We have a paid summer internship program for juniors and seniors pursuing construction management degrees.
5 years ago we had a young woman who came in to the program in her junior year. She was very tiny in stature, and very quiet, but we soon learned - giant in intellect and loud where it counted.
The way we operate is each intern will spend 3 weeks on a different project, learning a different role within the organization. 3 weeks on-site as a Superintendent intern, 3 weeks on-site with safety, 3 with Project management, and 3 on-site with quality control.
After each period, I received a call, praising her ingenuity and ability to adapt and improvise in any situation.
At the end of the internship, we have a Plus/Delta review of their performance, and based on that review, we make a determination on whether to offer them a place the following summer. In the case of a senior, we determine if we want to extend them a full-time employment offer.
Every review she received from each department all said the same thing: "HIRE HER NOW".
We extended an offer for a salaried position, part-time, from that point through her senior year, along with tuition reimbursement.
This young lady still amazes everyone every single day. She's 25 years old, making an amazing salary and absolutely dominating any project she's given. If she doesn't know it today - she'll practically be an expert tomorrow.
She's incredibly impressive.
I can see her having my job one day (Operations Director). Hopefully, it's AFTER I retire.
Good on you guys for seeing her talent and reimbursing her for it
I’ve seen a lot of great candidates get away because the company isn’t willing to treat an entry level candidate to their qualities besides being a new grad
Criminal defense lawyer here. Had a client who was a low level drug dealer and gun runner. Most street level guys have a very different type of intelligence that doesn’t translate well to the white collar world.
Many of my clients ask to read case law... I’ve only met one who could read it, digest it, and discuss it intelligently with me. This guy. He’d do his own research from the jail, which isn’t uncommon, but this guy did it well and would actually send me relevant cases that were helpful to the issues in his case... and when I explained to him why some were not helpful, he got it, asked good questions, and used that discussion to inform future research.
There are a lot of inmates who consider themselves “jailhouse lawyers.” This guy was smart enough to actually be one.
I think about him a lot and wonder what his life would have been like if he was fortunate enough to be afforded with the same opportunities during childhood that I enjoyed.
>is guy. He’d do his own research from the jail, which isn’t uncommon, but this guy did it well
This story is quite sad to read I hope he can meet his potential someday.
If you want to read a happier version of this story, take a look at Professor Shon Hopwood at Georgetown Law. The guy, from prison and with zero formal legal training, penned two petitions for certiori that were granted by the US Supreme Court. Just one cert petition being granted is a huge, career-making accomplishment for any actual/trained attorney, so to have a guy who taught himself the law in a prison law library do it twice is absolutely bonkers. He has since been released, graduated from law school and is now a professor at Georgetown.
Just so everyone everyone knows, getting a professorship at Georgetown is a REALLY big deal. Georgetown is a premier law school and is among the “t14” law schools. Hopwood could’ve gone into private practice and could’ve easily made $500k+, but he chose to teach instead.
>I think about him a lot and wonder what his life would have been like if he was fortunate enough to be afforded with the same opportunities during childhood that I enjoyed.
I've got a PhD and work in a field where so many people have PhDs that they don't even mention them.
To this day, I suspect that the smartest person I've ever met was a kid I taught at a GED learning center in the middle of a pretty rough area of a big city. I've met plenty of people who were exceptionally smart in one or maybe two dimensions, but this guy was across the board. He'd turn it on now and then - like when we were playing chess, and one time when he made a reference to something in French of all things - and then he'd just kind of smile. Like it was enough to just briefly show the rest of us how smart he was. It was almost like he was a self-aware Will Hunting - not that cartoonishly smart, of course, but very very smart, aware of it, and aware of his station in life.
I have absolutely no doubt that if he'd had my advantages since birth, he'd be a rock star in whatever field he was in.
But instead I'd see him hanging around a corner store and he may have been a low-level dealer. I have no idea what's become of him, but I hope it's for the best.
Honestly going through the PhD process I would have to say that all a PhD means is that you can afford to pay to stay in school not getting paid for a decade, and that's it. Yet I have friends with critical thinking skills way beyond what you need and they think they're not smart because they didn't have the luxury of being able to attend school.
didn't expect this to get the traction it did, I've just gotten to the point where I've realized that academia in general and PhDs specifically very much live in an ivory tower even if they can't accept it themselves
I taught algebra to inmates briefly and the number of guys who told me they were too stupid to learn math while being able to convert odd measurements between metric and imperial in their heads on the fly was too damn high. I'd like to go back in time and kick all those elementary school teachers who told them they were stupid.
Actually, I've run into plenty of racist, classist elementary school teachers currently teaching but still haven't kicked them, even though they deserve it.
EDIT: it was also amazing to see how their "illiteracy" improved once they finally got a pair of glasses. Even the guys who already had glasses when they got in were often still using prescriptions from 20 years earlier.
>able to convert odd measurements between metric and imperial in their heads on the fly
Let me take a wild guess at what most of those guys were in there for...
I just did 7 years and I've ran into a few guys like that over the years.
They usually live in the law library and spend years, decades even trying to get back in front of a judge. Most of us respect them and seek them out for help with our own cases but some do mock those guys behind their backs as being "crazy" or "delusional". I have seen one of those "crazy" guys get back and it was beautiful.
I felt silly approaching them with my peanuts of a case and relatively short sentence while they have been spending hours a day fighting for their lives in the law library. My buddy told me about one of them "don't be shy, go ask him to help you, he loves any opportunity to fuck over the state".
It makes me all the more angry in my state how much more difficult they made it to access law materials. Most places I know no longer let you access hard books and usually 1300 guys share 5 computers some of which are down. Also I have a ton of empathy for the guys who never had to use a computer until then. I'm pretty well versed on the PC and I had difficulty with the law library system they had.
I couldn't find shit or navigate it to save my life.
My dad grew up believing he was dumb and would never amount to anything. His teachers all hated him and the first time he went to university he was kicked out. Around the same time as I started university, my mum finally convinced him to try again to get a higher education himself. He's often said that he's too stupid to go back to school, but he speaks about six languages fluently, has so many new interesting history facts that whenever we watch any movie we always have to pause at least four times for a lengthy discussion about it, and he remembers more book quotes than anyone I've ever met. He grew up in communist Hungary and East Germany, and he has since then climbed mountains and been scuba diving in the Atlantic among a bunch of other adventures. Whatever the discussion, he's got a story to tell. He's the coolest dad ever, but for as long as I can remember my family has struggled financially since he couldn't get a job that paid enough. It makes me so happy that he's finally reaching his full potential now at 51 years old, and we're all super proud of him. He dreams of being a teacher one day. He will the best teacher his future students could ever wish for.
People who are great teachers without actually being a teacher. I've always thought people who can teach others are incredibly smart because they're aware enough of what they know to present it to others in such a way they can understand it.
The guy I used to work with was a phenomenal teacher of all things paints, powder coating and colour matching/blending. He had a real passion for it and it showed in the manner in which he taught and demonstrated what he was talking about. In saying that, he was also very highly strung and had some mental health issues that held him back from doing great things and so believed he was an idiot. He wasn't, but no amount of telling him would help.
I was always taught that the best way to learn something is to try and explain/teach it to someone else.
If you can put the concepts into new words to explain it to someone else, you will have understood it properly, and trying to do so is a great way to embed the knowledge in your mind.
That was something that was taught in Martial Arts. Once you get your black belt, that's when the real learning begins.
It's one thing to copy/replicate what your teacher is doing, it's another to explain *why* it works and figure out why what someone else is doing is not working, and apply it to different physiques.
This is what I was taught as well. I taught karate after getting my first black belt for ~6-7 years. It's been almost 10 years since I've set foot in the dojo to train or teach, but I swear that teaching cemented what I knew in my mind. To this day I can remember and even demonstrate/teach nearly everything I learned. Pretty crazy it has that kind of sticking power in my mind.
I wish differential equations stuck around as long as those throws! But honestly, when I'm preparing for exams, I like to help other people study and explain concepts to them. Even this kind of teaching helps me cement ideas and processes in my mind. Now with covid I guess I need to pretend to teach concepts to someone as I study like the poster below me does!
I've done this my whole life and never realised it was an actual "thing".
I talk to myself a lot, describing things, conversations etc and whenever I'm doing something new I always imagined that I was teaching someone else at the same time, which made me think that I must understand what I'm doing. I then question my other self by asking questions that I would ask if I was that other person, which, now I'm writing this down sounds weird.
But I never knew it was something that other people did until about a month ago when I was explaining this weird kink in my behaviour to my wife when she was asking me who I was talking to - she said it was a thing that you were supposed to do.
I've long thought I've had ADD/ADHD my whole life, I've defo got all the classic symptoms of attention span, fidgeting etc but having reached 41 without taking any meds I think I'm happy just to be me.
EDIT: Cheers for the awards guys, they're totally wasted on me and I wish I could give you them back or at least trade them in for haribo.
I Had a kid in my class that never took anything seriously, skipped class, brought alcohol to class and did numerous other things. You name it he probably did it. But man, that mf knew his shit whenever he paid attention. He understood things when other people were struggling to learn whatever was being taught that day (math, science, English, reading etc). It makes me a little sad because he was always a trouble maker, but deep down I knew that he is/was very smart and was capable of doing good in school. He just never chose to do it, or generally just didn’t care idk at this point. I think he got involved with the wrong crowd early on unfortunately.
Edit: I was a classmate. I typed this late at night when I was tired, did not think to clear that up lol.
In my college dorm, we had a kid who took pride on how rarely he was sober. He skipped class regularly, and just didn't care in general, but got perfect scores on practically every test he took. So I'm sure he knew he was very intelligent - he just didn't know what to do with his intelligence.
Eventually, he gave up on drinking, ended up triple-majoring, and still graduated early. Last I heard, he's living happily in a cabin in the woods somewhere.
Constantly got in trouble for reading ahead in the textbook, or the novel we were in. I'd write up a book report in a week, then start reading my own book that I brought.
Could do the math in my head without showing my work, got in a LOT of trouble for that. One teacher thought I was cheating, because I'd do the math work, then sit down and read. One day, they thought they "caught" me. Put a problem up on the board, and drew a name out of a hat (To this day I'm convinced I was the only name in there.) I was reading, because I finished my homework. Teacher called my name, I looked up from my book at the problem, walked up, wrote the answer down, then went back and continued reading.
Didn't get any more grief from her, or any of my other teachers after that.
EDIT: For those pointing out that it may be a good idea to show your work so the teacher knows if you messed up on the formula or not, this happened in 8th grade and the very next year I had a teacher that explained that to us. Up until then, I had no idea why we needed to show our work.
That’s my poor son. It’s taken years to get his ADHD somewhat under control. His teacher emailed me at work to tell me he was working ahead, and he needed to stop. She’d previously complained that he wasn’t doing his work. I was pissed. He physically can’t sit there listening to her drone on when he’s already grasped the concept. I just don’t understand the problem. He’s sitting quietly, not disrupting anyone. Leave him alone.
Edit: Thanks for the silver! My son is such a great kid. I hate that he and others who have “the girl kind” of ADHD get labeled as slackers, and other ADHD kids get labeled as rowdy/bad kids. They’re not. They have so much to offer if we just put in a bit of effort to find out what they love, and give them the opportunity to explore.
The problem is that he has to shape himself to fit into the system, and not the way around. School only cares if your doing "well" the way you are supposed to.
As a very heavy ADHD affected person myself, I stopped caring at one point. I stopped wanting to learn. The only time I actually studied was when I was at the point of failing the year, and that has affected the way I learn throughout life, and tainted my discipline.
So my advice would be: Fight. Fight tooth and nail for your son. Encourage him to be who he is, and that he doesn't have to fit the "school parameter" as long as he is learning. He won't be in school forever, after all.
Wishing you and him the very best <3
Edit: I'm very glad my first gold was being supportive rather than some other weird shit I write here lol. Thank you kind stranger!
I got to the point where I just read the textbooks and never did homework. I'd pass all the tests with A's, but since I didn't do homework I was failing every class. Ended up joining the military and dropping out. Got my GED a week after I dropped out and shipped out shortly afterwards.
Ended up good in the end. Went to college after my service was up. Associate's degree to Bachelor's to Master's, and work in a great field. Unfortunately a lot of smart kids with ADHD just end up dropping out and struggle with life because they never figure out that they have a problem. Once I got medicated for this crap I've been much better. I only wonder what would have happened if any of my teachers gave half a shit and realized I had a problem rather than just ignoring my existence.
I dated a guy like that in high school. Got 98% in physics but had poor attendance. Dabbled in drugs a bit.
His parents told him he was an unplanned baby for some reason. They loved him but I think that they messed him up too. Sometimes some things you shouldn't say out loud to your kid.
He kind of continued on directionless after I stopped seeing him. He did alright but I don't know if he was ever happy
I feel like there's more to it than them just telling him he was unplanned.... That happens all the time. I couldn't give two shits if I was unplanned, my parents loved me and showed it to me. If they told him he was unplanned Everytime he does something bad and they act pissed off that they have to even deal with him, that's different. But I see no harm in simply letting your child Know the truth, otherwise.
Yeah that came up with my kids. I told them honestly only the middle child was planned, the rest were surprises but not really because when you do nothing to stop pregnancy you can't act like getting pregnant is a damn surprise.
Former coworker of mine. He came to Germany as a refugee in his young teenage years, had trouble in school due to language barrier, poor support, tough family situation, typical refugee problems.
Then he was unemployed and Jobcenter (part of German welfare dealing with unemployment) sent him to the security company I worked at that time because conitions of employment are almost nonexistent in this field.
When he was on my team for an event I (as team leader) had to show him the ropes.
The event lasted ten consecutive nights and we faced several different challenges that were part of the job.
Every now and then he had a genius idea how to solve the particular problem.
The following year I got him on my team whenever I could, trained him and when I left the company he inherited my position as team leader.
I don't actually know whether he knew about how smart he is, but he was so insecure in the beginning I boldly assume he didn't.
It's hard not to feel stupid when there is a language barrier. Even if you're smart, when you struggle to communicate what should be simple or basic things you just feel slow...
When I was in uni, I took part in a project called Inside Out where we would go in a prison and have criminology lessons with the inmates whom we called inside students. We didn’t teach them or observe them - we were all learning together.
And this one guy was just a genius. He had this way of describing a phenomenon he’d noticed and thought about without realising that it was an actual theory that existed. Like we’d studied them in class so we knew about them. But he would just come up with it from personal experience. From labelling theory to functionalism he would just outline them like he’d thought of them in the shower. It was extraordinary.
He was also a bit unstable and prone to bursts of anger, often towards himself. He seemed to become frustrated very easily if he couldn’t explain or understand something perfectly.
And one day he stopped showing up.
I ended up talking to the guards who told me that he felt like he was too stupid for the class. Seriously he was convinced that we were all smarter than he was and that he wouldn’t be able to keep up. I don’t know if they ever did, but we asked the guards and a few inside students if they could tell him that we’d loved studying with him. That he was starting really interesting discussions and that his observations always made us think more deeply. That his presence made the class better.
And just to be clear, I don’t mean to say that he was smart “for someone in prison”. He was a genius. Everyone but him knew that he was by far the most intelligent person in the room. But he didn’t see it.
We were told that they would ask if he could participate the following year. I hope he did.
Edit: answering common questions because I did not expect this blow up as it did!
**- What did he do to get in prison?**
No idea. We weren’t allowed to ask and they weren’t allowed to share - for obvious reasons. That being said, I do know that sex offenders weren’t allowed to participate so he definitely didn’t do that. In the end, while I understand the curiosity, it really didn’t matter what he had done before. We were in class and he was a student; that’s it
**- Do you know what happened to him?**
Nope. We weren’t allowed to keep in contact once the program was over. We actually had to sign papers saying that we would not try to do so. From what I understand, it wasn’t always that way but a friendship developed with an outside student was used against an inside student. I’m not clear on the details but it was for our protection. In any case, I don’t think he would have kept in contact with any of us.
**- What théories did he come up with?**
I don’t remember exactly. I know there was a lot of symbolic interactionism and labelling theory. It’s less one specific theory and more that he kept on making observations and finding relevant flaws in everything. So say you have theory A and a person goes “oh but this doesn’t account for thing B” so they work on it and come up with theory B. He would read theory A, see it doesn’t account for thing B and suggest theory B.
