Educability-and-Group-Differences-1973-by-Arthur-Robert-Jensen

Recapitulation 365
some satisfactory level of readiness (which will differ markedly
from one child to another), could cause learning blocks which
later on practically defy remediation. The more or less uniform
lock-step sequencing of educational experiences may have to be
drastically modified for the benefit of many children, but the recent
massive insistence on ‘earliness’ and uniformity of educational
treatment of all children has militated against large-scale research
on the implications of readiness for children with below-average
educability within the traditional school system.
Greater Diversity of Curricula and Goals. The public schools, in
order truly to serve the entire population, must move beyond
narrow conceptions of scholastic achievement to find a much
greater diversity of ways for children over the entire range of
abilities to benefit from schooling - to benefit especially in ways
that will be to their advantage after they are out of school. The
purely academic goals of schooling have been so strongly ingrained
in the thinking and in the values of our society that radical efforts
will probably be called for to modify public education in ways
whereby it can more effectively benefit large numbers of children
who have limited aptitudes for traditional academic achievement.
Differences in rates of mental development and in potential for
various types of learning will not disappear by being ignored. It is
up to biologists and psychologists to discover their causes, and it
is up to educators to create a diversity of instructional arrangements
best suited to the full range of educational differences that
we find in our population. Many environmentally caused differences
can be minimized or eliminated, given the resources and the
will of society. The differences that remain are a challenge for
public education. The challenge will be met by making available
more ways and means for children to benefit from schooling. This,
I am convinced, can come about only through a greater recognition
and understanding of the nature of human differences.