“Will the rich get smarter while the poor fall further behind? […] In a world where mental function can be tweaked with a pill, will our notion of “normal intelligence” be changed forever?”
This isn’t the tagline for a new Hollywood blockbuster about a magic pill. It’s the questions researchers are asking as brain-enhancing drugs are being developed and used more frequently.
However, these new performance-enhancing drugs into our daily lives may widen the gap between have and have-nots even more. Socio-economic status is the biggest factor for disparity in this case. Today, having money means the ability to support children’s academic pursuits with tutoring, which in NYC especially comes with an astronomical price tag. While schools may try to provide cost-efficient afterschool homework help programs, they cannot provide the one-on-one, specialized attention that tutoring offers. This is amplified when secondary school students must prepare for standardized tests like the SAT.
The potential normalization of brain-enhancing drugs will put into question what teachers are assessing: a student’s ability to recall information organically or their ability to gain access to these types medications? The implications that these drugs will have is pretty scary to me; scholars have only recently established that intelligence isn’t fixed, but these drugs mean the definition of intelligence will once again have to revised. How will we be able to separate a student’s “real” intelligence from one that is artificially enhanced?
I definitely agree that “intelligence” testing becomes a lot more murkier when you start to factor in drugs because whose intelligence are you really testing? And should one be considered “intelligent” if their high grades is merely a consequence of external factors? These questions, and the ones that you posed, definitely have to be answered as drugs become more readily available for students.
I also loved that you included that bit about a student’s socioeconomic status because these drugs will only truly benefit those who already have the means to obtain a steady flow.