I was smart, but I was not the smartest kid in my class. My best friend was actually the valedictorian and probably at least five or 10 IQ points smarter than me. Likewise at Columbia University. I think it's really important for smart kids to go to highly competitive schools so that they get the humility to know, yeah, I'm not the smartest kid in the room. Geoffrey Miller (who we are about to hear more from)
I think that's about right. I knew people at my mill-city highschool who I thought about as smart, and often more competent, than me. But it was going to St Paul's Advanced Studies one summer, followed up about fifteen months later by taking honors physics that I really learned in an unarguable way that there is always a faster gun. It is a necessary lesson.
For several years, I taught the second year of AP Physics. My students were wicked smart, with many having ACT scores above 33. Due to our academic schedule, there was always about two weeks of school left for them after our AP test. I taught them to solder along with other requisite skills so they could complete the build of an electronics kit. Nothing humbles a smart kid more than a practical project.
ReplyDeleteMy students were very pleasant people, but in the back of their minds, they believed that they were a level or two up from the vocational students. So, logically, they could do anything a vocational kid could do, plus Calculus. The nice thing about an electronics kit is that it doesn't matter what your ACT score is, if you have a solder bridge or didn't pay attention to the polarity of a capacitor, your project wasn't successful. It was about 50/50 whether we could repair the mistake.
It was good for them. Many had never built anything, so found that they enjoyed the zen state of using a different part of their brain. Also, they figured out that ACT brains aren't the same as practical skills, and society needs both.
This, yes. I have terrible physical coordination and my spatial skills are only mildly above-average, not exceptional.
ReplyDeleteI went to a Good College, so most of my fellow students -- in my freshman year, anyway -- had been the Smartest Kid In Class back in high school. Some of them did not adjust well to being just another middling-bright undergrad in college. I saw two failure modes. The first were the ones whose whole identity was wrapped up in being The Smart One. Getting a bad, or even a mediocre grade was utterly crushing. They'd drop out, some attempted suicide, a few actually did it.
ReplyDeleteThe other unfortunate reaction was blatant denial. They were the Smart Kid, and if the college wasn't acknowledging it then something was obviously wrong with everybody else. These also dropped out, or got radicalized in politics.
As a parent I tried very hard to make sure my kids were never the smartest person they knew.