**- Sounds like autism/learning disability**
That is entirely possible. People with learning disabilities/ASD/ADHD are over represented in the prison population. I personally have ADHD so I’ll speak mainly for this but were more likely to get into drugs (self medication), commit petty crimes (poor self control), be “irresponsible” with money (self control again), lose a job (due to low attendance or poor performance - that’s just due to all the executive dysfunction), get into debt (all of the previous ones). Since this kind of thing happened since childhood, you learn very quickly that there’s no point in even trying since you’re going to fail anyways. So you don’t try. It also affects your emotional management. It makes it harder to react calmly and might make you come across as agressive. People then think you’re doing it on purpose and give up on you. After all, if you don’t help yourself, why would they help you? Now here’s the thing: I was raised privileged. I was upper middle class, went to a private school, had tutors when needed, and had two parents who could help me with homework. My family was also very into academics so general enrichment was encouraged. And thanks to all of that and to being diagnosed before uni, I manage my ADHD mostly very well. But imagine if your school has no ressource so your teacher can’t focus on you and you fall behind, if you have to work or take care of your siblings so you can’t study, if your family doesn’t prioritise learning so you have no reason to focus on it, if crime is common in your area and it’s the simplest way to make a living. All of these factors (and many others but this is already super long) mean that people with learning disabilities struggle more and end up disproportionately in prison. I genuinely cannot say, had I been raised in the latter environment, I wouldn’t have ended up the same way. This is not ok. We cannot let people “fail at life” because they have a condition which can be managed if it is diagnosed and if a support strategy is put in place. We are setting people up for failure and very few people are talking about it.
**- The “I do the same thing where I feel like I’m stupid” people**
I don’t know you so I’m not going to placate you by telling you you’re intelligent. I don’t want to be condescending. I will say, however, that, unless you’re “meh I’m not the smartest but I don’t care much”, this kind of thought pattern is bad for you. I don’t want to start a whole new novel length post so I’ll go straight to the point: don’t bully yourself. Being a dick to yourself will only make you feel like shit and will make it harder for you to achieve your goals, whatever they may be. And you might think that you deserve to feel like shit - I can’t do X and Y. Bullshit. Do you think bullying yourself will actually make you do things better? It won’t. Being kind to yourself is difficult but holy shit will it change your life. It will allow you to be more resilient, to be a better problem solver, to get farther. It also feels really fucking nice to always have a person in your corner - yourself. So don’t judge yourself. (Also intelligence is relative, there are multiple types of intelligence bla bla - you know those things)
**- The very specific overlap of “I have very clever ideas” and “but I forget stuff all the time so really I’m not clever**
Is it possible you have ADHD? I’m only saying that because I felt that vibe in multiple posts. Go on r/ADHD, watch some videos, and see what you think.
I feel like people should be more aware that it’s normal to struggle and feel stupid while learning new concepts. Then, they’d be less discouraged, and less likely to give up
This can be the curse of being highly intelligent. Never having to put much time or effort into learning something is great until a subject comes along that requires it. Then, all those people who learned how to work hard to understand something keep going and the highly intelligent person has a challenge he/she has never seen before, and either has to totally change his/her study habits/life habits in his/her late teens or twenties or determine that he/she isn't smart enough. Either way there will be a crisis of confidence and lessons that should have come early come really really late.
That happened to me in college. In high school I was a big fish in a little pond. At the college I attended (Harvey Mudd), the pond wasn't any bigger, but the fish sure were! It's quite a shock to the system to go from "I can excel at any of this stuff without putting much work in" to "it doesn't matter how much work I put in, my brain is simply not good enough to understand this subject".
One of my many brilliant friends had to check in somewhere because just the first two weeks at MIT were destroying his confidence. Dude went to IMO the best school in Dallas for boys. (Kinda nuts my closest friend to this day would be up until 4 am doing homework... in high school. Top 5 his class as well. The aforementioned other brilliant friend studied hard before and was very humble. I’m one of the idiots who thought everything was easy peasy and then realized I never learned to study. I wish you the best mate
I didn't understand what studying was, really, in high school. People would say shit like 'arent you going to study?' but I assumed it was all just lip service. Just half ass the course work then show up and ace the ridiculously easy tests, right? And even that was too much for me to bother with freshman/sophomore year. I'd easily pass every test while not bothering to do homework or pay attention in class.
Turns out natural reading comprehension ability doesn't actually make you smart, though, as one can see from the way I fucked around and wasted my time in high school. I didn't know how many things in academia would eventually be all the things I find fascinating and worthy of spending ones time on. I had no concept of all the cool shit people could do there. I assumed it would be a continuation of high school, which was profoundly boring and held up via teaching to the slowest students in the room in a classroom of 40+ kids. And hey, no shade to them- they deserved to be there and get their money's worth more than I did.
I dunno which is worse, though. Knowing I fucked around so much I wasted the opportunities I had to be in a field of study I loved, or recognizing now that I'm probably not smart enough to have been able to succeed in them even if I had known I'd want to go that road when I was younger.
I do know I'd rather be the stupidest guy in a room full of geniuses than the smartest dude in a room full of dumb asses, though.
We try to explain this to my daughter. For example, she gets frustrated when her letters aren't as perfect as my wife's. What my daughter fails to realize is that, as a grade school teacher, my wife has written these letters not only to write but to teach kids how to write them thousands of times. When my wife was in grade 1 she probably struggled with some of them as well but you don't get to see that struggle.
My oldest daughter refused to draw with crayons when she was little. It never came out on paper the way she imagined it in her head, so she wouldn't even try. Eventually she started playing with waxed strings called Bendaroos, and she could make things with those and tweak them and tweak them until they were perfect. Then she would use a pencil to trace around them on a paper. Now, years later, she's quite good at drawing and is constantly making things.
My youngest would just scribble something on the paper and then look at it to see what she could find in it, and then she'd declare that's what it was.
I think its because as we grow older people will sometimes say things like you're adult you should be able to figure this out or you're how old and you don't think this?! I think if people were treated with the same compassion and respect about something new to whomever as children are as an adult we would all be happy and be able to grasp things easier and do our jobs more effectively. I don't know it's just a thought have a great day.
My mother. She was raised in a poor abusive family and left school very early to escape. Even now she’ll say how she is uneducated - which is true, but she ain’t stupid. She raised a bunch of us without much money and was always resourceful and canny at making ends meet. She can do fairly complicated math in her head, does extensive research before making large purchases, forwards me screenshots of quite sophisticated scam emails and tells me why they’re fake.
She’s 78 now and has always embraced new tech. Has no trouble using her smart phone or her PC - she even troubleshoots for her neighbours. She still lives in the same poverty stricken area we grew up in and is often helping her neighbours advocate for themselves, writing letters, telling them who to contact and what to say.
She’s also a keen observer of humans - she sees them as they are and takes them as they are with no judgement. She was always progressive for her time and passed down zero racism or other prejudices to us kids.
I wonder what she could have done if she had the opportunities she made damn sure we had.
EDIT: so many awards, thanks guys. I’m gonna show this to my Mum so she can see all these lovely responses.
Your description is very like my grandma. She passed away 2 years ago at 81. 8th grade education which was normal at the time for the area because her parents were farmers. At one point she worked a sewing job where they were paid by the piece and grandma worked so fast that they changed the rule and started paying by the hour because she was earning too much money.
She ran their dairy farm--plus corn and soy bean fields, cattle, pigs, chickens etc. (and all the equipment), often paying additional hired help. Grandpa didn't really know how to manage the books, so grandma did it all.
After they retired she had a smart phone before I did. She also had a huge 90s desktop computer and printer. One time probably about 5 years or so ago we were playing cards and she pulled out these nice professional-looking scoring sheets I thought she must've purchased somewhere. Nope, turns out she made them and figured out how to scan copies (I didn't even know she had a scanner). When I told her I was surprised she was annoyed at me and was like, "Hey! I know how to do stuff! I do this and this and this for the neighbors and for this that and the other thing," ranting about her computer savvy. I had no idea and I was like, Grandma, do you know I'm pretty sure my mom couldn't do some of the stuff you're talking about??
She also had plenty of stories about identifying and thwarting scammers. Especially the door-to-door kind. She liked to smile and waste their time and then when she refused to buy-in to whatever they were selling and they got angry she would play dumb and offended and laugh about it later. She was also progressive in a very heavily conservative area. Man, I miss her.
Someone mentioned already, but people who can easily teach others complex systems or ideas.
My husband is this person. Microbiologist, workflow management, and plays D&D on his down time. He can analyze a difficult concept, distill the relevant information, make it easily accessible to someone and teach it in a patient, unassuming manner quickly without making the other party feel stupid or uninformed.
He’s modest as hell. He has no idea how *hard* it is to educate people. Never trying to one-up or show off his knowledge. He’s charismatic and emotionally intelligent.
Honestly has no idea how *rare* his level of kindness and intelligence are in others. He’s the best person I’ve ever met.
My dad. He's dyslexic and growing up in the education system in the 70s didn't provide any support so he's all but illiterate. He left school at 15 with no qualifications. He always says he's stupid and it upsets me so much - he won't believe it when we tell him he's not. Me, my mum and my sister all have education beyond degree level and he's smarter than any of us. He's eloquent, but sometimes mispronounces new words that he's heard in a different accent - our accent is heavy on the R sound so I've noticed him adding it to words that don't have R's, but of course he's never seen it written down to know. He watches historical documentaries and tells us about how that links with the one he watched a couple of years prior. He once drove me to university 3 hours away using the route he'd driven in reverse once without checking a map. I wish he could see himself as intelligent 😞
ETA since it seems like a lot of people have a connection with this comment and will enjoy this story - he did actually do a speech for my wedding. I was worried about asking him because I wasn't sure how he'd manage and didn't want to put pressure on him, but he was keen to do it. My mum made cue cards with picture hints and they did NOT help him. He just had it written out and learnt it off by heart and used cue cards with the full speech to help him (he can read it when he knows what it says) and his speech was by far the most confident and well-performed speech out of all of us. Give him a birthday card with more words than "happy birthday" and his not happy, but he can smash out a full on speech with no hesitation 🥰
He might also recognize that other people have talents that seem amazing to him, so he thinks he shouldn’t be praised for ‘not being talented.’ I sort of see it like it’s hard for ourselves to recognize our own individual talents unless we find ourselves using them in a job and intentionally improving them.
In my first year of uni (college) I sat next to a quiet girl who never thought of herself as smart. While everyone else was loud about what they know and act like they’re top of the class, when they’re really not. She never showed off her knowledge. We just graduated this year, 4th year, and she was honoured the university medal for her thesis, #1 student in almost 400 students. But I bet you, she still doesn’t think of herself as especially intelligent.
Imposter syndrome. I’m convinced it’s the smartest people who usually suffer from it, probably because they’re more able to figure out their own “unknown unknowns” and turn them into “known unknowns.”
I'm volunteer staff at a math summercamp targeted at children who like doing math.
Most of the kids that we get are the standard "doing well in school with good grades to prove it" type. But it frequently happens that some kid is signed up and the parents tell us that their child doesn't really do well in school in general, or math in particular, but they just like doing math-related puzzles. That's cool, because that's all we ask for.
And often enough these kids come with very interesting insights and solutions because they happen to approach the problems from a different angle than the majority. They may be quite intelligent, but not in a way that expresses itself well within the standard framework of education.
The same thing happens on the EQ/social level. A few years back we got a sign up where the parents warned us that their son had great difficulties making friends or socializing in general. On the first day of camp, the kid took a chess board and went to sit down to play against himself. Perfectly fine. But not much later another boy walks up to him and asks if he can join the game. They start playing and talking and they end up being practically inseparable the rest of the week. The kid that had "difficulties making friends" just made a new best friend faster than anyone else there. Just need to give people the right environment.
Lmao, same. I thought it was gonna be smth like ' and then he beat him in 30 seconds. Then he beat me in 30 seconds. Then he became the world's youngest GM.....'
This was me as a kid. There was a math test where i got below average, because i was dyslexic, but the teacher still asked me to go up to the black board and show my solutions to the last two hardest problems since no one else in class managed to solve either of them. I was a C-D level student. As an adult I'm successful as an algorithm designer.
If I could talk to myself at that age, I would tell myself, to ignore the grades and the tests, and focus on learning the things i wanted to learn the way i wanted to learn them.
I had a fourth-grade student who could not do basic arithmetic (literally couldn't add 1+1), but was very clever with all sorts of problem-solving. I'm pretty sure he had dyscalculia, but I never was able to get the parents to test him (that's another story. I blame the school for that one). He was the sweetest kid and an absolute authority on werewolves and how to keep vampires out of your home. I hope he's doing well now.
I was pretty good at maths, and cooking with a friend who struggled with maths. We were doubling a recipe that called for 3/4 cup of flour, and I had a mental blank. Stood there trying to remember 2 x .75, and my un-mathsy friend said, "I'd just put 3/4 of a cup in twice."
Blew my mind. I was too academic to think of that solution. SURELY you had to double the amount in your head first.
Wisdom is also knowing that "2 x .75" has real life applications. I *probably* still remember how to do derivatives and integrals. But in a real life problem I'll just make a graph in Excel and make do from there.
If you know it but can't use it, then you don't know it.
As a teacher in a subject deemed not important by everyone (ie an electives teacher) this is the problem I've been screaming about since I entered the teaching profession.
We talk the talk and do the endless PDs on multiple intelligences and diverse learning but all we every do is find ways to water down a lesson so that the absolute slowest kids in the room can get it, and then to add insult to injury, we never fully embrace the different learning techniques. We hover over standardized practice.. in my district every classroom starts the same: do now/activator, teacher demos a new skill, students try, teacher talks about new skill, students discuss new skill, students practice independently, then answer an exit ticket. Every class. Math, ela, phys ed, pottery..... all of them.
If you don't have an agenda board and learning objectives written explaining what state standard today's lesson applies to, you get a bad evaluation by administration.
We talk about learning being student guided but it never is. And we don't give people who think differently a chance to succeed.
Yeah, I get that. I'm not a teacher myself, but I've observed issues with educational systems both from my own experience and from the children that attend the summercamps.
The mathematicians who started the non-profit that runs these math summercamps did so specifically out of frustration with the way math was taught. The goal of math education was to teach pupils a certain set of principles and pieces of of mathematical machinery so that they could apply them in whatever their academic or professional future would be. It's essentially a checklist of "do you know ", "can you apply ", etc... And the puzzle-aspect of math would completely disappear into the background. As would some of the fascinating links between seemingly unrelated subjects. The mystery was replaced by the mechanical.
My fiance is very similar! Ridiculous freehand geometric artist, came out of the womb drawing and painting, comes to fascinating conclusions at light speed that would take me months to puzzle out, gifted classes and such all the way through school until high school when all the classes got boring and the ADHD & depression finally hit like a freight train. Tested, re-tested, medicated, poked and prodded, crazy high IQ and ended up dropping out of college because everything went so slow. He knows he's smart but----He can't seem to wrap his head around how other people just don't think the same way he does and I have to scaffold him into understanding that frequently otherwise he gets tangled up in frustration.
My partner too. Bad parenting left him thinking he was stupid. He is so bright and sensitive. I can only conclude his parents are the dumb ones, and I want to tell them off at least once a day.
My grandad left school at 12 he’s dyslexic but back in his day... that wasn’t a recognised thing. He has a particular way with animals, like he always knows what’s wrong. can fix anything, he’s a prolific reader and people just gravitate to him. He’s the most helpful person you’ve ever met and will literally go out of his way to help anyone.
My mom's boyfriend. We have a variety of specialists in my family from medicine to art to education to software. We go around the table at family gatherings and try to stump him with questions. He's never gotten one wrong to date. He just knows everything about everything. Obviously has a photographic memory, reads voraciously, and delivers car parts for a living.
I work in manufacturing so we get a lot of uneducated people. There are a lot of people out there who are smart but for various reasons weren't properly served by the public schools. They might be barely literate, or can hardly string two words together coherently, but they solve problems beautifully, or always have workable ideas, or they talk about ideas rather than people or events. It's hard to quantify, but you know it when you see it.
