A couple weeks back I told Chris I was planning to write a blog about intelligence (however pretentious it makes me out to be. I need some pretention right now).
What I'm really curious about is whether other people do the same thing, and to what degree, and I'm asking now in case I forget to at the end (or as a reading guide for when I ask again at the end--you decide).
When I was very young my IQ was tested, I was somewhere over 130 (I've since dropped, btw), deemed "gifted and talented" and put into a program of classes geared directly towards all of us now banded together gifted and talented kids. It was a couple years (say, until 5th grade) before I discovered being smart was a bad thing: you get picked on, the cool kids won't let you play with them, no one will let you play sports with them... I learned that being smart as a kid carries a big social stigma (I know, we all know, big surprise) (tangent: maybe that's part of what's wrong with our education levels--not just the teachers, government and parents suck, but maybe the kids are actively dumbing down to be less stigmatized. I tell these kids now: it don't work).
My response: dumb down. Now, I didn't dumb down at all in my school work. Still brought home the steady excellent grades (except P.E.; when you're a nerd, geek, whatever, no matter how much P.E. is graded on participation, you can't participate enough to earn a grade higher than a C--even if you excell at the P.E.) but I did dumb down.
I was afraid of sounding too smart. Classroom discussion on my part came to the bare minimum (often only when called on, despite my not raising my hand). No matter how much insight I felt I could add to discussion, I actively avoided participating. This is a problem I still have today. It doesn't matter how much I feel I can add to a class discussion, or how wrong/dumb/etc. I think someone's point is in a discussion--I won't chime in 99% of the time for fear of being recognized as one of the smart ones. I'm the only grad student in a film class peopled by vast idiots (ooh, my snob levels are rising). We discuss Freud and it's obvious they don't understand squat. I don't pipe in.
I often, in school, with peers, with complete strangers will actively dumb down my speech. I'll make longer simplistic explanations for things that could be much shorter (often enough, the person I'm doing this to will then rephrase what I tell them into the shorter, smarter version I avoided using--the nerds). (I just spent this entire post doing that, in fact: over explaining the simple: I pretend to be much more stupid than I actually am for fear of being recognized as smart).
Is this the lamest behavioural trait or what? Do you do it too?
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7 comments:
Nope, can't say that I do, but then again, I'm not the smartest cookie in the batch either. But I have to agree, it is lame.
Its hard to say if its lame or not. If dumbing down is an actual survival technique in school, then I don't think you can really debate its lameness because society drives you to that. I think I'd rather agree that society in general then is lame for not encouraging everyone to be as smart as they can be, rather than rewarding stupidity. But that's a bigger problem obviously :)
But nope, I cannot say I've ever done that, but that's probably because in some areas I come across as quite intelligent, but in others, I really am a complete idiot. So perhaps I always felt that was my saving grace; yes, I sounded really smart in English class (or Reading or whatever it was called when we were tykes), but the moment numbers entered into the picture, I was (honestly) one of the dumbest kids in the class.
Ok, so this is probably what makes me a true nerd, but I loved being the smartest one in class when I was young. Loved it. But, I think my home life had more to do with it than any stigma from friends. Chances are, it was the only place I was going to get any praise so I ate it up. I was pretty confident as a little kid, too, so if anybody gave me grief I would just beat the crap out of 'em. Yup, ask Travis. As I got older though, I got ridiculously tired of all the teachers in my advanced classes pushing me about college when my parents were just as adamant about me not going. At some point, I just gave up and figured if I did crappy or mediocre work then I wouldn't have to deal with it anymore. Healthy, eh?
And what is the deal with your IQ dropping as you get older? When I was a kid I was probably more intelligent than half the adults I knew. Now, I feel like a complete moron half the time. I'm sure it is partially perception and partially the lack of educational stimulants. The part that bugs me the most? Not that I don't know diddly squat about current events, but that I'm now having comma issues. I would really like to be comma confident again. :)
Ok, I'm the only one of my blood relitives to get a graduate degree( though my steps; one is a phd and the other a lawyer), and I still feel tounge tied arround them.
In high school I was a nerd by choice. I think I was nice and in turn liked but I didn't hang out with others, prefering *my* books to the company of my peers or my school book.
I asked HUGE amounts of questions, and was teased for this, but the reason that I asked questions is because I *truely* wanted to know answers. I have often thought that I was slow or missing something and thus ask questions to try and understand stuff.
So my grades sucked because I rarely tried to apply myself.
As a kid, my parents and others made me feel that the books I read weren't 'important', so though I read alot it was Star Trek books or books about Xanth or comics....
It wasn't until Grad School that I really got good grades.
I have no idea what my iq is, but because I'm a beta male I defer to others...
Don't think I've actually answered the question but I tried.
I knew a girl in high school that acted like the biggest air head you've ever met. As we became friends and spent more time with her, I realized that she was very smart. VERY smart. So I asked her about it. She said that one summer she decided that she was tired of being treated as the smart girl and all that went with it (teasing, ostracising, helping with homework, etc.). That's when she made up dumb-bimbo girl.
Hmmm. I guess I'm saying that you aren't the only one who does stuff like this.
Oh, and just because I am a geek I went and took an IQ test to get a point of reference. I scored 131. Of course, I found it on the IQ for dummies website so...j/k :)
I talk too much. Poor socialization I guess. An offshoot of the "segregation" enforced by administration, teachers, parents and other students. So... prepare for odd personal stories that may (or may not) have bearing (I'm going to try and be brief, I apologize if it comes out cryptic instead). My mother decided that I couldn't handled Kindergarten and decided to pull me out and wait an extra year, then discovered home schooling. In Fifth grade I was returned to public school, tested and placed in both Math and Language Arts gifted programs (the only student in both). Then my family moved to another state and the Elementary school demanded testing before putting me in their programs. I topped out their high school level test and was promptly put in a program to "expose" me to new things without ever actually doing any advanced work (it's called mainstreaming, ask your favorite teacher how they feel about it). The pattern continued; change schools, go back home for awhile, another school, and then... because I needed to challenge myself (all the adults around me were constantly talking about my "potential") I skipped High School and enrolled in community college. Two years later we moved again, so I decided to go back to High School and have a Senior Year. It was good, but, too little too late as they say. Through all this I didn't realize why I was ostracized, why people made it a point to sit next to me in class but never invited me to their parties. Society will not tolerate people too far outside the "norm"; towering intellect is feared, not revered. Want proof? What can you tell me about Albert Einstein? E=MC2, he didn't comb his hair, and sometimes wet his pants rather than interrupt his work. If his colleagues had wanted to preserve respect for his work they would have covered up that last part, but what they wanted to prove was that he wasn't the big shot everyone said he was. That's the price you pay for ultimate brains, the inability to handle basic social skills, right? Anyway, I used to correct the teachers when they handled an equation ineptly, if you're wrong you need to know so you can do it right next time, don't you? Other kids used to get a good kick out of that, but they wouldn't correct the teacher, they knew the social rules; never correct your "superiors". Work isn't any different, my managers can't figure out why turnover is high, they can't handle the basic cost/value equations to differeniate between good investments and bad, hell... they can barely manage to do their jobs (pun intended). At long last I come to the answer to your question E; Yes. It took me awhile to learn the rules, and there are still days I struggle with acceptance, but the higher up the work/social "food chain" you are, the dumber my answer will be.
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