Mary Nacol Meeker was born in Clarksville, Texas in 1921.  It wasn’t long before her father saw great potential in his creative little girl. He vowed to make sure she got to college, something which he had been unable to do.  He fancied himself a business man, so the family moved from place to place as he looked for the elusive perfect opportunity.   Every new school brought another Intelligence Test and eventually Mary skipped a grade. Mary’s sister who was learning disabled was often mistreated by the Nuns at one of the schools, causing Mary to turn away from her religion.  Her mother did not see her talent or creativity and was often mean and abusive toward her children. As a result of these events, and recognizing that she and her sister were at different ends of a spectrum, Mary vowed to advocate for the development of diverse intellectual abilities. Educationally, Mary more than fulfilled her father’s hopes as she gained a Bachelor of Science, a Master of Science, a Doctorate in Educational Psychology and continued with post graduate studies.

 

          In a desperate need for teachers, the State of California offered provisional teaching certificates to those with a related degree, and Mary accepted. She was immediately assigned to students with severe developmental delays.  She didn’t know how to teach them and there were no resources to draw upon.  Eventually she motivated the children’s creativity by dancing and singing for much of the school year as there was nothing academically she could apply.  When Mary was re-assigned, she got a Special Education Class and found that it had a variety of gifted students who were being failed because there was no way for teachers to diagnose or treat their lack of school success.  She decided then that her mission was to “protect children and instruct teachers” (M.N. Meeker, unpublished survey, April, 2003)

 

          By this time, the turbulent 60’s had come along, with tie-dyed shirts and skirts, the Vietnam anti-war demonstrations and peace rallies, and loud rock at Woodstock.  It was the decade where Brown vs. the Board of Education forced the desegration of American schools, and white children were integrated with blacks and other minorities. In 1964, President L.B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law.  It was a tenuous time socially and politically.  The launch of the Russian built rocket, Sputnik intensified the Space Race and both educators and psychologists had a need to identify and develop young scientific talent for eventual work at NASA.  Outer space was thought to be the final frontier while the human brain continued to keep its’ secrets.

 

          In the midst of this, Mary Meeker was a student of J.P. Guilford, a giant in his own time.  President of the American Psychological Association, Guilford reflected that Mary was unique in the way her brain processed information, and she was one of the brightest talents he knew of.  Guilford’s own work had led him away from the concept of a single intelligence, the g-factor, and past Gardiner’s eight intelligences as he reasoned that there were many sides to intelligence, and a single or even two scores from a traditional test could not define what the brain was capable of. Using factor analysis of I.Q. tests, Guilford came up with over 90 unique brain skills, and he developed a test for each one to prove that each skill was distinct. He envisioned the brain map like a chart of elements in chemistry. Each ability had a name that was defined by three letters, each letter referring to one of three dimensions of intelligence.  In a further breakdown, each dimension had types of abilities which were distinct from one another. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

        

          For example, the ability to store memory would be MSU, and verbal creativity would fall under DMU. High CFC would mean strong comprehension skills and a strong ability to organize and classify schemes and concepts.  Mary immediately understood the impact this could have on gifted children. Though Guilford had identified the brain skills which could be measured, it was Meeker who boiled them down to the 26 most used for learning. Subsequently, she developed a standardized test, the Form LA Assessment, using the tests Guilford created.

 

          As a School Psychologist, she saw how Guilford’s theory applied to a variety of learners, and how it explained much of what she had seen as a teacher, where children who demonstrated giftedness in areas other than IQ, such as music, art and imagination, were failing academically. Mary saw how she might use his theory to address the diverse needs of children in a classroom. At this time in her career, she focused particularly on the gifted.  Guilford’s theory was denoted as Structure of Intellect or SI, and Mary called the basis for her test of 26 skills the Structure Of Intellect or SOI to differentiate it from Guilford’s work. Meeker’s SOI assessment indicated both strengths and weaknesses in a multitude of brain skills which would also allow for remediation of weak areas.  The Stanford-Binet and Wechsler only indicated a top 2% as intellectually gifted. These tests were heavily based on semantics, which meant they were culturally discriminatory to those who were not American born, or those who were in an economically disadvantaged group.  Since the SOI was not dependent on semantics and looked for figural-spatial skills and abstract-symbolic skills more so than verbal skills,  it was far more equitable in determining a child’s wider range of intelligence. Mary did not agree with the commonly accepted theory that IQ is “fixed, immutable and impervious to change” (SOI Systems Evaluation Leaflet, 1991) but stated that this concept was no longer acceptable in light of ongoing brain research.  She believed intelligence could be trained.  Today we call this “Neuroplasticity”.