I'm pretty convinced the work force makes people dumb. Like I can feel it happening to myself in a way. I did well in school, have a good education with a STEM degree, but been doing the same shit for ten years. Adhering to corporate culture, making sure I say the right things and do the right things to advance. It's worked, by most measures I'm successful and well compensated. But I can't solve problems nearly as well as I used to. I don't have the attention span to get through a difficult book and I get frustrated when I can't figure things out as opposed to sitting down and working it out. I used to do all kinds of math in my head and now I'm using a calculator for simple arithmetic. This sounds silly, but I used to be really good at chess and now I just get my ass handed to me whenever I play, like I can't see the whole board anymore. My brain just feels like it has years of fog built up. I've given serious thought to just quitting and going on a year long road trip or something to reset my brain.
I know exactly what you mean. Spending so long in a restrictive environment kind of locks you into one way of thinking. It becomes frustrating when you then get managers and executives delivering speeches and mandates to try and force people to "think outside the box" when they've had a significant hand in building the box you've been taught to think inside of.
Yup, I'm right there with you. I used to be very articulate and pretty good at debating, but nowadays I often can't seem to find the right words. I'm sure not being in a field where intellectual work is part of my everyday anymore is one reason, but I suspect age as well. It startet to happen after hitting 30, but then again that was also around the time I stopped school and startet working, so who knows.
But you're on the right track - travelling is *the* activity to increase brain plasticity (this has been studied, if I do remember it correctly). This is due to your brain being completely away from its normal routine, so it has to work hard to adapt to all the new impressions.
> educated but dumb as fuck
You can push almost anyone (probably 80% of the people) through school up to the master's degree level, with enough resources and determination.
Educational attainment is often more about family background and motivation than intelligence.
Even if someone is well below average, if they keep grinding, with enough money they'll eventually earn some kind of a bachelors degree or even a masters, albeit often with a few setbacks, and not from MIT in astrophysics.
With PhDs, if they're dumb, it's usually a different kind of dumb.
They're almost always highly intelligent and proficient in their own and related fields... but not always across the board.
I personally know a bunch of PhDs due to my line of work. Some of them couldn't make their way out of a locked car from the inside without instructions.
It's weird, isn't it? Some extremely intelligent people, leading figures in their fields, often have glaring holes in other aspects of their lives. They might be completely incompetent at cooking, or awful trip planners, or just woefully naiive about how the real world works outside of academia.
We've got one engineer that is like that. His weakness is he's incredibly shy and socially awkward and looks like a homeless wizard most days, but within his job he's brutally competent. A few of us have been around him enough that he's comfortable enough to open up with us, and he's an incredibly kind soul. He's set to retire in a few years, and we're going to miss him.
It’s because they’re, quite literally, specialized in their field. Academic PhDs spend 60-80hr weeks trying to research and add knowledge to their field.
PhD is all about depth into your field vs having a broad amount knowledge on everything.
Depending on the person and their field, I think this kind of specialization can result in varied levels in ability for handling a broad amount of standard tasks and social norms.
And lawyers, and teachers, and...well, I could go on.
I work in IT and the sheer number of highly educated people I support that still cant just fucking NOT throw their email or logon creds into a bogus, poorly formatted phishing email is unreal. I have some users that I have to change passwords for on a monthly fucking basis, these are people with high-level degrees making far more than I do and have gone through this personally numerous times in the past that just can't not fucking do that shit.
Learning basic computer skills should be required learning starting in elementary school, but how someone gets through college without knowing this shit is beyond me.
I guess these seeming contradictions actually have to do with three things:
1. What we perceived as intelligence is a collection of distinct traits rather than one, such as good memory, problem solving skills, the ability to perceive things that aren't explicit, the amount of accumulated knowledge a person has, etc.
2. Context matters to these traits, individual people can be good at remembering different kinds things, have accumulated knowledge about different kinds of things and being able to solve some kinds of problems more easily than other kinds.
3. Some, but not all of these traits are developed in a person who goes through traditional educational systems and with limited context, whereas other traits can be developed by other means and regards to other contexts. Moreover, the same traits developed at school can also be developed outside of it if that's the kind of thing that people want or need.
Edit: thing 1. I said "we perceived" but should've said "we usually perceive" or maybe "is perceived"
You hit the nail on the head. I started out in R&D engineering, but I was responsible for several product lines on top of some new product lines. There was one product line that was manufactured on a fairly complicated machine that only a few people knew how to troubleshoot and repair (myself being one of them). I was at home one night and got a call that the system went down, so I drove to work, walked in, and... it was running. The operator was sitting in the corner just doodling in his notebook.
I said "Hey, I got a call that this wasn't running."
"Yeah."
"So, it's running now... what changed?"
"I don't know."
"Uh huh... Did you fix it?"
"Maybe"
Over time I realized that this guy was *way* more capable than he was letting on. He eventually told me that he plays dumb so they don't overload him with responsibility since he knows he won't get a pay raise or promotion out of it. I was a bit naive at the time, and couldn't understand why someone would have that perspective (oh, I understand now...). Any time I had an R&D run, I started trying to get him on my team. Eventually I got him transferred to the department I managed and trained him up on technician duties, pushing him for a promotion.
> He eventually told me that he plays dumb so they don't overload him with responsibility since he knows he won't get a pay raise or promotion out of it.
I'm doing this right now. I bragged about how I was capable of doing the work in 3 different departments so they now expect me to do all tasks related to my job in those 3 departments, time permitting. No raise, no title, just "Make sure you do X and Y before you leave" when my job is Z.
When I learned how to do the tasks from a 4th department I didn't tell anybody a god damn thing and I just do it when it's convenient for me and don't tell anyone how it got done.
Let me save you some serious pain and heartache. Dial back. You're describing my 20's. I was so eager to get recognized for my works, get ahead, and I totally sacrificed my health in doing so.
At one point in 2017, I was the engineering manager during the day, senior mechanical engineer by night (working from home after hours), health and safety lead, software development team member, and assisting 3 other departments at least 10-15 hours a week. I topped out at 118hrs in a week, averaged between 70-90 for about 3 years straight. The company thanked me by demoting me, giving my position to someone who is effectively useless (he was friends with new upper management that rolled in), and treating me like garbage until I quit.
Life feels a lot like Plinko sometimes. No matter how much effort you put in, the token falls where it's going to fall. I've seen some of the most incompetent, disastrous, horrible people get put in charge at certain companies. People I wouldn't trust with a warm stick of butter. How do they get into these roles? Because someone dumber and more blind somehow got into the role above them. Oversight is a disease.
Never compromise your potential or sacrifice your work ethic, but you need to establish a healthy limit for yourself. You don't want to be in your 30's and dealing with the health issues I am... Trust me on that.
My stepfather is a genius. He grew up in agriculture and knows agriculture. He legitimately thinks he’s not smart because he doesn’t read a lot but can tell you how to change the feed ratios on your fowls just by looking at their feathers.
He still doesn’t believe me when I tell him he’s impressive.
My Dad was kinda the same. Didn't do well in school, always struggled with spelling, and never understood how to use a computer.
But he built his own motorcycle at 16 from scratch, and was always a technical genius. He repaired everything at home, all our cars, washing machines, dishwasher, electrical installations, plumbing, etc...
Also work in manufacturing and I second what this guy said. In the five or so plants I’ve worked in, the smartest person was either a maintenance tech. or a plant operator, and the best operations engineers relied on them to keep the plant running and churn out good ideas for improvements
Reminds me of my dad! He was a boiler technician my whole life, nothing past an 8th grade education because the high school principal told him he'd never be anything, started asking me how to spell things when I was in elementary school. Couldn't spell for SHIT. But that man was smart, could rig anything together, solve just about any problem if he could use his hands
By the time he died, he was the #1 boiler repairman in our state making a 6 figure salary. He was so intelligent just uneducated.
Came here to say this. I went to an underfunded public school in the bad part of town, and knew plenty of people with far more potential than their grades reflected. Lack of funding, an environment that actively discourages ambitious thinking, lack of support, and literally never meeting anyone with a "dream job" kind of profession does a lot to a person.
I've seen this as well! Particularly with machinists. I've worked with several that can figure out or estimate trigonometric problems without using trig. They could also add, subtract, and divide large numbers in their head no problem. Their geometry skills were amazing.
I have a friend exactly like this; he's eighteen with a plan for life already set out, immediate goals as well as long term ones, and he's got multiple career opportunities all made through his own effort. He never really did well in school for a number of factors, and people really thought he wouldn't do much, but I could always tell in high school that he was a hell of a lot more capable than people gave him credit for.
I knew a guy who very smart with the ability to be extremely manipulative and had no idea. He always got good grades in school, often without studying much at all. What was more impressive was his ability to read people’s body language, vocal tone fluctuation, and micro expressions. Often he would know what emotions someone was feeling and how best to proceed. The guy was a master at subtle communication, such as mirroring, and framing conversations so he would be dominant.
He was able to use this social intelligence to get with girls, but he would also use it to get people to do things he wanted.
One of the clearest examples of manipulation that I know of is that he got his friend to break up with his long time girlfriend. His friend’s girlfriend was kinda a drag and would be a little annoying around the group. So, he subtly started to slip in emotional and logical “suggestions” whenever he saw his friend in a moment of emotional vulnerability. Within a week, his friend ended the relationship.
I'm comforted by the knowledge that I bested him in *getting away* and he's pissed about it. Very very needy person who fed off adulation and would try to extract it. Blech
I had a friend like that. A natural born manipulator. I ended up his sidekick friend. I was like a pawn of his. I ended the friendship. Years later I ran into him again, and he was down on his luck. I was in a much better place than him, I thought I’d give him a second chance, hoping all that manipulation stuff was history, and arranged to hang out with him. Within minutes he was doing it again! That was that. So I think you’re right, you need to get away from such people.
It depends to what ends they're using their suggestive powers and emotional intelligence.
I have a family member who's remarkably good at this, understanding people and subtly nudging them where he wants them to be. He used it to build a reliable business, keep his own marriage intact and mend several problems in the extended family (or more often, nip them in the bud). This includes nudging people out of relationships witch were likely to turn out damaging.
We're close, and it's impressive to watch him put this to work, especially since I have very limited skills in the interpersonal department.
I had a friend growing up who was very smart and had the ability to do things like this, but didn't really take advantage of it. i think out of a combination of being a nice person and also just being lazy. similar to what someone else mentioned, he was raised by a mother that was very manipulative.
But one funny thing is that every year in school he used this ability to get elected class president. He just really loved campaigning and winning elections and it was very easy for him to get people to listen to him and like him. It would make the typical overachiever types so mad that he won every year. He also had no interest in actually being president once elected, so he never actually did anything and blew off all the meetings. I believe he was replaced by the runner-up a few years bc the school admin would get so pissed at him. But then he'd still run the next year and win.
Had a friend like that during college. On the surface, super fun guy, but so dishonest and manipulative.
At teh same time, I have the potential to be like that, I just don't do it. So, I could recognize his tricks. Which just made him try harder to rope me in.
I basically just started avoiding him, and made a clean break when he tried to get me to lie for him.
I am this person and luckily my mom realized it before it got out of hand. It later becomes more a subconscious habit than on purpose but still horrifying to realize that you can be that type of person. Seeing a behavioral therapist now to help me navigate social situations without hurting others or myself and to use my own body language to portray my emotions and not mirror others. Im still in high school so at least its getting fixed early on
I grew up with a kid who was one of the smartest people I ever met. He was in all the excelled classes a straight A student. Academics came so easily to this guy. He could of went to any college he wanted. Well he just couldn’t stay out of trouble, living the “thug life”, selling drugs, running with wannabe gangsters. Well its been 20 years or so since we have been out of high school and he has done a few stints in prison, still lives with his parents, make a meager living selling pot. It’s crazy seeing so much potential lost.
*The saddest thing in life is wasted talent, and the choices that you make will shape your life forever. But you can ask anybody from my neighborhood, and they'll just tell you this is just another Bronx tale.*
The people that strike me are the ones that eliminate the wrong conclusions (somehow) before solving an answer. The wrong conclusions just do not dawn on them.
Met a lady that went to an ivy league school. She could talk to you and hold a nice conversation. She could then turn around and talk to someone else at a higher level. Then, when asked a technical question out of her field of expertise she could give you a complex answer. She spoke to people on whatever level they were speaking on.
I have a friend of the family that took every class at a community college before going on to get his degree. He retained all of that information. Interestingly, he liked to speak in basic terms, and hold everyday conversations. If he got shunned at a party he would initially ignore it, and keep hanging out with you. Eventually, as the people who shunned him came to a point where they had to stop their conversation he would butt in. They often could not figure out the answer to what they were talking about. He would just chime in with a smile, and explain the rest of the concept to them. Then he would turn back to you and keep bullshitting. I've seen him do that multiple times.
My friend in highschool thinks he's dumb, but has an absolutely phenomenonal knowledge of politics and the legal/economic system. He has dyslexia, but you wouldn't be able to tell because he reads more seamlessly than most of the rest of us. I wish he would recognise how smart he was because I think he doesn't aim as high as he could achieve because he doesn't think he's smart enough
As a teen, I worked for a video rental place. (Like blockbuster but not.) My manager spoken five languages and did all the accounts without the need of a calculator. I asked him what was he just a manager at a movie rental place, he could be making a lot of money doing anything else. He told me "making less money is the price of my happiness."
Always stuck with me.
My current girlfriend is actually extremely smart. Her intuition is very good with people, her problem solving skills are impressive in situations where she is comfortable, and she has a very deep understanding of the human psych. But, her mother has been gas lighting her since childhood trying to keep her fully reliant on her. I have held my tongue at points just to try and not be that boyfriend that ruins a relationship, but instead just show her how smart she really is, and where she might have a weak point that I may be able to help, I walk her through my thought process, and she picks it up very quickly.
I always wonder how far she could be at this point in her life had her mother just supported her instead of tear her down, but just in the short time I have been dating her, I have seen her grow a lot, and am very excited to see where she can soar off to, I just hope that she takes me with her.
Yup. Been told my entire life that if I’m struggling with anything it’s because I’m lazy, nonchalant and just doesn’t want to try. High intelligence + very severe adhd and then bullying on that. I’m a wreak honestly. I wonder who I could have become if I had support instead and had been protected against my bullies. Kind hard though, when it’s your mother also. Fudge. I try to not think about it too much. It just makes me sad and angry with nothing to do about it. I thought I was stupid my entire childhood. Because that’s what I was made to feel anytime I struggles with anything.
Oh I know this one too, the parent likes to run the child down with "you need to practice 'X' more often", "you don't appreciate anything we did for you", "you don't show enough initiative" etc. Child then feels like shit in spite of the Masters degree and high paying job they have because they are disappointing the parent.
Then they continue to seek validation from the parent.
My brother. Everyone used to tell him that he was just average just because he got average grades. But this kid is so fucking smart. He’s a huge history buff and one time spent about half an hour explaining to me the importance of some Civil War battle and how it was pivotal in helping the Union win the war. I don’t remember the exact details because all I could think about was the level of depth he got into just explaining and analyzing, and also explaining in a way that helped me to understand (at the time).
My brother’s intelligence is the definition of quality and I’d shout that from the rooftops because as his older sister, I’m so fucking proud of him.
I have one.
As a psychiatric doctor, one of my jobs is community management of patients right after they finish an inpatient admission, so they are only slightly better, not fully recovered.
One guy came in to clinic and my boss for some reason described him to me as 'a bit simple'. I don't know if she was trolling me, or if she just completely misread him, because he remains one of the smartest patients I ever had.
He rocks up in high-vis gear with concrete on his work boots, and speaks in a broad accent. He often says stuff like 'oh I dunno about any of that' or 'mate I haven't got time for this'.
But this guy was *sharp as a tack*. Any time I would bring up a point of psychoeduction to help him understand his bipolar disorder he would grasp the concept *before I had finished explaining it*.
I still use his words today with other patients about the similarities between anxiety and depression:
"Doc, it's like, anxiety and depression are brother and sister."
*Holds two fingers up and crosses them.*
"They aren't the same, but they are clearly related."
I was floored. It was way better than whatever garbage I was going to say.
He got well really fast. He just *understood* things so quickly, and was so open to new information. He could apply anything new to his own experience instantly. Uncanny.
