A SEMI-SENSIBLE EDUCATION PROF?:

GATTACA CALLING?: High achievement comes from hard work, not from our genetic make-up, says a professor of education. (Richard Bailey, 7/30/04, sp!ked)

Imagine the scene. It is the future, and scientists have learned how to 'read' human DNA with such accuracy that they are able to predict our future health, as well as the careers that will be most suited to our abilities. The genetically elite are identified early and groomed for lives of leadership and brilliance. The biologically impoverished are relegated to the performance of the most menial tasks.

This was the premise of a Hollywood movie, Gattaca, released in 1997. The film's name comes from the initials of the four DNA bases of our genetic code: guanine, adenine, cytosine and thymine.

Despite the remarkable advances made by genetics, we are still a long way from realising the power of Gattaca's science. Indeed, there are strong reasons to suspect that we will never be in such a position. Nevertheless, Gattaca's fiction has a certain potency because its core assumption, that we can know an individual's 'true nature' and potential, is implicitly held by many people and exhibited in many settings, most frequently and clearly in education.

I work in Kent where we have our very own version of Gattaca - the 11 Plus, which consists of a series of examinations capable, apparently, of not just measuring a student's academic ability, but also predicting their likely career trajectory. IQ testing is another example, as are certain forms of education geared towards the 'gifted and talented'.

So prevalent is the Gattaca myth that it seems to underpin most educational theories and practices, from Plato's desire to use his academy to separate the elite from the rest, to educational theorist Howard Gardner's portrayal of multiple intelligences, and the fashionable nonsense of personalised learning styles. The UK government's recent five-year plan for education had an emphasis on 'personalised learning', and aimed to offer specialist school provision to all students, whether they be, in the words of one minister, 'sporty', 'artistic' or 'academic'. (Presumably, through some feat of genetic or social engineering, the government will arrange for all sporty children to live near a sports college and all arty children to live next to an arts college.)

These ideas are presented in attractive and palatable ways that suggest warm feelings of inclusion and the celebration of diversity. But ultimately, they divide the world up into different 'types' of people, whose abilities are 'given', and simply mature over the lifespan. Are you a visual thinker, or auditory? Do you have musical or existential intelligence? Are you 'sporty' or 'academic'?

Although the Gattaca myth has a certain appeal, it is also nonsense.

Not only is Gattaca a terrific flick, but the same director/screenwriter alsoi wrote the superb Truman Show and wrote and directed the flawed but entertaining S1M0NE. Taken together they're a penetrating meditation on Man and our relationship to God.

Posted by Orrin Judd at July 30, 2004 11:07 AM