of the line must to look to the far left and align himself with the squad leader.  The squad leader sets the pace.

In college I was on the crew team for a short while.   Each member was required to try her hand as coxswain in order to understand how to set the pace for each shell (boat).   While not large by society’s standards, I was too big and heavy to sit at the helm of the light shell during a competition.   I was relieved because I didn’t want the responsibility held by the coxswain.   The coxswain sets the pace. 

Here, there will be no “covering down.”  The beauty of anonymity is the freedom to go outside the lines.   Irreverence, potty humor, and political incorrectness are encouraged.  I hope no one suffers mortal injury, but I hope to be entertained and to provide some modicum of the same. 

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