Intelligence Essay Example for Free

Intelligence Essay Intelligence quotient, or IQ, is the defined as the ratio of mental age to chronological age. The movie, I Am Sam, raises an important question; does an individual’s IQ have an affect on whether they can be a good parent? Many theories have been developed to better understand and measure intelligence. The Single Factor Theories, Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory, and Gardner’s Theory, along with Baumbrind’s theory on parenting styles can all be used to analyze the characters in I Am Sam. The movie questions the relevance of IQ score and its impact on the ability to parent. If a person has a high IQ does that mean they are a good parent, and if a person has a low IQ does that mean they are a bad parent? The Single Factor Intelligence Theories determine IQ through standardized tests. The first intelligence test was developed by Binet in 1905, and determined IQ as being a person’s mental age divided by their chronological age multiplied by 100. Over the next few years the test was modified by others. In 1937, the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test was created. This test stated that 2/3 of all children, ages 8-18, score between 85 115. This test claimed that a child that scores 130 or above, is a gifted child, but a score of 70 and below indicates the child is retarded. Later, David Wechsler created a more modern test, and which has become more commonly used today. The Wechsler Intelligence Scales for Children (WISC IV) is arranged by ten different areas of problems to be solved, starting with the easiest and working towards the more difficult. It calculates the score with a verbal and non verbal scale. These intelligence tests show a direct correlation between IQ score and school performance. They are designed to measure what you know, but abilities in areas such as reading and creativity can not be separated from known facts, and can provide an incomplete picture of a person’s mental capabilities. Also, these tests can be economically biased and do not take into effect the person’s home environment or stress levels on the day of the test. The character Sam, from I Am Sam, has low intelligence according to the Single Factor Theories. He is in his mid-thirties, but has the IQ of a seven year old child. He also has been deemed mentally retarded as per court records. Sam struggles to raise Lucy, his daughter, after she is abandoned immediately after birth by her mother and left with him. When he first brought Lucy home, Sam did not know he had to feed a baby every few hours, nor did he know how to change her diaper. During Lucy’s first year of school, Sam was able to help her with her homework and reading, but as Lucy grew older, Sam began to struggle. It became more difficult for him because his reading capability is of a low level, so when Lucy brought home reading assignments, he was unable to read at her level eventually. Sam’s low IQ correlates to the fact that he can not help Lucy with her homework past that of first or second grade level. Sam works at Starbucks as a bus boy and is paid not much more than minimum wage, therefore he struggles financially and only can afford to live in a very small one-bedroom apartment. He cannot afford the things Lucy requires for school, such a shoes and clothes. Lucy is taken out of Sam’s care by Child Protective Services because they feel that Sam is unfit parent because of his low IQ and he will hinder Lucy’s learning capabilities. According to the Single Factor Intelligence Theory, Sam is not intelligent. Rita, Sam’s lawyer in the movie, is considered to be intelligent according the Single Factor Theories. To become a lawyer it takes many years of schooling and the ability to speak ‘intelligently’. As a partner in her law firm, it shows years of dedication, hard work, and motivation. She is able to afford to live in a large beautiful home and drive an expensive car. She has been successful life because she has normal intelligence and has a higher IQ. According to Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory of Intelligence, Sam is not intelligent. He lacks componential intelligence, because he is unable to think abstractly as he has difficulty thinking concretely. Sam struggles to interpret information effectively, he scores low on an IQ test and has the IQ of a seven year old. Sam does show some signs of experiential intelligence, but those are quite limited. When Lucy is taken away from Sam, the length he goes to see her shows his creativity. He rents a new apartment close to the neighborhood her foster family resides in, and becomes employed in a dog walking business so he is able to see her. Sam lso flies paper airplanes near her so she is aware that he is nearby and still watching over her. He also has the creative ability to make origami, in which he constructs a wall in his apartment towards the end of the movie. Although Sam has a difficult time expressing his thoughts in his words, he often attempts to give his opinions and insight. Sam tells Rita she must leave her husband, and even though he does not completely tell her why, he clearly sees that Rita’s home life is not good and offers her his insight. His words may be limited but his thoughts are clear. Sam does not however react well to new stimuli. Lucy persuades him to try a different diner for breakfast instead of going to their weekly place of IHOP. When Sam places his order with the waitress, he insists on ordering pancakes French style (the order he places at IHOP each week). When the waitress explains they do not serve that kind of pancakes and attempts to coerce him into ordering something from their menu, Sam refuses and creates a scene. He was reluctant to try the diner to begin with. Sam does not show signs of contextual intelligence. He does not have ‘street smarts’ which is shown when he is solicited by a prostitute, and is completely unaware of her meaning. The police arrest him because they believe him to be trying to buy the prostitute’s services, and he tries to tell the police he did not know in which he truly does not. His lack of street smarts is also evident when Lucy tricks him during one of his supervised visits. She tells Sam that they were given permission to go to the park unsupervised, but this was not true and Lucy was just trying to run away together with Sam. He believes her and keeps Lucy out really late into the night. Sam gets into trouble for taking her and breaking the visitation rules. Based on the three components of Sternberg’s Theory, Rita is intelligent. She is high in componential intelligence. She is a partner in her law firm and has a lot of education. She demonstrates experiential intelligence as she is able to synthesize information. Being a lawyer, she must able to gather information from various areas and put it together to help the case she is presenting. She is able to manipulate the truth with this ability without lying. Her contextual intelligence is high and this is represented in her personal life. She is able to adapt to her environment. Her marriage is falling apart because her husband is never home and is cheating. She avoids the situation by trying to ignore and pay little attention to it. She is able to maximize her strengths by being a powerful lawyer as she minimizes her weakness of being lonely. Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences states that all have multiple intelligences and some have strengths in one area over another. It lists seven different types of intelligence. The first type is Logical / Mathematical intelligence which is the ability in logical problem solving. Next is Musical intelligence, this is the ability to appreciate music. Spatial intelligence is part of the making of and appreciation of various forms of art, such as sculptures or video games. Bodily kinesthetic is the ability to use one’s body in a skillful way. Interpersonal intelligence is the ability to perceive other peoples and understand them, the ability to read people. Intrapersonal intelligence is the understanding of yourself, your emotions and strengths. The last is Naturalist Intelligence, which is the ability to recognize various types of plants and animals, and even understand the weather patterns. According to Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences, Sam is intelligent. Even though Sam does not display intelligences in most of the areas, he does display musical and spatial intelligence. Musical intelligence is shown when he relates life and events to The Beatles. For example, Lucy (Lucy Diamond) is named after The Beatles song â€Å"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds†. He relates many experiences, especially when under stress, to John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and Paul McCartney. Sam’s neighbor in his old apartment building played the piano and he also notes that she plays well and is able to play a little himself. He shows spatial intelligence when he created the room full of origami and stacked them on top of each other to create walls. Rita is also intelligent according to Gardner. She displays logical and interpersonal intelligences. She is a problem solver. She has to think logically about cases and determine what will get her the outcome she desires from the judge or jury. She is able to determine an outcome in advance and know how to manipulate it. She also represents interpersonal intelligence as a lawyer. She has to understand her clients (i. e. Sam), the judge (or jury), and any other individuals involved in her case (i. e. Child Protective Services). She has to be able to read them to figure out what kind of approach and tactic to use in order to win. Diana Baumbrind, in 1972, developed a theory which identified fours aspects of family functioning and parenting styles. The four aspects of family functioning are: warmth or nurturing; clarity and consistency; maturity demands; and communication between parent and child. Baumbrind’s Parenting Style Theory suggests that there are various types of parenting styles and identified four: authoritative; authoritarian; permissive indulgent; and permissive indifferent. Parenting style is a set of attitudes toward the child that a parent transmits to the child to create an emotional climate surrounding parent-child exchanges. Authoritative parents display a warm, accepting attitude toward their children while maintaining firm expectations of and restrictions on childrens behavior. Open communication between parent and child is facilitated within this emotional climate. Long-term outcomes for children and adolescents of authoritative parents are more favorable compared to outcomes for children of authoritarian or permissive parents. The authoritarian parenting style is characterized by a harsh, rigid emotional climate combined with high demands and little communication. Permissive Indulgent parents display warmth and acceptance toward their children but do not place demands or restrictions on childrens behavior. Permissive indifferent parents do not display any warmth or control with little communication, and places low demands on small children but very high demands on older children. According to Baumbrind, Sam is a permissive indulgent parent. He is not mature mentally himself, therefore he has low maturity demands of Lucy. He cannot grasp maturity beyond his own level. Sam is also low in his control over Lucy, because he has little control of himself and his own actions at times. Sam cannot illustrate his thoughts into words and therefore can not clearly communicate rules or expectations. Lucy becomes more of a parent to Sam, than Sam is to Lucy. He is also low in effective communication because he cannot express himself with words effectively, and he is not able to have deep thoughtful conversations when he himself does not understand. Sam is high in his nurturance and warmth. He clearly loves Lucy, and this can be seen with his constant hugging and holding her. He also nightly reads a bedtime story to her, takes her to the park, and goes to any length he can to gain custody of her back. Even though children of permissive indulgent parents can become less independent and take little responsibility, this does not make Sam a bad parent. Rita has an authoritarian style of parenting. She is low in her warmth and communication because she constantly is yelling at her son, Willy, and even when he gets upset and when Lucy hugs Rita, she does not pay any attention to his reaction. Willy also ignores her back when she tells him that it is time for bed, but he continues to ride his scooter around. She is high in her control as she is constantly telling Willy what to do and that he should listen to her. She tells him she hates him at the moment and to get in the car when he will not do as she says. She is high in her maturity demands also, as she expects Willy to be able to handle the fact that both she and his father work a lot and do not spend much time with him. In fact he is still just a child that needs his parents for stability and guidance. Rita is not a good parent according to Baumbrind. Therefore, when looked at collectively, a person does not need to be intelligent to be a good parent. Intelligence may or may not relate to parenting styles. Sam is not considered intelligent according to the Single Factor Theories and Sternberg; however his parenting style is not the most negative as defined by Baumbrind. Rita is intelligent, but is not a good parent. Her parenting style is the most negative. Even with a lower IQ, Sam’s is considered to be the better parent. The movie, I Am Sam, shows the difficulty people have separating intellect from other areas of people’s lives, such as parenting. In retrospect to the movie, we cannot conclude that the two are related, a person does not need to be intelligent to be a good parent, and having a high IQ does not always make a good parent.