 

          SOI assessments and remediation programs were implemented in many schools, not only in California but several other states as well.  Mary published SOI: It’s Interpretations and Uses in 1969 and wrote prolifically for many scientific journals as well as publications focused on supporting gifted learners. By the mid-1970’s, she was speaking across the United States about differentiating curriculum for the gifted, and lecturing at Universities around the world including Japan, China, Samoa, England, Belgium, Mexico, Portugal, Germany and Canada.  She served on many Committee’s championing the needs of the gifted, such as Commissions for Education, Minority Education, and Assessing the Disadvantaged in California. She did extensive work for California in the area of education by editing 32 Frameworks for the Gifted over four grade ranges and seven subjects, a huge undertaking.  Mary personally trained teachers in SOI assessments and remediation materials, and consulted for schools and boards across the state. Her work extended across 33 more states as she Consulted for each of their Departments of Education.  Mary was an advisor for the Sesame Street Program, served as Secretary for the National Association for the Gifted, was honoured as Education Leader of the Year in 1981 and a Member of America’s Women in Science.  One of her many awards was being selected as one of five Social Scientists whose work held promise for education in the next century.  Her research paper, Brain Research: The Necessity for Distinguishing Sites, Actions and Functions was one of two Best Papers Published in Education in 1976. 

 

          Meeker’s contemporaries included E. Paul Torrence who published Tests of Creative Thinking in the 1960’s, curriculum advocate Harry Passow, and Founder of the National Association for Gifted Children Anne Fabe Isaacs. It has been said that Meeker and her contemporaries “made things happen” for the gifted, and that such attention to the education of the gifted had not been seen since the days of Leta Hollingworth.  (Piirto Keller-Mathers, pg. 276-287)

 

          Sadly, a review by Buro, a respected reviewer,  suggested that SOI did not meet the standards of the American Association of Psychologists. Thereafter, use of SOI fell sharply. And Meeker turned her attention toward other opportunities to share SOI.

 

          Interestingly, Meeker more fully embraced the needs of the learning challenged towards the early 1990’s, and provided information, training and materials to parents who homeschooled children with learning challenges. 

 

A Summary of Meeker’s Paper:  Identifying Potential Giftedness 

 

          Meeker started with the observation that educational programming is about knowledge of subject matter whereas she believed it should be about developing intellectual abilities.

 

          In her opening salvo, Meeker challenged the notion that giftedness is only in those scoring above 132 on a traditional IQ test, allowing for only a very small 2% of the population to receive support through gifted programs. She pointed out that racism may exist in the current tests if the 2% identified as gifted was largely Caucasian. She implied that other races have salient gifts observable daily in media and in public. As an example, she pointed out Art Center Los Angeles, one of the foremost art schools in America, and suggested that its’ artistically gifted students were made to “feel dumb”  in the main stream schools.  She attributed this to the students’ weaknesses in verbal skills and stated that those who were not verbally capable, were unable to demonstrate that they were gifted since IQ testing mostly required strong verbal skills.  In a nutshell, Meeker said that children gifted with artistic, musical, dance, design and such were being passed over for admittance to the state’s gifted programs in favour of the 2%, mostly Caucasian children that were linguistically strong. 

 

          In the second round, Meeker spoke directly to school authorities, suggesting the solution for the problem was squarely in their domain.  She claimed that the current definition of giftedness was too narrow because it did not encompass motor skills, creativity or leadership skills that also depend on talent.  With a broadened definition, Meeker insisted that new ways to identify those in the wider talent pool should be created and implemented as soon as possible.

 

          She proceeded to recommend one way to locate these children.  Drawing upon the scientific method of correlates, she pointed out that currently identified gifted children would have a number of non-IQ related traits and abilities that consistently correlate to high IQ scores. Once the correlates were identified, she argued that these traits could be used to locate other children who were also gifted, but didn’t show up at the top of an IQ chart, possibly because of “environmental or language deprivation.”  A revolutionary idea was introduced that, once the unknown gifted children were identified, it would be possible to exercise or train their brain skills so that they would subsequently show up on the IQ test. She claimed it was possible to increase IQ.

 

          Meeker observed that there were likely two divergent preferences among gifted children, even those who were not from economically or linguistically disadvantaged backgrounds. On the one hand, she pointed out those who want to develop only their correlates of giftedness in order to avoid being bullied for their intelligence. On the other hand, she believed that some children developed only their academic strengths leaving out correlated gifts in order to gain approval by parents or teachers.  Non scholastic achievements were undervalued, and Meeker suggested that these extremes should be minimized in an effort to bring a more rounded perspective to the education of the gifted learner. 