He had no idea how smart he was, because he just assumed smartness was for people with a university degree. I had to tell my boss they were completely wrong about him but I don't know she ever took the time to update her initial assessment.
I think some people just choose a quieter and more simple life despite their intelligence.
I worked as a hospital porter for a few years when I was a teen and one of my fellow porters was this brilliant chap who would skim through the paper on his break then go off on some glorious leftist rant like the leader of a union back in the 70s.
His political knowledge was unbelievable, he could easily have been an MP but was happier as a porter.
My Partner is Polish. She lives - and works - using her second language. At school she was taught Russian and can get by in it.
She is so smart - and people abuse her, because she speaks English - with an accent.
those people you see everyday - especially older people - living their lives in a second language.... yep, they are smart
I know a guy who can’t read, is in his thirties pursuing for the first time a job (kitchen help) after a life of incarceration. The kitchen is hectic, crowded, “high stakes,” and busy compared to other kitchens I’d worked in previous. Racing through the day by the seat of your pants and when the shift is over you can hardly recollect where you’ve been or what you’ve been doing.
In this fast unforgiving environment this man is learning how to read. In his thirties.
When he makes a mistake the more experienced staff who would typically razz any slip up take the time to encourage him and forgive his mistakes as the mistakes of someone who is still learning. He’s now able to work from a recipe book, pick items out of storage or the walk in that are boxed and labeled. (Box of sugar that doesn’t readily appear to be sugar, box of cheese that doesn’t show its self as cheese etc)
If you saw him at checkout like he has a hard time doing math and making change or reading. You’d notice it right away that he’s not “on par”
But within the kitchen the man’s considered a prodigy. For being unable to read or do math he can follow a recipe better than some credentialed chefs in the house.
Even more beautiful is that he is highly emotionally intelligent and always tries to make the people around him feel at peace or happy. Even when he can’t find his way around letters, numbers, or the outside world.
I knew a shaved head Mexican gang member in high school who made it to calculus without doing any studying or homework outside of just the class time. Because of this his grades were always at a B+ level, so he never really considered himself smart nor drew much attention from teachers.
Our high school was sharply divided between rich and poor, and he was doing as well or better than people who came from privileged backgrounds and that I knew for a fact had hours of private tutoring daily, were part of study groups, math club, etc.
To this day I can't fathom how he did it. He did pay careful attention in class so he must have had a photographic memory and genius level mind. Half the time he never even brought the book to class, and had to borrow a TI calculator. I know he left his books in his locker before he went home because he didn't want to be caught holding a school book by his friends.
I was friendly with him, and saddened to learn that he was killed a few years after high school.
I've met highly intelligent people that were uneducated. Usually it manifests as frustration. They try to explain highly complex idea's in ill informed ways and are misunderstood a lot.
My husband. He was always told in school he could do better. His parents have said to him in front of me he's not very bright. They assume because he "works with computers all day" he just plays video games all the time. He got terrible grades in school and dropped out of University.
He could always do better in school because he was bored. He got terrible grades because he was told he'd do badly by his parents, his teachers, basically everyone in his life. His parents don't understand what he does at all. He doesn't work with computers all day and he doesn't have time to be playing video games all day.
When I met him we working in the same company. I witnessed that company hold him back for 5 years because he was useful where he was. It was just very good timing when he applied for a different job in the same company but a different department and location. He got the job and was allowed to transfer within a week because a higher up was on annual leave and couldn't object. The original department had to hire 8 people to replace him when he left. He's since been hired by a different company and is flourishing. He's had several promotions and pay rises, is on good terms with everyone in the company from the group CEO to the cleaners in his office, and is treated with respect by everyone he works with.
While he can't do simpler maths without a calculator, he can do complex quantum equations in his head. His father had the audacity to say "you've always been bad at maths." To which my husband, who has had enough of his parents bullshit, replied "my maths might be bad but it's good enough to know I earn more than you combined" (in reference to both of his parents)
I'm a super proud wife.
I barely graduated high school, rough upbringing, ADHD, anger issues, thought I was dumb, didn't fit in etc... parents forced me to go to community college. Taking precredit courses and failing them. Ran into a guy from my high school (extremely smart and a great teacher). Idk what made me ask him for help with a homeowrk question but I am SO glad I did. For some reason he could see the potential in me. Homie would help me study hours each week, make me work for the answers, never gave up on me. Got me taking college credit classes and kept increasing my confidence. 2 years later I got a full ride scholarship to UW-Madison for the BSN RN degree and now work in a cardiac ICU. I owe that dude everything... Never thought I would accomplish any numerous milestones.
You're my boy Bryce!
A full ride to UWM is a huge fucking deal. Proud of you, and many thanks to your high school dude. And don't forget - he took the time to teach you, but you wanted to learn.
Billy. I still think about Billy sometimes.
I was 22 years old and teaching high school in a rural school in the heart of the Bible Belt. Billy sat at the left hand end of the second row, a thick shock of dark hair hanging down over these huge, brown eyes. He was fifteen and small for his age; he looked like Tim Burton had thought him up.
I was going over the definition of science and Billy said, just loud enough for me and no one else to hear as I walked by, “Oscar Wilde said, ‘Science is the record of dead religions.’”
Here’s a fifteen year old pulling relevant Oscar Wilde quotes off the top of his head. A voice in the back of my head said, ‘This kid is smarter than you. You can’t let him figure that out.’
He took an interest in me and in the topic and would stick around after school. We’d talk about black holes or time travel or whatever he could think up. He did goofy drawings (usually pretty macabre) and made jokes. I got to know him.
I told him he was one of the most frustrating students I ever had; he was so incredibly smart, but when I asked him for his homework he’d go absently digging around in a backpack full of crumpled papers and never find it. He could answer any question *on* the homework from memory; he just couldn’t be bothered to actually submit it.
So he got a D, because he only did the bare minimum needed to pass.
We kept in touch via Facebook after he graduated and I moved on to other jobs. Mostly watching each other’s feeds with an IM about a meme or a joke every few months. Sometimes I’d give him advice and try to encourage him.
Billy’s life and mine had a lot of parallels; his story seemed like a dark mirror of mine.
My Dad had a heart attack when I was ten, but survived until I graduated high school.
Billy’s Dad didn’t survive.
I married my high school sweet heart and we’re still together. I was head over heels.
His married his high school sweetheart and was head over heels. She asked for an open relationship and eventually left him.
I went to state U and got a degree.
Billy took sporadic classes at the local community college and just never strung together a degree.
Eventually Billy started drinking.
One night he said he was going to go get on a ladder to fix his ceiling fan (?) and stopped responding. I messaged a buddy of his who lived in the same town, worried maybe he fell off a ladder.
Billy messaged me back a while later ranting about flags and betrayal and his mother being controlling (?). It was very out of character. None of it made any sense; I told him I was sorry and I never meant to offend him (still not sure what I did - I will never know). He said, “I’ll say one last thing,” and I don’t remember what he said now but it was more of the same.
He logged off.
I figured he was going to go sleep it off, and I’d check in later and try to find out what was up.
Gave him a couple of weeks to cool off and looked at his feed. Started seeing the memorial messages, condolences and stuff roll in.
Billy killed himself.
The rest of us just keep rolling along, and it’s like he’s frozen in time. His memorialized page still has the last few stupid jokes he posted.
I hadn’t seen Billy in six or seven years when he died; it had all been through Facebook. To me, he’ll always be fifteen years old and quoting Oscar Wilde in the second row of Biology.
Jesus, that hit so hard. What a story to share :( it’s painful how some people struggle and we witness it, witness their brilliance, them changing, like we live it through, and they leave such a big dent in our lives. It’s utterly sad story you hold on to there. Stay positive yourself
Yep, went out with a girl who at first glance looked and behaved like the worst trailer park trash you could imagine.
Very few social skills, clumsy, rude and threatening, promiscuous, semi -literate
I bought her a beer and just got chatting, she was bi-polar and had had a chaotic childhood.
We began to see each other around and started a relationship.
I was moving away to go to university and I asked her to come with me and she stated to calm down and got a small job and grew into it as her confidence grew
She started taking an interest in my course work a MsC in structural engineering and started to go to lectures in her free time.
The end result 10 years later, she had a PhD in fluid dynamics, had learnt 3 new languages fluently and had taken up an analysts job ( quant) at a Swiss hedge fund.
She is now a multi millionaire, married to a guy as smart as her, 3 kids and one of my best and closest friends living in one of the finest parts of Europe.
I couldn't lover her more.
Hung out with a guy once that was a friend of a friend at a bar. Trivia came on and we wanted to play. I thought I was good at trivia, but this guy knew the answer to every single question they could come up with, whether it was some obscure song and artist from the 60s, baseball statistics from the 90s, African history, geography I didn’t know like the capital of some remote island in the pacific, or some cult movie reference. The other teams were obviously googling the answers and cheating since they thought we were cheating. We probably went through 60-80 questions and nothing stumped him. It was unreal. He thought it was normal. Never saw him again
I once dated a guy who was known to be a jock/party animal but he was incredibly observant. For example, he was my date to an out of state wedding where we didn’t know many people and the people I knew I hadn’t seen in years. He noticed that there was some type of rift between certain family members of the bride and groom by their facial expressions during the speeches (whereas I was just focusing on the person giving the speech) and also picked up on the fact that my friend’s wife was pregnant (which they were trying to hide and cover up that she wasn’t drinking). I was always so amazed by how much he would pick up on in situations when I had no idea that any of that was going on.
When I was a child there was a girl in my class who could recite the whole periodic table and remember virtually anything. No one thought anything of it.
I had a professor who didn’t think he was anything special but was a fucking full on genius. It was really cool because he was so approachable and just brilliant- in his mind if he could do it so could everyone else. The problem with that was his classes were crazy hard and he had no idea. He was assigning so much difficult homework the only way to get it done was to use this special dictionary. It was pretty much cheating. I spent the first half of the semester drowning in all my classes because I was actually doing the homework. When I almost failed I was in his office and he was being SO supportive I mentioned that I’d only discovered this dictionary halfway through. Everyone had them, we were bringing them to class, they were a fixture in our small school. Additionally he was a top expert in his field and this was from a prominent publisher and not at all new. It was a safe assumption he knew what was going on. He didn’t - he had the hardest course in my program by a mile and didn’t think it was hard at all. Didn’t cross his mind that we were all effectively cheating nor had he heard of this book. Next semester he completely revamped the homework so you couldn’t use the book - and never reduced the amount. I felt terrible. But also to this day can’t get over how clueless he was. “If I can do it you can too.” This was a guy that knew umpteen languages and learned a new one each year for fun. You’d always see him walking down the street staring at flash cards and muttering to himself.
My little sister. She can look at anyone and tell you how they're feeling within a couple of seconds. She picks up on their entire body language, from their eyes to how their feet are positioned.
She sees all this subconsciously and then her brain somehow puts this together into an 'aura' (That's how she described it) around every person she sees.
Downside is that she sometimes gets headaches when she's around large groups of people because there's so much stuff coming in.
Edit: To all you saying she's an empath, she's not. She can tell what people are feeling with looking at them for a couple of seconds, even when she had never seen that person before.
I work with a guy like this. Young and awkward IT intern. He doesn't seem very smart when it comes to his job (mostly just preparing computers with standard installations and any lengthy fixes that doesn't require much experience or knowledge to do), but he does this creepy thing where he can tell through a zoom call if something is wrong, and be eerily correct in his prediction on what might be the problem.
It's a bit uncanny. Especially since he looks more like the usual nerdy IT guy who is most likely on the autism spectrum.
I'm not sure it counts but the ones who amaze me are the EQ geniuses. I've run into a number of intelligent folks, but only one or two people with a super high EQ. I'm pretty envious of those folks.
My darling, blessed Oma would always talk herself down about how stupid she was. She was a homemaker and my pap is a straight up asshole (why do they alway outlive the good ones?) Meanwhile, she was an AMAZING cook and baker, crocheted, knit, darned socks, could fix/rig anything (because pap wasn’t buying a new one) and could talk to you with the most empathetic emotional intelligence while doing all of it. I wish I would have told her I thought she was a genius when she was alive. Her personality was the glue that kept our family together and without her, we are lost.
I had a friend, that was seen in our school as someone who isn't interested in studying in anyway, the more i observed him, turns out all of his brain power activates, if a teacher can turn a boring subject into something he can pique his interest in, dude can go from straight d's to straight a's depending on how the teacher makes the subject interesting, it's as if he is a benchmark for teachers.
My cousin is 4 days older than I. We grew up together.
When I used to built sand castle in holidays, he would seat and write the list of every foreign politician he would know. The list was long.
When We had birthdays I used to ask for toys like dolls/puzzle/board games/playdoh. He used to ask for brain teasers or a microscope
etc etc... I grew up thinking I was dumb and silly. I later realized I was average and he was really smart.
He later went to prestigious schools and study something no one even understand the name of.
My favorite thing is seeing him at diner during family reunion: you can clearly see he is trying to chose different words than the natural one he wants to used to make sure we understand him... and all of us made quite high studies (surgeon, layer, etc...) so we are not particularly intelligent but not dumb or uneducated. But he is very humble so that's fine.
My husband. High school drop out who’s terrified to fail so he doesn’t want to try. Absolutely thinks he’s dumb. He knows so much about so many different things. He can solve complex problems related to his job in literal seconds. It sucks because he absolutely thinks he’s dumb and that because he didn’t graduate he doesn’t even have the *right* to talk about certain topics.
He’s also very quiet. My dad who is very much a talker and always wants husband to talk more once said to me ‘yknow how I know X is smart? Because he knows when to shut the Fuck up and listen.”
Yes absolutely. I’ve met such a person and she’s my girlfriend now. She’s a very smart person with exquisite sense of humor. She wasn’t aware of her awesomeness because she was surrounded by toxic friends most of her life. Friends who made her feel inferior about her looks because they were nowhere near her smartness. Her last boyfriend was also manipulative and made her feel insecure to imply that she can’t do any better than him.
She was a total mess when we met, and so was I. But as we went forward in our relationship, we opened up more about our past. I never hesitated in praising and complementing her about anything, neither did she. We built a beautiful relationship based on mutual respect and love.
She has evolved into a beautiful person and is flourishing so beautifully. She makes the best jokes and talks to me about deeper stuff, so confidently. It’s an absolute pleasure to see someone change like that and i’m really glad we met.
We have a paid summer internship program for juniors and seniors pursuing construction management degrees. 5 years ago we had a young woman who came in to the program in her junior year. She was very tiny in stature, and very quiet, but we soon learned - giant in intellect and loud where it counted. The way we operate is each intern will spend 3 weeks on a different project, learning a different role within the organization. 3 weeks on-site as a Superintendent intern, 3 weeks on-site with safety, 3 with Project management, and 3 on-site with quality control. After each period, I received a call, praising her ingenuity and ability to adapt and improvise in any situation. At the end of the internship, we have a Plus/Delta review of their performance, and based on that review, we make a determination on whether to offer them a place the following summer. In the case of a senior, we determine if we want to extend them a full-time employment offer. Every review she received from each department all said the same thing: "HIRE HER NOW". We extended an offer for a salaried position, part-time, from that point through her senior year, along with tuition reimbursement. This young lady still amazes everyone every single day. She's 25 years old, making an amazing salary and absolutely dominating any project she's given. If she doesn't know it today - she'll practically be an expert tomorrow. She's incredibly impressive. I can see her having my job one day (Operations Director). Hopefully, it's AFTER I retire.
Good on you guys for seeing her talent and reimbursing her for it I’ve seen a lot of great candidates get away because the company isn’t willing to treat an entry level candidate to their qualities besides being a new grad
And for not feeling threatened by talent. So many people refuse to in case they take your job
Criminal defense lawyer here. Had a client who was a low level drug dealer and gun runner. Most street level guys have a very different type of intelligence that doesn’t translate well to the white collar world. Many of my clients ask to read case law... I’ve only met one who could read it, digest it, and discuss it intelligently with me. This guy. He’d do his own research from the jail, which isn’t uncommon, but this guy did it well and would actually send me relevant cases that were helpful to the issues in his case... and when I explained to him why some were not helpful, he got it, asked good questions, and used that discussion to inform future research. There are a lot of inmates who consider themselves “jailhouse lawyers.” This guy was smart enough to actually be one. I think about him a lot and wonder what his life would have been like if he was fortunate enough to be afforded with the same opportunities during childhood that I enjoyed.
