grade level

When I was a sophomore in high school, I got pulled aside by my physics teacher after turning in a paper on the internal combustion engine. He asked me who wrote it.

"Huh?", I responded, genuinely unsure of what to expect from this interaction.

"This paper is far beyond the level of technical detail expected for your grade level. Did you plagiarize it?"

I didn't know whether I should be flattered or insulted. Eventually he relented, but the experience had me second-guessing whether putting in the extra work next time would land me a visit to the principal.

My dad worked as a machinist in the Navy. He maintained his skills as a hobby by collecting and restoring vintage motorcycles. When it comes to mechanical aptitude, I take after him.

There's something deeply troubling about expecting a cohort of randomly assorted individuals of roughly the same age to all conform to some arbitrary standard of cognitive development. It makes sense, from an egalitarian perspective, to offer the laggards some additional enrichment. But what do you do about the other end of the bell curve? Singling them out and insinuating that they've done something wrong frankly doesn't seem ideal.

One of the great threats of the democratic age, Tocqueville warned, would be the attempt at elimination of any difference or distinction between individuals. Tocqueville wrote about the threat of radical egalitarianism in the decades following the violence of the French Revolution. He saw what ideological fervor driven by the searing intolerance of self-righteous grievance could accomplish. We would do well to heed his warning.