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From a 90 IQ (Below normal and dull) to a Ph.D. in
Astrophysics and the nation’s leading
authority on standardized tests and originator of the critical thinking
skills used for them, and called by the Washington Post, the nation’s
“super genius.”
A story from adversity to
success—a role model for the nation’s young
When I was in fifth grade I had to take an IQ test. I scored 90, which is below normal and considered “dull.” Although I was not told the IQ, I had noticed that my teachers were not paying as much attention to me and rather patronizing me as if I was stupid. Later as friends of mine were skipping grades, I was routed to the “dull classes.” I was embarrassed with my friends as I felt inferior to them, looked up to them and felt as if I could never get far in life. It was in 7th grade that a math teacher, Mr. Rothman at Mark Twain Junior High School in Brooklyn New York, told my father (a high school English teacher at the time) that he was shocked that he found out that I had only a 90IQ—he said I seemed much brighter than that especially because I seemed so innovative and bright. My father was shocked about the 90IQ and got hold of an IQ test which was currently administered. He gave me the IQ test to take. However, instead of actually taking it (as I had before), I started looking test over to see what was in that test that caused me to get such a low score. This started a fascination in testing and critical thinking. I realized that certain thinking skills were being tested and one could actually develop those skills and hone them. I also noticed that there was a generic process to problem solving and thinking. This process was based on extracting something curious from a problem and using that to launch the rest of the solution process. It gave one the mechanism to “process think” rather than just be panicky and try to rush to an answer. As my school career unfolded, I had increased my IQ to 126 then furthering the development of my thinking skills, to 150.
I developed an obsession to see how problems can be solved. I then got into one of the elite high schools, Brooklyn Technical HS, and I started embellishing teacher’s exams by noting on my paper, “this question can be made more interesting by adding so and so,” or “this is a poor question, use this instead of that.” Most of my teachers did not find this amusing except the ones that had a real interest in the student and in the learning mechanism. I even got detention for this behavior. I started to become fascinated in how nature worked, why things worked the way they did, how problems can be solved, and this launched my interest in physics. But after receiving the Ph.D. and teaching and doing some high powered research in physics, and even getting invited all over the world to give lectures on some of the theories I’ve developed, I realized that there was a much more serious problem to solve. That there were all these young people out there that were branded like I was, as dull, and were not given an opportunity to show their true talents and perhaps, even genius. Like from the poem Gray’s Elegy on a Country Churchyard where the author says, “Many a flower is born to blush unseen and waste its sweet fragrance on the desert air.” So I realized I had a mission in life. There are all these people out there that could be the nation’s great scientists, journalists, etc., so many that can develop their talents and become passionate with their life’s work and provide us with the breakthroughs we so much need. Thus I turned my interest and passion into the quest for how people can solve problems and learn, and how they can enjoy and develop a passion for learning and problem solving and thus devoted my life to test taking, test development, critical thinking and learning. And to my amazement I noticed after 30 years of research and quest that most if not all strategies for thinking, learning and problem solving are based on common sense and not brainracking.