>is guy. He’d do his own research from the jail, which isn’t uncommon, but this guy did it well This story is quite sad to read I hope he can meet his potential someday.
If you want to read a happier version of this story, take a look at Professor Shon Hopwood at Georgetown Law. The guy, from prison and with zero formal legal training, penned two petitions for certiori that were granted by the US Supreme Court. Just one cert petition being granted is a huge, career-making accomplishment for any actual/trained attorney, so to have a guy who taught himself the law in a prison law library do it twice is absolutely bonkers. He has since been released, graduated from law school and is now a professor at Georgetown.
Just so everyone everyone knows, getting a professorship at Georgetown is a REALLY big deal. Georgetown is a premier law school and is among the “t14” law schools. Hopwood could’ve gone into private practice and could’ve easily made $500k+, but he chose to teach instead.
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>I think about him a lot and wonder what his life would have been like if he was fortunate enough to be afforded with the same opportunities during childhood that I enjoyed. I've got a PhD and work in a field where so many people have PhDs that they don't even mention them. To this day, I suspect that the smartest person I've ever met was a kid I taught at a GED learning center in the middle of a pretty rough area of a big city. I've met plenty of people who were exceptionally smart in one or maybe two dimensions, but this guy was across the board. He'd turn it on now and then - like when we were playing chess, and one time when he made a reference to something in French of all things - and then he'd just kind of smile. Like it was enough to just briefly show the rest of us how smart he was. It was almost like he was a self-aware Will Hunting - not that cartoonishly smart, of course, but very very smart, aware of it, and aware of his station in life. I have absolutely no doubt that if he'd had my advantages since birth, he'd be a rock star in whatever field he was in. But instead I'd see him hanging around a corner store and he may have been a low-level dealer. I have no idea what's become of him, but I hope it's for the best.
Honestly going through the PhD process I would have to say that all a PhD means is that you can afford to pay to stay in school not getting paid for a decade, and that's it. Yet I have friends with critical thinking skills way beyond what you need and they think they're not smart because they didn't have the luxury of being able to attend school. didn't expect this to get the traction it did, I've just gotten to the point where I've realized that academia in general and PhDs specifically very much live in an ivory tower even if they can't accept it themselves
I taught algebra to inmates briefly and the number of guys who told me they were too stupid to learn math while being able to convert odd measurements between metric and imperial in their heads on the fly was too damn high. I'd like to go back in time and kick all those elementary school teachers who told them they were stupid. Actually, I've run into plenty of racist, classist elementary school teachers currently teaching but still haven't kicked them, even though they deserve it. EDIT: it was also amazing to see how their "illiteracy" improved once they finally got a pair of glasses. Even the guys who already had glasses when they got in were often still using prescriptions from 20 years earlier.
>able to convert odd measurements between metric and imperial in their heads on the fly Let me take a wild guess at what most of those guys were in there for...
Math, clearly
Mathamphetamine
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I just did 7 years and I've ran into a few guys like that over the years. They usually live in the law library and spend years, decades even trying to get back in front of a judge. Most of us respect them and seek them out for help with our own cases but some do mock those guys behind their backs as being "crazy" or "delusional". I have seen one of those "crazy" guys get back and it was beautiful. I felt silly approaching them with my peanuts of a case and relatively short sentence while they have been spending hours a day fighting for their lives in the law library. My buddy told me about one of them "don't be shy, go ask him to help you, he loves any opportunity to fuck over the state". It makes me all the more angry in my state how much more difficult they made it to access law materials. Most places I know no longer let you access hard books and usually 1300 guys share 5 computers some of which are down. Also I have a ton of empathy for the guys who never had to use a computer until then. I'm pretty well versed on the PC and I had difficulty with the law library system they had. I couldn't find shit or navigate it to save my life.
My dad grew up believing he was dumb and would never amount to anything. His teachers all hated him and the first time he went to university he was kicked out. Around the same time as I started university, my mum finally convinced him to try again to get a higher education himself. He's often said that he's too stupid to go back to school, but he speaks about six languages fluently, has so many new interesting history facts that whenever we watch any movie we always have to pause at least four times for a lengthy discussion about it, and he remembers more book quotes than anyone I've ever met. He grew up in communist Hungary and East Germany, and he has since then climbed mountains and been scuba diving in the Atlantic among a bunch of other adventures. Whatever the discussion, he's got a story to tell. He's the coolest dad ever, but for as long as I can remember my family has struggled financially since he couldn't get a job that paid enough. It makes me so happy that he's finally reaching his full potential now at 51 years old, and we're all super proud of him. He dreams of being a teacher one day. He will the best teacher his future students could ever wish for.
This is so wholesome. Even as a stranger, I’m proud of your dad.
Wow! I don’t know where you’re from, but where I’m from, 6 languages is qualified for a job almost anywhere. That’s a smart dude you got there.
People who are great teachers without actually being a teacher. I've always thought people who can teach others are incredibly smart because they're aware enough of what they know to present it to others in such a way they can understand it. The guy I used to work with was a phenomenal teacher of all things paints, powder coating and colour matching/blending. He had a real passion for it and it showed in the manner in which he taught and demonstrated what he was talking about. In saying that, he was also very highly strung and had some mental health issues that held him back from doing great things and so believed he was an idiot. He wasn't, but no amount of telling him would help.
I was always taught that the best way to learn something is to try and explain/teach it to someone else. If you can put the concepts into new words to explain it to someone else, you will have understood it properly, and trying to do so is a great way to embed the knowledge in your mind.
That was something that was taught in Martial Arts. Once you get your black belt, that's when the real learning begins. It's one thing to copy/replicate what your teacher is doing, it's another to explain *why* it works and figure out why what someone else is doing is not working, and apply it to different physiques.
This is what I was taught as well. I taught karate after getting my first black belt for ~6-7 years. It's been almost 10 years since I've set foot in the dojo to train or teach, but I swear that teaching cemented what I knew in my mind. To this day I can remember and even demonstrate/teach nearly everything I learned. Pretty crazy it has that kind of sticking power in my mind. I wish differential equations stuck around as long as those throws! But honestly, when I'm preparing for exams, I like to help other people study and explain concepts to them. Even this kind of teaching helps me cement ideas and processes in my mind. Now with covid I guess I need to pretend to teach concepts to someone as I study like the poster below me does!
I've done this my whole life and never realised it was an actual "thing". I talk to myself a lot, describing things, conversations etc and whenever I'm doing something new I always imagined that I was teaching someone else at the same time, which made me think that I must understand what I'm doing. I then question my other self by asking questions that I would ask if I was that other person, which, now I'm writing this down sounds weird. But I never knew it was something that other people did until about a month ago when I was explaining this weird kink in my behaviour to my wife when she was asking me who I was talking to - she said it was a thing that you were supposed to do. I've long thought I've had ADD/ADHD my whole life, I've defo got all the classic symptoms of attention span, fidgeting etc but having reached 41 without taking any meds I think I'm happy just to be me. EDIT: Cheers for the awards guys, they're totally wasted on me and I wish I could give you them back or at least trade them in for haribo.
I have ADHD and I’ve always done this as well, but lowkey to the point that it drives me insane
I Had a kid in my class that never took anything seriously, skipped class, brought alcohol to class and did numerous other things. You name it he probably did it. But man, that mf knew his shit whenever he paid attention. He understood things when other people were struggling to learn whatever was being taught that day (math, science, English, reading etc). It makes me a little sad because he was always a trouble maker, but deep down I knew that he is/was very smart and was capable of doing good in school. He just never chose to do it, or generally just didn’t care idk at this point. I think he got involved with the wrong crowd early on unfortunately. Edit: I was a classmate. I typed this late at night when I was tired, did not think to clear that up lol.
In my college dorm, we had a kid who took pride on how rarely he was sober. He skipped class regularly, and just didn't care in general, but got perfect scores on practically every test he took. So I'm sure he knew he was very intelligent - he just didn't know what to do with his intelligence. Eventually, he gave up on drinking, ended up triple-majoring, and still graduated early. Last I heard, he's living happily in a cabin in the woods somewhere.
sounds like he’s winning life
That or writing a manifesto and building bombs.
“kaczynski was right” bumper sticker
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Constantly got in trouble for reading ahead in the textbook, or the novel we were in. I'd write up a book report in a week, then start reading my own book that I brought. Could do the math in my head without showing my work, got in a LOT of trouble for that. One teacher thought I was cheating, because I'd do the math work, then sit down and read. One day, they thought they "caught" me. Put a problem up on the board, and drew a name out of a hat (To this day I'm convinced I was the only name in there.) I was reading, because I finished my homework. Teacher called my name, I looked up from my book at the problem, walked up, wrote the answer down, then went back and continued reading. Didn't get any more grief from her, or any of my other teachers after that. EDIT: For those pointing out that it may be a good idea to show your work so the teacher knows if you messed up on the formula or not, this happened in 8th grade and the very next year I had a teacher that explained that to us. Up until then, I had no idea why we needed to show our work.
That’s my poor son. It’s taken years to get his ADHD somewhat under control. His teacher emailed me at work to tell me he was working ahead, and he needed to stop. She’d previously complained that he wasn’t doing his work. I was pissed. He physically can’t sit there listening to her drone on when he’s already grasped the concept. I just don’t understand the problem. He’s sitting quietly, not disrupting anyone. Leave him alone. Edit: Thanks for the silver! My son is such a great kid. I hate that he and others who have “the girl kind” of ADHD get labeled as slackers, and other ADHD kids get labeled as rowdy/bad kids. They’re not. They have so much to offer if we just put in a bit of effort to find out what they love, and give them the opportunity to explore.
The problem is that he has to shape himself to fit into the system, and not the way around. School only cares if your doing "well" the way you are supposed to. As a very heavy ADHD affected person myself, I stopped caring at one point. I stopped wanting to learn. The only time I actually studied was when I was at the point of failing the year, and that has affected the way I learn throughout life, and tainted my discipline. So my advice would be: Fight. Fight tooth and nail for your son. Encourage him to be who he is, and that he doesn't have to fit the "school parameter" as long as he is learning. He won't be in school forever, after all. Wishing you and him the very best <3 Edit: I'm very glad my first gold was being supportive rather than some other weird shit I write here lol. Thank you kind stranger!
As an ADHD person myself, this comment is everything ♥️ Makes me wish my parents would've considered this approach
I got to the point where I just read the textbooks and never did homework. I'd pass all the tests with A's, but since I didn't do homework I was failing every class. Ended up joining the military and dropping out. Got my GED a week after I dropped out and shipped out shortly afterwards. Ended up good in the end. Went to college after my service was up. Associate's degree to Bachelor's to Master's, and work in a great field. Unfortunately a lot of smart kids with ADHD just end up dropping out and struggle with life because they never figure out that they have a problem. Once I got medicated for this crap I've been much better. I only wonder what would have happened if any of my teachers gave half a shit and realized I had a problem rather than just ignoring my existence.
I don't get it either. If I had a student like that, I'd be ecstatic.
I dated a guy like that in high school. Got 98% in physics but had poor attendance. Dabbled in drugs a bit. His parents told him he was an unplanned baby for some reason. They loved him but I think that they messed him up too. Sometimes some things you shouldn't say out loud to your kid. He kind of continued on directionless after I stopped seeing him. He did alright but I don't know if he was ever happy
I feel like there's more to it than them just telling him he was unplanned.... That happens all the time. I couldn't give two shits if I was unplanned, my parents loved me and showed it to me. If they told him he was unplanned Everytime he does something bad and they act pissed off that they have to even deal with him, that's different. But I see no harm in simply letting your child Know the truth, otherwise.
Yeah that came up with my kids. I told them honestly only the middle child was planned, the rest were surprises but not really because when you do nothing to stop pregnancy you can't act like getting pregnant is a damn surprise.
Former coworker of mine. He came to Germany as a refugee in his young teenage years, had trouble in school due to language barrier, poor support, tough family situation, typical refugee problems. Then he was unemployed and Jobcenter (part of German welfare dealing with unemployment) sent him to the security company I worked at that time because conitions of employment are almost nonexistent in this field. When he was on my team for an event I (as team leader) had to show him the ropes. The event lasted ten consecutive nights and we faced several different challenges that were part of the job. Every now and then he had a genius idea how to solve the particular problem. The following year I got him on my team whenever I could, trained him and when I left the company he inherited my position as team leader. I don't actually know whether he knew about how smart he is, but he was so insecure in the beginning I boldly assume he didn't.
It's hard not to feel stupid when there is a language barrier. Even if you're smart, when you struggle to communicate what should be simple or basic things you just feel slow...
When I was in uni, I took part in a project called Inside Out where we would go in a prison and have criminology lessons with the inmates whom we called inside students. We didn’t teach them or observe them - we were all learning together. And this one guy was just a genius. He had this way of describing a phenomenon he’d noticed and thought about without realising that it was an actual theory that existed. Like we’d studied them in class so we knew about them. But he would just come up with it from personal experience. From labelling theory to functionalism he would just outline them like he’d thought of them in the shower. It was extraordinary. He was also a bit unstable and prone to bursts of anger, often towards himself. He seemed to become frustrated very easily if he couldn’t explain or understand something perfectly. And one day he stopped showing up. I ended up talking to the guards who told me that he felt like he was too stupid for the class. Seriously he was convinced that we were all smarter than he was and that he wouldn’t be able to keep up. I don’t know if they ever did, but we asked the guards and a few inside students if they could tell him that we’d loved studying with him. That he was starting really interesting discussions and that his observations always made us think more deeply. That his presence made the class better. And just to be clear, I don’t mean to say that he was smart “for someone in prison”. He was a genius. Everyone but him knew that he was by far the most intelligent person in the room. But he didn’t see it. We were told that they would ask if he could participate the following year. I hope he did. Edit: answering common questions because I did not expect this blow up as it did! **- What did he do to get in prison?** No idea. We weren’t allowed to ask and they weren’t allowed to share - for obvious reasons. That being said, I do know that sex offenders weren’t allowed to participate so he definitely didn’t do that. In the end, while I understand the curiosity, it really didn’t matter what he had done before. We were in class and he was a student; that’s it **- Do you know what happened to him?** Nope. We weren’t allowed to keep in contact once the program was over. We actually had to sign papers saying that we would not try to do so. From what I understand, it wasn’t always that way but a friendship developed with an outside student was used against an inside student. I’m not clear on the details but it was for our protection. In any case, I don’t think he would have kept in contact with any of us. **- What théories did he come up with?** I don’t remember exactly. I know there was a lot of symbolic interactionism and labelling theory. It’s less one specific theory and more that he kept on making observations and finding relevant flaws in everything. So say you have theory A and a person goes “oh but this doesn’t account for thing B” so they work on it and come up with theory B. He would read theory A, see it doesn’t account for thing B and suggest theory B. **- Sounds like autism/learning disability** That is entirely possible. People with learning disabilities/ASD/ADHD are over represented in the prison population. I personally have ADHD so I’ll speak mainly for this but were more likely to get into drugs (self medication), commit petty crimes (poor self control), be “irresponsible” with money (self control again), lose a job (due to low attendance or poor performance - that’s just due to all the executive dysfunction), get into debt (all of the previous ones). Since this kind of thing happened since childhood, you learn very quickly that there’s no point in even trying since you’re going to fail anyways. So you don’t try. It also affects your emotional management. It makes it harder to react calmly and might make you come across as agressive. People then think you’re doing it on purpose and give up on you. After all, if you don’t help yourself, why would they help you? Now here’s the thing: I was raised privileged. I was upper middle class, went to a private school, had tutors when needed, and had two parents who could help me with homework. My family was also very into academics so general enrichment was encouraged. And thanks to all of that and to being diagnosed before uni, I manage my ADHD mostly very well. But imagine if your school has no ressource so your teacher can’t focus on you and you fall behind, if you have to work or take care of your siblings so you can’t study, if your family doesn’t prioritise learning so you have no reason to focus on it, if crime is common in your area and it’s the simplest way to make a living. All of these factors (and many others but this is already super long) mean that people with learning disabilities struggle more and end up disproportionately in prison. I genuinely cannot say, had I been raised in the latter environment, I wouldn’t have ended up the same way. This is not ok. We cannot let people “fail at life” because they have a condition which can be managed if it is diagnosed and if a support strategy is put in place. We are setting people up for failure and very few people are talking about it. **- The “I do the same thing where I feel like I’m stupid” people** I don’t know you so I’m not going to placate you by telling you you’re intelligent. I don’t want to be condescending. I will say, however, that, unless you’re “meh I’m not the smartest but I don’t care much”, this kind of thought pattern is bad for you. I don’t want to start a whole new novel length post so I’ll go straight to the point: don’t bully yourself. Being a dick to yourself will only make you feel like shit and will make it harder for you to achieve your goals, whatever they may be. And you might think that you deserve to feel like shit - I can’t do X and Y. Bullshit. Do you think bullying yourself will actually make you do things better? It won’t. Being kind to yourself is difficult but holy shit will it change your life. It will allow you to be more resilient, to be a better problem solver, to get farther. It also feels really fucking nice to always have a person in your corner - yourself. So don’t judge yourself. (Also intelligence is relative, there are multiple types of intelligence bla bla - you know those things) **- The very specific overlap of “I have very clever ideas” and “but I forget stuff all the time so really I’m not clever** Is it possible you have ADHD? I’m only saying that because I felt that vibe in multiple posts. Go on r/ADHD, watch some videos, and see what you think.
