Though at a first glance The Mysterious Benedict Society by Stewart and Divergent by Roth don't appear remotely similar, there is a lot of similarity hidden just beneath the surface.
The Mysterious Benedict Society is a fantastic book about four children, hand-selected from a series of very difficult tests, that come together in a secret mission, going undercover to infiltrate an institute in which there is a mysterious machine that is transmitting hidden messages to the world. Divergent is a dystopian novel describing the story of a teenage girl living in a world divided into 5 types of people, and the story of how she first decided to which she belonged and eventually, to discover maybe things aren't so clean cut.
Both books revolve around the idea of a society that can only function with many different types of minds and personality types. Divergent discusses a world that has everyone classified as one, and only one of the following groups: Candor, the honest, Dauntless, the brave, Abnegation, the selfless, Erudite, the intelligent, and Amity, the peaceful. The Mysterious Benedict Society is a group that expresses four different types of minds and ways of thinking. In the way that the factions are divided into in Divergent by personality-related characteristics, the members of the Mysterious Benedict Society could be divided into intelligence-related groups. Reynie is a very logical, systematic and observant learner, making him apt at puzzles and deductive reasoning. Sticky is a very fast reader and is fantastic at memorizing, making him fantastic at test-taking and quick processing of material. Kate is not a book-learning type but is very smart in problem solving and is a survivalist, making her great at getting around very tricky situations and is also very physically fit. Constance also is not much of a book-learning type but is very stubborn and clever, never failing to get herself what she wants and standing up for herself and others.
The story of The Mysterious Benedict Society tells exactly how these different kinds of minds are needed to work together to get a goal. Divergent tells the story of how dividing different types of personalities can work at first but that, in the end, it requires a mix and working together between these people for a group to function, and that some people are mixes of the different groups.
So what has all this talking been leading up to? Well, it all boils down to one point. To what exactly these books have helped me realize.
There are many different kinds of intelligence and personality types required to have a fully functioning society, and there is no one type that is better than or dominant over the others. It's impossible to have a test that every single person can take that will accurately display how smart someone is or how apt they are at a subject. There is no such thing as a standardized test like the ones there are today that will truly tell how well everyone knows something, how smart someone is in comparison to everyone else, if all you do is fill in bubbles.
Our schools today are based almost entirely off of the Erudite, the Sticky-like intelligence type. Today's standardized tests display only how much someone can absorb and spit back out on a page. There are some Reynie-like intelligence factors - math tests do require deductive reasoning - but this still fits in the Erudite box, the book-based intelligence box. There's no room for Kate's bravery, selflessness, and survivalism, Constance's cleverness and stubbornness, the Candor, the Abnegation, the Dauntless, the Amity.
I'm not saying that standardized tests aren't good for some kids. Some people are great at memorization and prove that they have learned material by this type of work (though it does seem hard to believe that one could really remember all that they memorized long after the test). What I am saying is that we need not just judge somebody's aptitude in school by those tests. If tests need be continued at all, creative projects and performance in coursework need to be focused on more, and there needs to be more freedom and flexibility for those of us who aren't bookish types. We need to allow more room to bring what we love into work and judge by that instead. And most of all we need to allow for more freedom in the pace of learning between kids. I'm saying we might want to think about grading tests the way the Mysterious Benedict Society's were graded - where some can earn credit with clever answers, even if they are incorrect, where there are hidden answers in the test one can discover if they crack a hidden puzzle, while still letting those who memorized the material be able to take the test in this way.
Yes, I know that sounds like quite a stretch. I know something like this would be hard to pull off in our school systems today. I know it would be hard on teachers, hard to rewrite a system like this. I know it would take years to rebuild a more free system that has room for different types of intelligence. I also know my whole argument is based off of two fictional books. Two books that in 50 years will most likely not be remembered at all. But I think that they do offer some real content and commentary that one might want to pay some attention to. This definitely will not be the last post I discuss the subject.
And, by the way, I would really recommend reading these two great books.
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