The Inflexibility and Hubris of Okonkwo in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall

The Inflexibility and Hubris of Okonkwo in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart This novel is the definitive tragic model about the dissolution of the African Ibo culture by Nigerian author, Chinua Achebe. Okonkwo, a great and heroic leader, is doomed by his inflexibility and hubris. He is driven by fear of failure. He had no patience with unsuccessful men. He had no patience with his father. Unoka, for that was his father's name, had died ten years ago. In his day he was lazy and improvident, and was quite incapable of thinking about tomorrow. (Achebe,4). The reader gets a rare and exotic understanding of a totally foreign and ancient culture experiencing the growing pains of colonial expansion during the British domination of Nigeria in the late 1800's. Okonkwo's ferocity is demonstrated in the carrying out of his personal "dread" to the letter within his family, his community, and the invaders. His ferocity, born of fear, is his evil. During the Week of Peace, one of Okonkwo's wives, Ojiugo, has left the compound, ignoring her children and domestic duties, to "plait her hair." And when she returned, he beat her very heavily. In his anger he had forgotten that it was the Week of Peace. His first two wives ran out in great alarm pleading with him that it was the sacred week. (Achebe, 29) But Okonkwo was not a man to stop beating somebody half-way through, not even for fear of a goddess. (Achebe, 30) Being unable to bend, he loses self-control and eventually all he has once stood for. The novel examples rites, initiations, and tribal customs whose images can be disturbing to western mentality, but also stresses the parallels and need in all cultures to have such ceremonies acknowledging important events in... ... make interesting reading. One could almost write a whole chapter on him. Perhaps not a whole chapter but a reasonable paragraph, at any rate ... He had already chosen the title of the book, after much thought: The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes On The Lower Niger. (Achebe, 208-209) Achebe suggests that colonialism has led to this entire tragedy, but the seeds of dread and self-will are obvious in Okonkwo. He is not a survivor. Our goal is to survive. In our journey through this life of good and evil influences, we purposefully choose our own end by the choices we make along the way. Success can be defined as the acceptance of all of our experience that has led us where we are today. Acceptance of ourselves is the key to acceptance and tolerance of others. Works Cited Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. Oxford, Eng.: Heinemann Educational Pub., 1996.