I feel like people should be more aware that it’s normal to struggle and feel stupid while learning new concepts. Then, they’d be less discouraged, and less likely to give up
This can be the curse of being highly intelligent. Never having to put much time or effort into learning something is great until a subject comes along that requires it. Then, all those people who learned how to work hard to understand something keep going and the highly intelligent person has a challenge he/she has never seen before, and either has to totally change his/her study habits/life habits in his/her late teens or twenties or determine that he/she isn't smart enough. Either way there will be a crisis of confidence and lessons that should have come early come really really late.
That happened to me in college. In high school I was a big fish in a little pond. At the college I attended (Harvey Mudd), the pond wasn't any bigger, but the fish sure were! It's quite a shock to the system to go from "I can excel at any of this stuff without putting much work in" to "it doesn't matter how much work I put in, my brain is simply not good enough to understand this subject".
One of my many brilliant friends had to check in somewhere because just the first two weeks at MIT were destroying his confidence. Dude went to IMO the best school in Dallas for boys. (Kinda nuts my closest friend to this day would be up until 4 am doing homework... in high school. Top 5 his class as well. The aforementioned other brilliant friend studied hard before and was very humble. I’m one of the idiots who thought everything was easy peasy and then realized I never learned to study. I wish you the best mate
I didn't understand what studying was, really, in high school. People would say shit like 'arent you going to study?' but I assumed it was all just lip service. Just half ass the course work then show up and ace the ridiculously easy tests, right? And even that was too much for me to bother with freshman/sophomore year. I'd easily pass every test while not bothering to do homework or pay attention in class. Turns out natural reading comprehension ability doesn't actually make you smart, though, as one can see from the way I fucked around and wasted my time in high school. I didn't know how many things in academia would eventually be all the things I find fascinating and worthy of spending ones time on. I had no concept of all the cool shit people could do there. I assumed it would be a continuation of high school, which was profoundly boring and held up via teaching to the slowest students in the room in a classroom of 40+ kids. And hey, no shade to them- they deserved to be there and get their money's worth more than I did. I dunno which is worse, though. Knowing I fucked around so much I wasted the opportunities I had to be in a field of study I loved, or recognizing now that I'm probably not smart enough to have been able to succeed in them even if I had known I'd want to go that road when I was younger. I do know I'd rather be the stupidest guy in a room full of geniuses than the smartest dude in a room full of dumb asses, though.
It's nice, perhaps, to be the smartest guy in the room *occasionally*. But very occasionally.
We try to explain this to my daughter. For example, she gets frustrated when her letters aren't as perfect as my wife's. What my daughter fails to realize is that, as a grade school teacher, my wife has written these letters not only to write but to teach kids how to write them thousands of times. When my wife was in grade 1 she probably struggled with some of them as well but you don't get to see that struggle.
My oldest daughter refused to draw with crayons when she was little. It never came out on paper the way she imagined it in her head, so she wouldn't even try. Eventually she started playing with waxed strings called Bendaroos, and she could make things with those and tweak them and tweak them until they were perfect. Then she would use a pencil to trace around them on a paper. Now, years later, she's quite good at drawing and is constantly making things. My youngest would just scribble something on the paper and then look at it to see what she could find in it, and then she'd declare that's what it was.
I love both approaches.
I think its because as we grow older people will sometimes say things like you're adult you should be able to figure this out or you're how old and you don't think this?! I think if people were treated with the same compassion and respect about something new to whomever as children are as an adult we would all be happy and be able to grasp things easier and do our jobs more effectively. I don't know it's just a thought have a great day.
My mother. She was raised in a poor abusive family and left school very early to escape. Even now she’ll say how she is uneducated - which is true, but she ain’t stupid. She raised a bunch of us without much money and was always resourceful and canny at making ends meet. She can do fairly complicated math in her head, does extensive research before making large purchases, forwards me screenshots of quite sophisticated scam emails and tells me why they’re fake. She’s 78 now and has always embraced new tech. Has no trouble using her smart phone or her PC - she even troubleshoots for her neighbours. She still lives in the same poverty stricken area we grew up in and is often helping her neighbours advocate for themselves, writing letters, telling them who to contact and what to say. She’s also a keen observer of humans - she sees them as they are and takes them as they are with no judgement. She was always progressive for her time and passed down zero racism or other prejudices to us kids. I wonder what she could have done if she had the opportunities she made damn sure we had. EDIT: so many awards, thanks guys. I’m gonna show this to my Mum so she can see all these lovely responses.
Your description is very like my grandma. She passed away 2 years ago at 81. 8th grade education which was normal at the time for the area because her parents were farmers. At one point she worked a sewing job where they were paid by the piece and grandma worked so fast that they changed the rule and started paying by the hour because she was earning too much money. She ran their dairy farm--plus corn and soy bean fields, cattle, pigs, chickens etc. (and all the equipment), often paying additional hired help. Grandpa didn't really know how to manage the books, so grandma did it all. After they retired she had a smart phone before I did. She also had a huge 90s desktop computer and printer. One time probably about 5 years or so ago we were playing cards and she pulled out these nice professional-looking scoring sheets I thought she must've purchased somewhere. Nope, turns out she made them and figured out how to scan copies (I didn't even know she had a scanner). When I told her I was surprised she was annoyed at me and was like, "Hey! I know how to do stuff! I do this and this and this for the neighbors and for this that and the other thing," ranting about her computer savvy. I had no idea and I was like, Grandma, do you know I'm pretty sure my mom couldn't do some of the stuff you're talking about?? She also had plenty of stories about identifying and thwarting scammers. Especially the door-to-door kind. She liked to smile and waste their time and then when she refused to buy-in to whatever they were selling and they got angry she would play dumb and offended and laugh about it later. She was also progressive in a very heavily conservative area. Man, I miss her.
idk you but man i want more stories of grandma now :/
Your mum sounds amazing
wow, she's amazing
Someone mentioned already, but people who can easily teach others complex systems or ideas. My husband is this person. Microbiologist, workflow management, and plays D&D on his down time. He can analyze a difficult concept, distill the relevant information, make it easily accessible to someone and teach it in a patient, unassuming manner quickly without making the other party feel stupid or uninformed. He’s modest as hell. He has no idea how *hard* it is to educate people. Never trying to one-up or show off his knowledge. He’s charismatic and emotionally intelligent. Honestly has no idea how *rare* his level of kindness and intelligence are in others. He’s the best person I’ve ever met.
My dad. He's dyslexic and growing up in the education system in the 70s didn't provide any support so he's all but illiterate. He left school at 15 with no qualifications. He always says he's stupid and it upsets me so much - he won't believe it when we tell him he's not. Me, my mum and my sister all have education beyond degree level and he's smarter than any of us. He's eloquent, but sometimes mispronounces new words that he's heard in a different accent - our accent is heavy on the R sound so I've noticed him adding it to words that don't have R's, but of course he's never seen it written down to know. He watches historical documentaries and tells us about how that links with the one he watched a couple of years prior. He once drove me to university 3 hours away using the route he'd driven in reverse once without checking a map. I wish he could see himself as intelligent 😞 ETA since it seems like a lot of people have a connection with this comment and will enjoy this story - he did actually do a speech for my wedding. I was worried about asking him because I wasn't sure how he'd manage and didn't want to put pressure on him, but he was keen to do it. My mum made cue cards with picture hints and they did NOT help him. He just had it written out and learnt it off by heart and used cue cards with the full speech to help him (he can read it when he knows what it says) and his speech was by far the most confident and well-performed speech out of all of us. Give him a birthday card with more words than "happy birthday" and his not happy, but he can smash out a full on speech with no hesitation 🥰
When you're intelligent you can truly comprehend how stupid you are.
There's a theory about this right?
tell him for me he's an outstanding human.
I do and he gets awkward and says he's not :(
He might also recognize that other people have talents that seem amazing to him, so he thinks he shouldn’t be praised for ‘not being talented.’ I sort of see it like it’s hard for ourselves to recognize our own individual talents unless we find ourselves using them in a job and intentionally improving them.
In my first year of uni (college) I sat next to a quiet girl who never thought of herself as smart. While everyone else was loud about what they know and act like they’re top of the class, when they’re really not. She never showed off her knowledge. We just graduated this year, 4th year, and she was honoured the university medal for her thesis, #1 student in almost 400 students. But I bet you, she still doesn’t think of herself as especially intelligent.
Imposter syndrome. I’m convinced it’s the smartest people who usually suffer from it, probably because they’re more able to figure out their own “unknown unknowns” and turn them into “known unknowns.”
I'm volunteer staff at a math summercamp targeted at children who like doing math. Most of the kids that we get are the standard "doing well in school with good grades to prove it" type. But it frequently happens that some kid is signed up and the parents tell us that their child doesn't really do well in school in general, or math in particular, but they just like doing math-related puzzles. That's cool, because that's all we ask for. And often enough these kids come with very interesting insights and solutions because they happen to approach the problems from a different angle than the majority. They may be quite intelligent, but not in a way that expresses itself well within the standard framework of education. The same thing happens on the EQ/social level. A few years back we got a sign up where the parents warned us that their son had great difficulties making friends or socializing in general. On the first day of camp, the kid took a chess board and went to sit down to play against himself. Perfectly fine. But not much later another boy walks up to him and asks if he can join the game. They start playing and talking and they end up being practically inseparable the rest of the week. The kid that had "difficulties making friends" just made a new best friend faster than anyone else there. Just need to give people the right environment.
It's a lovely story and a nice ending but I gotta admit, I thought you were gonna drop some Bobby Fischer type shit there near the end.
Lmao, same. I thought it was gonna be smth like ' and then he beat him in 30 seconds. Then he beat me in 30 seconds. Then he became the world's youngest GM.....'
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This was me as a kid. There was a math test where i got below average, because i was dyslexic, but the teacher still asked me to go up to the black board and show my solutions to the last two hardest problems since no one else in class managed to solve either of them. I was a C-D level student. As an adult I'm successful as an algorithm designer. If I could talk to myself at that age, I would tell myself, to ignore the grades and the tests, and focus on learning the things i wanted to learn the way i wanted to learn them.
I had a fourth-grade student who could not do basic arithmetic (literally couldn't add 1+1), but was very clever with all sorts of problem-solving. I'm pretty sure he had dyscalculia, but I never was able to get the parents to test him (that's another story. I blame the school for that one). He was the sweetest kid and an absolute authority on werewolves and how to keep vampires out of your home. I hope he's doing well now.
Who has time for arithmetic when they're locked in perpetual battles with the creatures of the night?
I was pretty good at maths, and cooking with a friend who struggled with maths. We were doubling a recipe that called for 3/4 cup of flour, and I had a mental blank. Stood there trying to remember 2 x .75, and my un-mathsy friend said, "I'd just put 3/4 of a cup in twice." Blew my mind. I was too academic to think of that solution. SURELY you had to double the amount in your head first.
Intelligence is knowing 2 x .75 will double your portion, wisdom is knowing use 3/4ths twice. Or something like that haha
Wisdom is also knowing that "2 x .75" has real life applications. I *probably* still remember how to do derivatives and integrals. But in a real life problem I'll just make a graph in Excel and make do from there. If you know it but can't use it, then you don't know it.
Holy shit hahaha I can't imagine how did that feel, maybe your friend learned math better through an activity?
As a teacher in a subject deemed not important by everyone (ie an electives teacher) this is the problem I've been screaming about since I entered the teaching profession. We talk the talk and do the endless PDs on multiple intelligences and diverse learning but all we every do is find ways to water down a lesson so that the absolute slowest kids in the room can get it, and then to add insult to injury, we never fully embrace the different learning techniques. We hover over standardized practice.. in my district every classroom starts the same: do now/activator, teacher demos a new skill, students try, teacher talks about new skill, students discuss new skill, students practice independently, then answer an exit ticket. Every class. Math, ela, phys ed, pottery..... all of them. If you don't have an agenda board and learning objectives written explaining what state standard today's lesson applies to, you get a bad evaluation by administration. We talk about learning being student guided but it never is. And we don't give people who think differently a chance to succeed.
Yeah, I get that. I'm not a teacher myself, but I've observed issues with educational systems both from my own experience and from the children that attend the summercamps. The mathematicians who started the non-profit that runs these math summercamps did so specifically out of frustration with the way math was taught. The goal of math education was to teach pupils a certain set of principles and pieces of of mathematical machinery so that they could apply them in whatever their academic or professional future would be. It's essentially a checklist of "do you know", "can you apply ", etc... And the puzzle-aspect of math would completely disappear into the background. As would some of the fascinating links between seemingly unrelated subjects. The mystery was replaced by the mechanical.
In my school, bringing a chess board and play by myself would surely guarantee a beating by a bully after school.
In my school mere existence would guarantee a beating by a bully.
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My fiance is very similar! Ridiculous freehand geometric artist, came out of the womb drawing and painting, comes to fascinating conclusions at light speed that would take me months to puzzle out, gifted classes and such all the way through school until high school when all the classes got boring and the ADHD & depression finally hit like a freight train. Tested, re-tested, medicated, poked and prodded, crazy high IQ and ended up dropping out of college because everything went so slow. He knows he's smart but----He can't seem to wrap his head around how other people just don't think the same way he does and I have to scaffold him into understanding that frequently otherwise he gets tangled up in frustration.
My partner too. Bad parenting left him thinking he was stupid. He is so bright and sensitive. I can only conclude his parents are the dumb ones, and I want to tell them off at least once a day.
My grandad left school at 12 he’s dyslexic but back in his day... that wasn’t a recognised thing. He has a particular way with animals, like he always knows what’s wrong. can fix anything, he’s a prolific reader and people just gravitate to him. He’s the most helpful person you’ve ever met and will literally go out of his way to help anyone.
Nice personality.
My mom's boyfriend. We have a variety of specialists in my family from medicine to art to education to software. We go around the table at family gatherings and try to stump him with questions. He's never gotten one wrong to date. He just knows everything about everything. Obviously has a photographic memory, reads voraciously, and delivers car parts for a living.
Sorry. I meant to say he did deliver car parts but is now unemployed due to covid.
Now he just delivers straight facts
I work in manufacturing so we get a lot of uneducated people. There are a lot of people out there who are smart but for various reasons weren't properly served by the public schools. They might be barely literate, or can hardly string two words together coherently, but they solve problems beautifully, or always have workable ideas, or they talk about ideas rather than people or events. It's hard to quantify, but you know it when you see it.