 

          At this point a reader unconvinced that IQ is changeable, might want some sort of proof, wondering why Meeker flies against the common belief of one IQ score for life. 

 

          Meeker offered School Psychologist Al Hatch as evidence of her claim. In a predominantly black, low income area of Los Angeles, Hatch created Project Search, a procedure to locate the gifted in this unlikely population. Teachers in his school had already acknowledged a lack of giftedness among their students, and were surprised when Hatch’s data, gleaned through the correlates method, identified 140 students with gifted potential! Hatch implemented a program that significantly raised academic achievement over the course of only one year. Some students were re-tested on the Stanford-Binet at the end of the year, and scored over 130, qualifying them for the State’s gifted Programs.

 

          Hatch’s results proved Meeker’s assertion that developing the intellect is possible.  Meeker also pointed out the results that could not be measured, such as childrens’ improved self-esteem, parents’ increased pride in their children, and a community’s renewed trust in their educational system. Mary concluded her argument by re-stating emphatically that we must not limit our perspective of giftedness to the top 2% on an IQ test.  

 

Analysis

 

          Meeker’s paper, Identifying Potential Giftedness  appeared in the 1971 peer-reviewed quarterly Bulletin of the National Association of Secondary School Principals.  She intended her message for educators working in the trenches, coming face to face with diverse learning abilities daily, applying curriculum in their best effort to help each child achieve their potential. However, her ideas challenged the common belief that an I.Q. assessment determines a child’s potential for life and cannot be changed.  The arguments she presented shed light on her own research and provided evidence that validated her ideas. I believe Mary N. Meeker was forty years ahead of her time.  Her work implies the brain has neuro plastic abilities, an idea that was not yet heard of.  Based on her background as a School Psychologist, and her work with Guilford’s Structure of Intellect, Mary believed that the brain was like a muscle, and proceeded to develop training exercises to strengthen any weak brain skills.  As such she was highly qualified to address this subject with her audience.

 

          The article was well organized as one should expect from an academic. She gets straight to the point, laying out her three arguments like bullets and then backing out leaving the reader to ask, “what just happened”? Her style is simple and straight forward. Her tone is polite, factual and stern. She uses some challenging language to catch the reader’s attention, such as, “two tasks confront the school system”. This throws down the gauntlet as she implies that it is within the readers’ power to do something about the problem she has outlined.  And yet, Meeker respects the reader, assuming they have the background to assimilate what she is asserting. For instance, Mr. Hatch’s experiment “measured many of Guilford’s dimensions”  (Meeker, 1971) acknowledges that  the reader already knows of J. P. Guilford and what dimensions she refers to.  She uses the imperative “we must” on numerous occasions, and even the inclusive “we” suggests that she wants the reader to follow her through the thought process to her conclusion. In effect, she creates the question that she then wants to answer, “How can we identify creativity or talent or motor skills or leadership, and be sure we have identified correctly?” (Meeker, 1971) Her criticism of the current ways to identify talent is bold as she implies that the traditional Stanford-Binet and Wechsler Intelligence tests are racially slanted in favour of Caucasians. She uses blunt language like “egg head” and “made to feel dumb”  finally asking if the intent of schools is only to develop academics and ignore other kinds of talent. 

 

          Al Hatch’s experiment is used to present factual information about the brains’ ability to change.  Her description of his work includes some negatives, “his procedure was lengthy and his tools for identification depended upon his own skills.” (Meeker, 1971) The rest of her comments highlight many positives and Meeker concludes that some of those positives, like self-esteem, parental pride, and community cooperation  can never even be measured. Then she offers her “out of the box” thinking on the subject of IQ and science’s need to locate the gifted.

 

          Contemporaries like E. Paul Torrence created ways to test for giftedness, but it was only Meeker who suggested that there were more than 2% of children in the gifted range, that standard tests do not locate giftings beyond those identifiable through semantics, and that “the idea that intelligence is fixed, immutable and impervious to change is no longer tenable…..specific abilities can be trained (contradicting Thorndike in Science, 1988)”  (Piirto and Keller-Mathers).

 

          In 2007, Norman Doidge published The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of personal triumph from the frontiers of brain science.  He includes stories whose titles convey the contents:  Redesigning the Brain: A scientist changes brains to sharpen perception and memory, increase speed of thought and heal learning problems.  This meant Mary was right about the brain being malleable, and open to development through targeted exercise.

