Nature vs. nurture: the old debate. What are we when it comes to intelligence? Recent scientific studies seem to indicate that a person is born with a genetic intelligence range and enviornment determines where they will end up falling in that range. I, and my two younger brothers have all been identified as “gifted”, which in Canada, means that we fall in the 99th percentile for intelligence as measured in various ways. I believe strongly, however, that the incredible amount of work my parents put into raising me has a lot to do with it. I could read when I was three, because my parents read books to me everyday. Does every parent have time to spend hours with their children and books, especially in today’s world? No, but another thing my parents did was read signs to me whereever we went, and get me to repeat the words, recognize the letters, etc. Is it so hard to say to your child at the grocery store “Look, there are some oranges, and there’s the sign that says ‘Oranges, 98 cents/kg’?” My parents kept me years ahead in school by teaching me addition and subtraction before I entered kindergarten, and multiplication and division, as well as cursive writing, 2-3 years before I started learning it in school. They encouraged me to write stories and letters to relatives, and I was admittedly a natural voracious reader, but my parents made sure to find books I would love. One of my brothers was raised in the same enviornment, with very similar results. Neither one of us ever had problems in school, we were both those kids that “coasted through” but we didn’t coast getting 50s or 60s, we coasted getting 85s. My youngest brother was encouraged by my parents to be more physically active and more concerned with social life (myself and my other brother being somewhat socially maladjusted during childhood due to our intelligence and preference for reading over just about any other activity). He is still intelligent, but even in elementary school has to try for A’s, they don’t just come naturally because his focus is different.
My example leads me to believe that all three of us have the same genetic intelligence range, but our enviornments exploited it differently.