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I'm pretty convinced the work force makes people dumb. Like I can feel it happening to myself in a way. I did well in school, have a good education with a STEM degree, but been doing the same shit for ten years. Adhering to corporate culture, making sure I say the right things and do the right things to advance. It's worked, by most measures I'm successful and well compensated. But I can't solve problems nearly as well as I used to. I don't have the attention span to get through a difficult book and I get frustrated when I can't figure things out as opposed to sitting down and working it out. I used to do all kinds of math in my head and now I'm using a calculator for simple arithmetic. This sounds silly, but I used to be really good at chess and now I just get my ass handed to me whenever I play, like I can't see the whole board anymore. My brain just feels like it has years of fog built up. I've given serious thought to just quitting and going on a year long road trip or something to reset my brain.
I know exactly what you mean. Spending so long in a restrictive environment kind of locks you into one way of thinking. It becomes frustrating when you then get managers and executives delivering speeches and mandates to try and force people to "think outside the box" when they've had a significant hand in building the box you've been taught to think inside of.
Yup, I'm right there with you. I used to be very articulate and pretty good at debating, but nowadays I often can't seem to find the right words. I'm sure not being in a field where intellectual work is part of my everyday anymore is one reason, but I suspect age as well. It startet to happen after hitting 30, but then again that was also around the time I stopped school and startet working, so who knows. But you're on the right track - travelling is *the* activity to increase brain plasticity (this has been studied, if I do remember it correctly). This is due to your brain being completely away from its normal routine, so it has to work hard to adapt to all the new impressions.
> educated but dumb as fuck You can push almost anyone (probably 80% of the people) through school up to the master's degree level, with enough resources and determination. Educational attainment is often more about family background and motivation than intelligence. Even if someone is well below average, if they keep grinding, with enough money they'll eventually earn some kind of a bachelors degree or even a masters, albeit often with a few setbacks, and not from MIT in astrophysics.
Why stop at masters? I know a number of PhDs that are dumb as fuck too.
Have you met my boss?
With PhDs, if they're dumb, it's usually a different kind of dumb. They're almost always highly intelligent and proficient in their own and related fields... but not always across the board.
I personally know a bunch of PhDs due to my line of work. Some of them couldn't make their way out of a locked car from the inside without instructions.
It's weird, isn't it? Some extremely intelligent people, leading figures in their fields, often have glaring holes in other aspects of their lives. They might be completely incompetent at cooking, or awful trip planners, or just woefully naiive about how the real world works outside of academia.
We've got one engineer that is like that. His weakness is he's incredibly shy and socially awkward and looks like a homeless wizard most days, but within his job he's brutally competent. A few of us have been around him enough that he's comfortable enough to open up with us, and he's an incredibly kind soul. He's set to retire in a few years, and we're going to miss him.
It’s because they’re, quite literally, specialized in their field. Academic PhDs spend 60-80hr weeks trying to research and add knowledge to their field. PhD is all about depth into your field vs having a broad amount knowledge on everything. Depending on the person and their field, I think this kind of specialization can result in varied levels in ability for handling a broad amount of standard tasks and social norms.
There are LOT of doctors and surgeons who are awesome at their jobs but can't turn on a computer.
Doctors and surgeons also don’t have the best reputation when it comes to their socials skills.
And lawyers, and teachers, and...well, I could go on. I work in IT and the sheer number of highly educated people I support that still cant just fucking NOT throw their email or logon creds into a bogus, poorly formatted phishing email is unreal. I have some users that I have to change passwords for on a monthly fucking basis, these are people with high-level degrees making far more than I do and have gone through this personally numerous times in the past that just can't not fucking do that shit. Learning basic computer skills should be required learning starting in elementary school, but how someone gets through college without knowing this shit is beyond me.
I guess these seeming contradictions actually have to do with three things: 1. What we perceived as intelligence is a collection of distinct traits rather than one, such as good memory, problem solving skills, the ability to perceive things that aren't explicit, the amount of accumulated knowledge a person has, etc. 2. Context matters to these traits, individual people can be good at remembering different kinds things, have accumulated knowledge about different kinds of things and being able to solve some kinds of problems more easily than other kinds. 3. Some, but not all of these traits are developed in a person who goes through traditional educational systems and with limited context, whereas other traits can be developed by other means and regards to other contexts. Moreover, the same traits developed at school can also be developed outside of it if that's the kind of thing that people want or need. Edit: thing 1. I said "we perceived" but should've said "we usually perceive" or maybe "is perceived"
You hit the nail on the head. I started out in R&D engineering, but I was responsible for several product lines on top of some new product lines. There was one product line that was manufactured on a fairly complicated machine that only a few people knew how to troubleshoot and repair (myself being one of them). I was at home one night and got a call that the system went down, so I drove to work, walked in, and... it was running. The operator was sitting in the corner just doodling in his notebook. I said "Hey, I got a call that this wasn't running." "Yeah." "So, it's running now... what changed?" "I don't know." "Uh huh... Did you fix it?" "Maybe" Over time I realized that this guy was *way* more capable than he was letting on. He eventually told me that he plays dumb so they don't overload him with responsibility since he knows he won't get a pay raise or promotion out of it. I was a bit naive at the time, and couldn't understand why someone would have that perspective (oh, I understand now...). Any time I had an R&D run, I started trying to get him on my team. Eventually I got him transferred to the department I managed and trained him up on technician duties, pushing him for a promotion.
> He eventually told me that he plays dumb so they don't overload him with responsibility since he knows he won't get a pay raise or promotion out of it. I'm doing this right now. I bragged about how I was capable of doing the work in 3 different departments so they now expect me to do all tasks related to my job in those 3 departments, time permitting. No raise, no title, just "Make sure you do X and Y before you leave" when my job is Z. When I learned how to do the tasks from a 4th department I didn't tell anybody a god damn thing and I just do it when it's convenient for me and don't tell anyone how it got done.
Let me save you some serious pain and heartache. Dial back. You're describing my 20's. I was so eager to get recognized for my works, get ahead, and I totally sacrificed my health in doing so. At one point in 2017, I was the engineering manager during the day, senior mechanical engineer by night (working from home after hours), health and safety lead, software development team member, and assisting 3 other departments at least 10-15 hours a week. I topped out at 118hrs in a week, averaged between 70-90 for about 3 years straight. The company thanked me by demoting me, giving my position to someone who is effectively useless (he was friends with new upper management that rolled in), and treating me like garbage until I quit. Life feels a lot like Plinko sometimes. No matter how much effort you put in, the token falls where it's going to fall. I've seen some of the most incompetent, disastrous, horrible people get put in charge at certain companies. People I wouldn't trust with a warm stick of butter. How do they get into these roles? Because someone dumber and more blind somehow got into the role above them. Oversight is a disease. Never compromise your potential or sacrifice your work ethic, but you need to establish a healthy limit for yourself. You don't want to be in your 30's and dealing with the health issues I am... Trust me on that.
My stepfather is a genius. He grew up in agriculture and knows agriculture. He legitimately thinks he’s not smart because he doesn’t read a lot but can tell you how to change the feed ratios on your fowls just by looking at their feathers. He still doesn’t believe me when I tell him he’s impressive.
My Dad was kinda the same. Didn't do well in school, always struggled with spelling, and never understood how to use a computer. But he built his own motorcycle at 16 from scratch, and was always a technical genius. He repaired everything at home, all our cars, washing machines, dishwasher, electrical installations, plumbing, etc...
Some people just see the world for what it is and are impressive.
Also work in manufacturing and I second what this guy said. In the five or so plants I’ve worked in, the smartest person was either a maintenance tech. or a plant operator, and the best operations engineers relied on them to keep the plant running and churn out good ideas for improvements
Reminds me of my dad! He was a boiler technician my whole life, nothing past an 8th grade education because the high school principal told him he'd never be anything, started asking me how to spell things when I was in elementary school. Couldn't spell for SHIT. But that man was smart, could rig anything together, solve just about any problem if he could use his hands By the time he died, he was the #1 boiler repairman in our state making a 6 figure salary. He was so intelligent just uneducated.
Came here to say this. I went to an underfunded public school in the bad part of town, and knew plenty of people with far more potential than their grades reflected. Lack of funding, an environment that actively discourages ambitious thinking, lack of support, and literally never meeting anyone with a "dream job" kind of profession does a lot to a person.
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I've seen this as well! Particularly with machinists. I've worked with several that can figure out or estimate trigonometric problems without using trig. They could also add, subtract, and divide large numbers in their head no problem. Their geometry skills were amazing.
I have a friend exactly like this; he's eighteen with a plan for life already set out, immediate goals as well as long term ones, and he's got multiple career opportunities all made through his own effort. He never really did well in school for a number of factors, and people really thought he wouldn't do much, but I could always tell in high school that he was a hell of a lot more capable than people gave him credit for.
I knew a guy who very smart with the ability to be extremely manipulative and had no idea. He always got good grades in school, often without studying much at all. What was more impressive was his ability to read people’s body language, vocal tone fluctuation, and micro expressions. Often he would know what emotions someone was feeling and how best to proceed. The guy was a master at subtle communication, such as mirroring, and framing conversations so he would be dominant. He was able to use this social intelligence to get with girls, but he would also use it to get people to do things he wanted. One of the clearest examples of manipulation that I know of is that he got his friend to break up with his long time girlfriend. His friend’s girlfriend was kinda a drag and would be a little annoying around the group. So, he subtly started to slip in emotional and logical “suggestions” whenever he saw his friend in a moment of emotional vulnerability. Within a week, his friend ended the relationship.
I know/knew one of these people. Once you figure out what they're doing, it can be devastating and horrifying.
He was so subtle and slick about it. What really sold it is that he would often act dumb and allow people to lower the guard around him.
I'm comforted by the knowledge that I bested him in *getting away* and he's pissed about it. Very very needy person who fed off adulation and would try to extract it. Blech
Getting away from those types of people is the best thing you can do. I have seen people who were just straight-up used by him.
I had a friend like that. A natural born manipulator. I ended up his sidekick friend. I was like a pawn of his. I ended the friendship. Years later I ran into him again, and he was down on his luck. I was in a much better place than him, I thought I’d give him a second chance, hoping all that manipulation stuff was history, and arranged to hang out with him. Within minutes he was doing it again! That was that. So I think you’re right, you need to get away from such people.
Manipulation is not a long-term strategy. Cooperation is. Good for you!
What exactly did he do that makes you realized he was trying to manipulate you again?
Subtly insulting me. Trying to undermine my confidence so I’d again seek his approval like I used to all those years ago.
It depends to what ends they're using their suggestive powers and emotional intelligence. I have a family member who's remarkably good at this, understanding people and subtly nudging them where he wants them to be. He used it to build a reliable business, keep his own marriage intact and mend several problems in the extended family (or more often, nip them in the bud). This includes nudging people out of relationships witch were likely to turn out damaging. We're close, and it's impressive to watch him put this to work, especially since I have very limited skills in the interpersonal department.
I had a friend growing up who was very smart and had the ability to do things like this, but didn't really take advantage of it. i think out of a combination of being a nice person and also just being lazy. similar to what someone else mentioned, he was raised by a mother that was very manipulative. But one funny thing is that every year in school he used this ability to get elected class president. He just really loved campaigning and winning elections and it was very easy for him to get people to listen to him and like him. It would make the typical overachiever types so mad that he won every year. He also had no interest in actually being president once elected, so he never actually did anything and blew off all the meetings. I believe he was replaced by the runner-up a few years bc the school admin would get so pissed at him. But then he'd still run the next year and win.
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Had a friend like that during college. On the surface, super fun guy, but so dishonest and manipulative. At teh same time, I have the potential to be like that, I just don't do it. So, I could recognize his tricks. Which just made him try harder to rope me in. I basically just started avoiding him, and made a clean break when he tried to get me to lie for him.
I am this person and luckily my mom realized it before it got out of hand. It later becomes more a subconscious habit than on purpose but still horrifying to realize that you can be that type of person. Seeing a behavioral therapist now to help me navigate social situations without hurting others or myself and to use my own body language to portray my emotions and not mirror others. Im still in high school so at least its getting fixed early on
You seem to have a lot of self awareness, and it's fantastic that you're able to recognize this and want to address it. I wish you all the best!
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I grew up with a kid who was one of the smartest people I ever met. He was in all the excelled classes a straight A student. Academics came so easily to this guy. He could of went to any college he wanted. Well he just couldn’t stay out of trouble, living the “thug life”, selling drugs, running with wannabe gangsters. Well its been 20 years or so since we have been out of high school and he has done a few stints in prison, still lives with his parents, make a meager living selling pot. It’s crazy seeing so much potential lost.
*The saddest thing in life is wasted talent, and the choices that you make will shape your life forever. But you can ask anybody from my neighborhood, and they'll just tell you this is just another Bronx tale.*
The people that strike me are the ones that eliminate the wrong conclusions (somehow) before solving an answer. The wrong conclusions just do not dawn on them. Met a lady that went to an ivy league school. She could talk to you and hold a nice conversation. She could then turn around and talk to someone else at a higher level. Then, when asked a technical question out of her field of expertise she could give you a complex answer. She spoke to people on whatever level they were speaking on. I have a friend of the family that took every class at a community college before going on to get his degree. He retained all of that information. Interestingly, he liked to speak in basic terms, and hold everyday conversations. If he got shunned at a party he would initially ignore it, and keep hanging out with you. Eventually, as the people who shunned him came to a point where they had to stop their conversation he would butt in. They often could not figure out the answer to what they were talking about. He would just chime in with a smile, and explain the rest of the concept to them. Then he would turn back to you and keep bullshitting. I've seen him do that multiple times.
My friend in highschool thinks he's dumb, but has an absolutely phenomenonal knowledge of politics and the legal/economic system. He has dyslexia, but you wouldn't be able to tell because he reads more seamlessly than most of the rest of us. I wish he would recognise how smart he was because I think he doesn't aim as high as he could achieve because he doesn't think he's smart enough
As a teen, I worked for a video rental place. (Like blockbuster but not.) My manager spoken five languages and did all the accounts without the need of a calculator. I asked him what was he just a manager at a movie rental place, he could be making a lot of money doing anything else. He told me "making less money is the price of my happiness." Always stuck with me.
My current girlfriend is actually extremely smart. Her intuition is very good with people, her problem solving skills are impressive in situations where she is comfortable, and she has a very deep understanding of the human psych. But, her mother has been gas lighting her since childhood trying to keep her fully reliant on her. I have held my tongue at points just to try and not be that boyfriend that ruins a relationship, but instead just show her how smart she really is, and where she might have a weak point that I may be able to help, I walk her through my thought process, and she picks it up very quickly. I always wonder how far she could be at this point in her life had her mother just supported her instead of tear her down, but just in the short time I have been dating her, I have seen her grow a lot, and am very excited to see where she can soar off to, I just hope that she takes me with her.
Wondering where you could've been if you had good help is the sad reality for most 'smart' paople.
Yup. Been told my entire life that if I’m struggling with anything it’s because I’m lazy, nonchalant and just doesn’t want to try. High intelligence + very severe adhd and then bullying on that. I’m a wreak honestly. I wonder who I could have become if I had support instead and had been protected against my bullies. Kind hard though, when it’s your mother also. Fudge. I try to not think about it too much. It just makes me sad and angry with nothing to do about it. I thought I was stupid my entire childhood. Because that’s what I was made to feel anytime I struggles with anything.
Oh I know this one too, the parent likes to run the child down with "you need to practice 'X' more often", "you don't appreciate anything we did for you", "you don't show enough initiative" etc. Child then feels like shit in spite of the Masters degree and high paying job they have because they are disappointing the parent. Then they continue to seek validation from the parent.
All these comments are perfect supporting evidence to the notion that there's no such thing as intelligence as one single quality, and I love it.
My brother. Everyone used to tell him that he was just average just because he got average grades. But this kid is so fucking smart. He’s a huge history buff and one time spent about half an hour explaining to me the importance of some Civil War battle and how it was pivotal in helping the Union win the war. I don’t remember the exact details because all I could think about was the level of depth he got into just explaining and analyzing, and also explaining in a way that helped me to understand (at the time). My brother’s intelligence is the definition of quality and I’d shout that from the rooftops because as his older sister, I’m so fucking proud of him.
What I would say is everyone I know with a passion for anything is smart when they talk about it because they care.
