The Choice Channel

“I hated school. I remember feeling that I was being indoctrinated, that the adults who were in charge of the institution were deliberately trying to make me stupid and servile. School was prison. I recall being given an IQ test in the fifth grade. One of the first of the multiple-choice questions was: ‘Is a tomato a (a) fruit, (b) vegetable, or (c) neither of the above?’ By that time in my school career I was well accustomed to providing expected answers instead of thinking for myself. But this question appeared deliberately confusing. I asked the teacher if I should give the true answer or the answer that best matched what I thought I was ’supposed’ to think. She said: ‘You mustn’t ask questions during the test.’ I concluded that I should give conventional responses; consequently I succeeded in achieving an ‘average’ IQ score.” (11/96)