Isaac Asimov has a very unique opinion about intelligence. He
determines that his intelligence is not "absolute but is a function of the
society I live in and of the fact that a small subsection of that society
has managed to foist itself on the rest" (Asimov). This is actually an
accurate assessment. Intelligence should not be based on what one knows
about academic topics or issues because, as Asimov has demonstrated, the
real world rarely operates on those levels.
Most people understand that there are several levels of intelligence or,
that intelligence operates on many levels. Asimov's auto repairman is an
excellent example of this and he is also correct when he surmises that an
education does not make one very smart. One of my best friends has a
master's degree and yet she does not possess the ability to know when
people are pulling her leg. In other words, she is the most gullible
person I know. She helps people learn to budget their money and can tutor
college students on everything from science to algebra. But if she were
dropped in a foreign neighborhood on an unknown street, she would not
survive because her street smarts are virtually nil.
For example, my younger sister spent most of her school years struggling
with the idiom that girls do not do well in mathematics. Before she
entered the third grade, she was already suffering from what others thought
about the intelligence of a girl. She was under the impression that girls
could not do well in math and subsequently, were inferior when it came to
learning at all. It took much effort to convince my sister that she was
allowing herself to become manipulated by popular belief and that she
should in no way allow this to hinder her in any way. My sister went on to
become a successful accountant. She was a girl but she was not dumb in
Intelligence is certainly something that cannot be achieved solely in
...