Education: What is Mensa, this gifted organization?

The organization was originally called “The High IQ Club” but eventually chose the Latin word “mensa” meaning “table” to represent the idea of ​​equality around the table where all members sit on the same foot.

Among other services, Mensa provides support for high-IQ children whose families and educators don’t always have the tools to identify and motivate these precocious children.

As Javier González Reguenco, president of Mensa Spain, explained to BBC Mundo, for some children, talent can, in fact, lead to an unhappy childhood.

Reguenko was bullied at school because he was different, but his parents didn’t know: “You think your parents don’t know anything. I gave my grades to my parents, they kissed me on the forehead, and all I could think about was throwing myself under the next bus.

As a story about Beryl, one of Mensa’s founders, reveals, Reguenko wasn’t the only gifted child affected.

Beryl was apparently interested in phrenology, a pseudoscientific theory that claimed that the shape of the skull determined the degree of intelligence. Wade, who disagrees and works with intelligence tests, gives him one.

When he found out he was one of the 1% smartest people Wade studied, Beryl burst into tears: it was the first time anyone had told him he was good at something.

According to many Mensa members, a sense of belonging to a group is important to their self-esteem because some highly gifted people find it difficult to fit into society.

Mensa organizes conferences and interviews for its members, but also serves as a vehicle to connect them through their areas of interest. They have people with interests, for example, in aeronautics, comics, scuba diving or Egyptology.

The association consists of various national groups. To join, you must pass an intelligence test in which you must demonstrate that your IQ is in the top 2% of the general population. This requirement equates to, for example, an IQ of 131 or higher on the Wechsler scale, 133 on the Stanford-Binet scale, or 149 on the Listening scale.

Not all national groups allow children. Some, such as Spain, set a minimum age for membership. Not Great Britain that admitted Teddy, a boy who only learned to read at age 2 and could already count to 100 in six different languages.

Specifically, learning to read from an early age, extraordinary memory, or unusual hobbies and interests are some of the behaviors that high-ability children may exhibit, Mensah explains.

Other characteristics of these children include spending time with adults or doing things alone, a developed sense of humor, asking a lot of questions, always wanting to be in control, or inventing new rules for games.

However, Teddy is not the youngest person to join Mensa. Last July, Isla McNabb, a two-and-a-half-year-old girl from Kentucky, USA, was admitted to Mensa USA.

Although the majority of its members are unknown, Mensah includes some celebrities such as science fiction writer Isaac Asimov and American actress Geena Davis.