 

          The title of her paper led me to expect Meeker to present a new and different way of identifying gifted potential, and she did exactly that. Meeker’s paper clearly leads to the conclusion that the brain is changeable, and Doidge’s book based on neuroscientific research, brings us back to the same topic forty years later. Mary Meeker was, as Guilford said, “a Maverick” in her thinking, and substantially ahead of her time.

 

Reflecting on Mary Meeker, Her Work and Her Legacy

 

          Mary argued that “you can’t put a three digit number on intelligence”,(Piirto, Keller-Mathers)  and then proceeded to prove how true and how important her conclusion was for children at all learning levels.  She knew full well that “Psychologists did not want to give up their beloved bell curve”,(Piirto, Keller-Mathers)  and this may be part of the reason Meeker’s SOI assessment and remediation materials were put on the back burner. Use of SOI by the gifted community diminished “after a negative report published by Buros Reviewers and Researchers challenged the validity and reliability of the instrument. Clarizo & Mehrens, 1985. Meeker, Meeker and Roid 1985 argued that the comments were unjustly harsh.” (Piirto, Keller-Mathers) The positive results of both the assessment, which was standardized and normed, as well as the individualized training could not be denied.  Thousands of assessments were interpreted and programs successfully applied for many years. It is a shame that short-sighted researchers, for reasons that really are not clear, had such an impact in influencing educators to look elsewhere for solutions when they this amazing and forward thinking material available to them.  Mary continued to believe the brain is like a muscle and if exercised, it will grow stronger. Over the years, she wrote hundreds of exercise workbooks at varying stages of ability to provide a full range of resources to those who embraced the idea of a brain that could change.  Her idea that intelligence is malleable was a hallmark of her career.  Even after her semi-retirement, her materials continued to impact children as former U.S. Secretary of Labor William Brock marketed the assessment and booklets nationwide.  Richard Tracey, writing for Johns Hopkins School of Education noted that her programs “positively impacted learning for all student groups” and felt that SOI was also making a consistent difference with at-risk students. Tracey’s article also shone a light on many of SOI’s successes with a good amount of detail. If I may quote a few, “teachers may remediate perceptual and motor dysfunctions that often impair students’ abilities in comprehension, which is a most basic mental operation in the SOI model; i.e. attention, concentration, focus (Meeker & Meeker, 1982)” He also highlighted that most teachers assume that each student brings certain foundational skills to the classroom, such as attention span, memory and recall, compare/contrast thinking, process orientation, symbolic decoding, contextual comprehension” and yet, upon assessing these brain skills individually, it is possible to locate those which are not functioning as the teacher would expect.  This would be a vital asset in early grades, so that the skills are solidly in place for later learning. I believe every child should be granted an SOI assessment early in their school years and certainly by the end of Grade 3. Since lack of attention shows up on the assessments, this could also impact classroom behaviour by developing focus to minimize the number of students struggling with ADHD.   Tracey also admired that the Meeker program had “measureable goals to exit students back to the regular classroom, usually within a single year.  SOI is a program that works when tutoring doesn’t seem to, because of its’ emphasis on the skills underlying learning rather than on subject material itself.

 

          Locally, educator Pauline Turton has built her company, Breakthroughs In Learning, around the SOI model  with supports from other exciting research such as Dr. Frank Belgau’s balance board and Advanced Brain Technologies’ remarkable Brainbuilder program that exercises memory storage and retrieval. (Breakthroughs Leaflet)  Lumosity is an internet company that offers “brain training” but since it targets skills at random, the user never knows whether they are targeting a weak skill or one that is already strong.  The SOI assessment leaves no doubt as to which skills are strong and which skills need training.  SOI Institute is still run by Mary’s husband, Robert Meeker in Vida, Oregon and continues to train clinicians and providers who come in from all over the world.  Mary’s work is alive and well, and deserves to be implemented on a much larger scale.

 

          Therefore, it is time to re-examine the large body of work Meeker contributed to neuroplasticity before it was even discovered. Her normed and standardized assessment clearly shows which of the 26 brain areas were weak or strong.  Presented in easy-to-understand graph format, the before and after graphs clearly show how the exercises have affected the brain.  The booklets that develop weak skills have already been written and in use for over 40 years.  In her Obituary, her husband, Robert Meeker states that she has substantially enhanced thousands of lives.  The material exists. Neuroplasticity is proven. All that remains to be done is to use it, now, as never before, giving unexpected opportunity to many more students at all levels of learning.