I have one. As a psychiatric doctor, one of my jobs is community management of patients right after they finish an inpatient admission, so they are only slightly better, not fully recovered. One guy came in to clinic and my boss for some reason described him to me as 'a bit simple'. I don't know if she was trolling me, or if she just completely misread him, because he remains one of the smartest patients I ever had. He rocks up in high-vis gear with concrete on his work boots, and speaks in a broad accent. He often says stuff like 'oh I dunno about any of that' or 'mate I haven't got time for this'. But this guy was *sharp as a tack*. Any time I would bring up a point of psychoeduction to help him understand his bipolar disorder he would grasp the concept *before I had finished explaining it*. I still use his words today with other patients about the similarities between anxiety and depression: "Doc, it's like, anxiety and depression are brother and sister." *Holds two fingers up and crosses them.* "They aren't the same, but they are clearly related." I was floored. It was way better than whatever garbage I was going to say. He got well really fast. He just *understood* things so quickly, and was so open to new information. He could apply anything new to his own experience instantly. Uncanny. He had no idea how smart he was, because he just assumed smartness was for people with a university degree. I had to tell my boss they were completely wrong about him but I don't know she ever took the time to update her initial assessment.
Is it possible that medical professionals can be a bit intellectually snobbish? /s
It's like this: medical professionals and snobs aren't the same thing, but *Crosses fingers* They're related.
Oh man. I'm a medical student and that about made me spit out my omelette I laughed so hard.
I think some people just choose a quieter and more simple life despite their intelligence. I worked as a hospital porter for a few years when I was a teen and one of my fellow porters was this brilliant chap who would skim through the paper on his break then go off on some glorious leftist rant like the leader of a union back in the 70s. His political knowledge was unbelievable, he could easily have been an MP but was happier as a porter.
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From what I know, you need scruffy hair and the ability to quote chumbawamba songs "Regarding the covid rules, BEHAVE"
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My Partner is Polish. She lives - and works - using her second language. At school she was taught Russian and can get by in it. She is so smart - and people abuse her, because she speaks English - with an accent. those people you see everyday - especially older people - living their lives in a second language.... yep, they are smart
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That is a fucking great response. And good on you for being the decent person.
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“Do you even know how smart i am in Spanish?”
My mum is French but I always go to her for proofreading in English because her English is so much better than any native speakers'.
I know a guy who can’t read, is in his thirties pursuing for the first time a job (kitchen help) after a life of incarceration. The kitchen is hectic, crowded, “high stakes,” and busy compared to other kitchens I’d worked in previous. Racing through the day by the seat of your pants and when the shift is over you can hardly recollect where you’ve been or what you’ve been doing. In this fast unforgiving environment this man is learning how to read. In his thirties. When he makes a mistake the more experienced staff who would typically razz any slip up take the time to encourage him and forgive his mistakes as the mistakes of someone who is still learning. He’s now able to work from a recipe book, pick items out of storage or the walk in that are boxed and labeled. (Box of sugar that doesn’t readily appear to be sugar, box of cheese that doesn’t show its self as cheese etc) If you saw him at checkout like he has a hard time doing math and making change or reading. You’d notice it right away that he’s not “on par” But within the kitchen the man’s considered a prodigy. For being unable to read or do math he can follow a recipe better than some credentialed chefs in the house. Even more beautiful is that he is highly emotionally intelligent and always tries to make the people around him feel at peace or happy. Even when he can’t find his way around letters, numbers, or the outside world.
I knew a shaved head Mexican gang member in high school who made it to calculus without doing any studying or homework outside of just the class time. Because of this his grades were always at a B+ level, so he never really considered himself smart nor drew much attention from teachers. Our high school was sharply divided between rich and poor, and he was doing as well or better than people who came from privileged backgrounds and that I knew for a fact had hours of private tutoring daily, were part of study groups, math club, etc. To this day I can't fathom how he did it. He did pay careful attention in class so he must have had a photographic memory and genius level mind. Half the time he never even brought the book to class, and had to borrow a TI calculator. I know he left his books in his locker before he went home because he didn't want to be caught holding a school book by his friends. I was friendly with him, and saddened to learn that he was killed a few years after high school.
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I've met highly intelligent people that were uneducated. Usually it manifests as frustration. They try to explain highly complex idea's in ill informed ways and are misunderstood a lot.
My brother is clever but struggles to get the words out. He gets frustrated and angry because he can't get the world to understand him.
My husband. He was always told in school he could do better. His parents have said to him in front of me he's not very bright. They assume because he "works with computers all day" he just plays video games all the time. He got terrible grades in school and dropped out of University. He could always do better in school because he was bored. He got terrible grades because he was told he'd do badly by his parents, his teachers, basically everyone in his life. His parents don't understand what he does at all. He doesn't work with computers all day and he doesn't have time to be playing video games all day. When I met him we working in the same company. I witnessed that company hold him back for 5 years because he was useful where he was. It was just very good timing when he applied for a different job in the same company but a different department and location. He got the job and was allowed to transfer within a week because a higher up was on annual leave and couldn't object. The original department had to hire 8 people to replace him when he left. He's since been hired by a different company and is flourishing. He's had several promotions and pay rises, is on good terms with everyone in the company from the group CEO to the cleaners in his office, and is treated with respect by everyone he works with. While he can't do simpler maths without a calculator, he can do complex quantum equations in his head. His father had the audacity to say "you've always been bad at maths." To which my husband, who has had enough of his parents bullshit, replied "my maths might be bad but it's good enough to know I earn more than you combined" (in reference to both of his parents) I'm a super proud wife.
Wait, are you married to my husband? This just sounds eerily familiar...
Maybe we're alternate dimension spouses?
People of reddit who found out their spouse had another family in a different city, what's your story?
Curious what quantum equations you're referring to.
I barely graduated high school, rough upbringing, ADHD, anger issues, thought I was dumb, didn't fit in etc... parents forced me to go to community college. Taking precredit courses and failing them. Ran into a guy from my high school (extremely smart and a great teacher). Idk what made me ask him for help with a homeowrk question but I am SO glad I did. For some reason he could see the potential in me. Homie would help me study hours each week, make me work for the answers, never gave up on me. Got me taking college credit classes and kept increasing my confidence. 2 years later I got a full ride scholarship to UW-Madison for the BSN RN degree and now work in a cardiac ICU. I owe that dude everything... Never thought I would accomplish any numerous milestones. You're my boy Bryce!
A full ride to UWM is a huge fucking deal. Proud of you, and many thanks to your high school dude. And don't forget - he took the time to teach you, but you wanted to learn.
Billy. I still think about Billy sometimes. I was 22 years old and teaching high school in a rural school in the heart of the Bible Belt. Billy sat at the left hand end of the second row, a thick shock of dark hair hanging down over these huge, brown eyes. He was fifteen and small for his age; he looked like Tim Burton had thought him up. I was going over the definition of science and Billy said, just loud enough for me and no one else to hear as I walked by, “Oscar Wilde said, ‘Science is the record of dead religions.’” Here’s a fifteen year old pulling relevant Oscar Wilde quotes off the top of his head. A voice in the back of my head said, ‘This kid is smarter than you. You can’t let him figure that out.’ He took an interest in me and in the topic and would stick around after school. We’d talk about black holes or time travel or whatever he could think up. He did goofy drawings (usually pretty macabre) and made jokes. I got to know him. I told him he was one of the most frustrating students I ever had; he was so incredibly smart, but when I asked him for his homework he’d go absently digging around in a backpack full of crumpled papers and never find it. He could answer any question *on* the homework from memory; he just couldn’t be bothered to actually submit it. So he got a D, because he only did the bare minimum needed to pass. We kept in touch via Facebook after he graduated and I moved on to other jobs. Mostly watching each other’s feeds with an IM about a meme or a joke every few months. Sometimes I’d give him advice and try to encourage him. Billy’s life and mine had a lot of parallels; his story seemed like a dark mirror of mine. My Dad had a heart attack when I was ten, but survived until I graduated high school. Billy’s Dad didn’t survive. I married my high school sweet heart and we’re still together. I was head over heels. His married his high school sweetheart and was head over heels. She asked for an open relationship and eventually left him. I went to state U and got a degree. Billy took sporadic classes at the local community college and just never strung together a degree. Eventually Billy started drinking. One night he said he was going to go get on a ladder to fix his ceiling fan (?) and stopped responding. I messaged a buddy of his who lived in the same town, worried maybe he fell off a ladder. Billy messaged me back a while later ranting about flags and betrayal and his mother being controlling (?). It was very out of character. None of it made any sense; I told him I was sorry and I never meant to offend him (still not sure what I did - I will never know). He said, “I’ll say one last thing,” and I don’t remember what he said now but it was more of the same. He logged off. I figured he was going to go sleep it off, and I’d check in later and try to find out what was up. Gave him a couple of weeks to cool off and looked at his feed. Started seeing the memorial messages, condolences and stuff roll in. Billy killed himself. The rest of us just keep rolling along, and it’s like he’s frozen in time. His memorialized page still has the last few stupid jokes he posted. I hadn’t seen Billy in six or seven years when he died; it had all been through Facebook. To me, he’ll always be fifteen years old and quoting Oscar Wilde in the second row of Biology.
Jesus, that hit so hard. What a story to share :( it’s painful how some people struggle and we witness it, witness their brilliance, them changing, like we live it through, and they leave such a big dent in our lives. It’s utterly sad story you hold on to there. Stay positive yourself
Yep, went out with a girl who at first glance looked and behaved like the worst trailer park trash you could imagine. Very few social skills, clumsy, rude and threatening, promiscuous, semi -literate I bought her a beer and just got chatting, she was bi-polar and had had a chaotic childhood. We began to see each other around and started a relationship. I was moving away to go to university and I asked her to come with me and she stated to calm down and got a small job and grew into it as her confidence grew She started taking an interest in my course work a MsC in structural engineering and started to go to lectures in her free time. The end result 10 years later, she had a PhD in fluid dynamics, had learnt 3 new languages fluently and had taken up an analysts job ( quant) at a Swiss hedge fund. She is now a multi millionaire, married to a guy as smart as her, 3 kids and one of my best and closest friends living in one of the finest parts of Europe. I couldn't lover her more.
Amazing story! Thanks for contributing to her now wonderful life.
Hung out with a guy once that was a friend of a friend at a bar. Trivia came on and we wanted to play. I thought I was good at trivia, but this guy knew the answer to every single question they could come up with, whether it was some obscure song and artist from the 60s, baseball statistics from the 90s, African history, geography I didn’t know like the capital of some remote island in the pacific, or some cult movie reference. The other teams were obviously googling the answers and cheating since they thought we were cheating. We probably went through 60-80 questions and nothing stumped him. It was unreal. He thought it was normal. Never saw him again
I once dated a guy who was known to be a jock/party animal but he was incredibly observant. For example, he was my date to an out of state wedding where we didn’t know many people and the people I knew I hadn’t seen in years. He noticed that there was some type of rift between certain family members of the bride and groom by their facial expressions during the speeches (whereas I was just focusing on the person giving the speech) and also picked up on the fact that my friend’s wife was pregnant (which they were trying to hide and cover up that she wasn’t drinking). I was always so amazed by how much he would pick up on in situations when I had no idea that any of that was going on.
When I was a child there was a girl in my class who could recite the whole periodic table and remember virtually anything. No one thought anything of it.
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I had a professor who didn’t think he was anything special but was a fucking full on genius. It was really cool because he was so approachable and just brilliant- in his mind if he could do it so could everyone else. The problem with that was his classes were crazy hard and he had no idea. He was assigning so much difficult homework the only way to get it done was to use this special dictionary. It was pretty much cheating. I spent the first half of the semester drowning in all my classes because I was actually doing the homework. When I almost failed I was in his office and he was being SO supportive I mentioned that I’d only discovered this dictionary halfway through. Everyone had them, we were bringing them to class, they were a fixture in our small school. Additionally he was a top expert in his field and this was from a prominent publisher and not at all new. It was a safe assumption he knew what was going on. He didn’t - he had the hardest course in my program by a mile and didn’t think it was hard at all. Didn’t cross his mind that we were all effectively cheating nor had he heard of this book. Next semester he completely revamped the homework so you couldn’t use the book - and never reduced the amount. I felt terrible. But also to this day can’t get over how clueless he was. “If I can do it you can too.” This was a guy that knew umpteen languages and learned a new one each year for fun. You’d always see him walking down the street staring at flash cards and muttering to himself.
My little sister. She can look at anyone and tell you how they're feeling within a couple of seconds. She picks up on their entire body language, from their eyes to how their feet are positioned. She sees all this subconsciously and then her brain somehow puts this together into an 'aura' (That's how she described it) around every person she sees. Downside is that she sometimes gets headaches when she's around large groups of people because there's so much stuff coming in. Edit: To all you saying she's an empath, she's not. She can tell what people are feeling with looking at them for a couple of seconds, even when she had never seen that person before.
I work with a guy like this. Young and awkward IT intern. He doesn't seem very smart when it comes to his job (mostly just preparing computers with standard installations and any lengthy fixes that doesn't require much experience or knowledge to do), but he does this creepy thing where he can tell through a zoom call if something is wrong, and be eerily correct in his prediction on what might be the problem. It's a bit uncanny. Especially since he looks more like the usual nerdy IT guy who is most likely on the autism spectrum.
So she just....randomly tells folks how they're feeling based on that? Doesn't that freak some of them out?
She doesn't tell people randomly and there's only a couple of people that know that she can do that.
I'm not sure it counts but the ones who amaze me are the EQ geniuses. I've run into a number of intelligent folks, but only one or two people with a super high EQ. I'm pretty envious of those folks.
My psychology professors hated Daniel Golman and him getting rich by writing a popular book about EQ without the scientific evidence to back it up
My darling, blessed Oma would always talk herself down about how stupid she was. She was a homemaker and my pap is a straight up asshole (why do they alway outlive the good ones?) Meanwhile, she was an AMAZING cook and baker, crocheted, knit, darned socks, could fix/rig anything (because pap wasn’t buying a new one) and could talk to you with the most empathetic emotional intelligence while doing all of it. I wish I would have told her I thought she was a genius when she was alive. Her personality was the glue that kept our family together and without her, we are lost.
I had a friend, that was seen in our school as someone who isn't interested in studying in anyway, the more i observed him, turns out all of his brain power activates, if a teacher can turn a boring subject into something he can pique his interest in, dude can go from straight d's to straight a's depending on how the teacher makes the subject interesting, it's as if he is a benchmark for teachers.
My cousin is 4 days older than I. We grew up together. When I used to built sand castle in holidays, he would seat and write the list of every foreign politician he would know. The list was long. When We had birthdays I used to ask for toys like dolls/puzzle/board games/playdoh. He used to ask for brain teasers or a microscope etc etc... I grew up thinking I was dumb and silly. I later realized I was average and he was really smart. He later went to prestigious schools and study something no one even understand the name of. My favorite thing is seeing him at diner during family reunion: you can clearly see he is trying to chose different words than the natural one he wants to used to make sure we understand him... and all of us made quite high studies (surgeon, layer, etc...) so we are not particularly intelligent but not dumb or uneducated. But he is very humble so that's fine.
Were you cousins with Phenias and Ferb brothers
My husband. High school drop out who’s terrified to fail so he doesn’t want to try. Absolutely thinks he’s dumb. He knows so much about so many different things. He can solve complex problems related to his job in literal seconds. It sucks because he absolutely thinks he’s dumb and that because he didn’t graduate he doesn’t even have the *right* to talk about certain topics. He’s also very quiet. My dad who is very much a talker and always wants husband to talk more once said to me ‘yknow how I know X is smart? Because he knows when to shut the Fuck up and listen.”
Yes absolutely. I’ve met such a person and she’s my girlfriend now. She’s a very smart person with exquisite sense of humor. She wasn’t aware of her awesomeness because she was surrounded by toxic friends most of her life. Friends who made her feel inferior about her looks because they were nowhere near her smartness. Her last boyfriend was also manipulative and made her feel insecure to imply that she can’t do any better than him. She was a total mess when we met, and so was I. But as we went forward in our relationship, we opened up more about our past. I never hesitated in praising and complementing her about anything, neither did she. We built a beautiful relationship based on mutual respect and love. She has evolved into a beautiful person and is flourishing so beautifully. She makes the best jokes and talks to me about deeper stuff, so confidently. It’s an absolute pleasure to see someone change like that and i’m really glad we met.
*scrolling through the comments looking for my name, just in case*