Prison Abuse

Prison Abuse Americans all know that our prisons are the final frontier for the socially rejected criminals and violent offenders. Once they are convicted, prison is their new home. For which it can be five years or the rest of their lives until death. When the door closes behind them the rest of the world doesn’t matter. It is inside the prison that matters. Those of us who are outside the prison are unaware of what goes on in there, such as prisoner’s abuse. Violence within America’s correctional facilities has become an increasing problem in recent years. With the largest incarceration rate in the world, it is only expected that we face these problems. Unfortunately, it is the correctional staff face with these problems. With the rising of the prison population and the decline of the number of correctional staff, it is only inevitable that violence, within the world’s largest imprisoned population, increases in America’s prison systems. Prison violence is a real issue because people every year are convicted of many different crimes, some severe and some minor. Regardless of the crime committed, everyone in the prison and jail systems is vulnerable to prison violence. Society has even labeled these criminals â€Å"Animals† regardless of the crimes they committed. While they are in prison they are treated as â€Å"Animals†. Prison violence includes the abuse of both prisoners and the guards. This is a crucial problem here in America and we are unaware of it happening in our prisons. All of the prison violence that goes on leads inmates to be severely injured or end up dying from the beat down they receive. There are several articles that are on violence in our prison system. One article by Dan Frosch informs us of an inmate that refuses to follow the orders given to him by the guards in a Utah prison. As a result of his insolence they stripped him naked and tied him to a restraining chair for sixteen to twenty hours then released him to his cell in which he collapsed and died. An autopsy showed the inmate that goes by the name Michael Valent died from a blood clot that blocked an artery to his heart. This article featured in The Nation. Valent had died due to the fact that he was confined to the chair and could not move any part of his person for those sixteen hours when he was restrained: â€Å"The chilling incident made national news not only because it happened to be videotaped but also because Valent’s family successfully sued the State Of Utah and forced it to stop using the device† (Frosch). The guards who had done this to Michael Valent also had done the same to other inmates as well but they lived or the abuse was never recorded. It is likely that incidents like this have happened around America but never been reported or made public knowledge. In some cases the prisoners do not speak out about what is happening to them fearing the consequences from the guards or fellow inmates. Another incident of prisoner abuse was a thirty-seven year old inmate strangled a fellow inmate who is a former priest to death. He was given no protection whatsoever. A former priest who was put in prison for either a minor crime shared a cell with a prisoner who killed someone. The only logical question is whether the law enforcement system inside these prisons or jails goes downhill once the criminals are put behind bars? Should the incarcerated be punished severely by the men that watch over them? Do the guards have a right to use sheer force on these men who haven’t done anything particularly wrong inside prison? Why don’t the guards prevent or stop other inmates from fighting amongst themselves. As we have seen the violence in America’s prisons has gone from bad to worse. There is no way to stop it. There needs to be a solution to this crisis that will not fail at all and will stay solid throughout the years that will not falter what so ever. A solution will protect inmates from the danger that lies within those walls. Works Citied Frosch, Dan. â€Å"Exporting America’s Prison Problems. † TheNation. com, May 12, 2004. Web. 12 Nov. 2009. http://www. thenation. com/doc/20040524/frosch Seabrook, Norman. â€Å"Prison Violence on the Rise. † BNET. USA Today Magazine, 25 Sept. 2005. Web. November 17, 2009. http://findarticles. com/p/articles/mi_m1272/is_2724_134/ai_n15380394/pg_1 Chapman, Stephan. â€Å"The Prisoner’s Dilemma. † New Republic 8 March, 1980, Print.

David Orr s Essay Two Meanings Of Sustainability

It is apparent that in David Orr’s essay, â€Å"Two Meanings of Sustainability,† his views of technological sustainability and ecological sustainability fall beneath two distinct archetypes, as defined by Robert Vos in â€Å"Defining sustainability: A conceptual orientation†. Textual evidence outlining Orr’s views and beliefs in regard to each type of sustainability can be found in both the assigned reading and additional works written by him. This evidence allows for a direct connection to be made between his views and one of the archetypes of Vos’ Matrix. His views on technological sustainability fall beneath the thin version of the archetype â€Å"role of technology† whilst his beliefs in regard to ecological sustainability fall beneath the thick†¦show more content†¦He says that we cannot sustain unrestrained development; essentially, we cannot live limitless lives without dealing with the negative ramifications of doing so. Addi tionally, we are alerted of the fact that Orr is skeptical of the use of unrestrained development [and use] of technology. This leads me to believe that Orr is, personally, a proponent of the â€Å"thin† version in regard to the role of technology, according to Vos’s sustainability matrix. This archetype proposes cautious optimism in regard to the role of growth in a society. That being said, Orr also suggests alternate views in his essay, reporting that, â€Å"Arguments for technological sustainability rest heavily on beliefs that humans [as economic maximizers] are incapable of the discipline implied by limits.† He refers to advocates of technological stability who relate humans and human behavior to the model of the â€Å"economic man†. The Economic Man Model regards humans as unbeknownst to all limits - including those of sufficiency, sanitation, and appropriateness (Orr 25). These humans are not necessarily concerned with the ecological ramifications unless it is in their their best interest. In contradiction to what seem to be his own views, this view of technological sustainability he presents falls beneath the umbrella of the dominant paradigm of economic growth.