Smart is something you learn —

I’m sure most people don’t think they’re dumb. In fact, I wager that most people would say they are “sort-of” smart, or “kind-of” smart. When I ask my own students the same question, they usually shrug and say “sometimes,” or at “some-things”, and vagueness reigns complete. When I double down to get them to be specific, then they turn and point to another student (pretty much almost any other student) and say, “I’m not smart like them.”

While I still don’t exactly know what “smart like them” means, I do know they believe that it is some other person/student who is really smart. You know – totally smart. Like, good at everything. They never need to study – they always get everything right. And obviously, they get straight A’s.

You know, we all wish we were that student during project and test time. But the real point is, the students (and people) believe that the “smart” person is NOT them.

And that’s the way it goes. In all my years of teaching and learning, I cannot list the hundreds of times a parent, student, or even my own family has written someone off as “smart” or “not smart.”   And every time, I am amazed at how they treat “smart-ness” as something you either have or you don’t.

The prevailing thinking goes that if you have it, you’re lucky. If you don’t, well then, school – and life – will be worse for you, and there’s not much you can do about it. Because, you know, IQ (what most people consider to be the pinnacle and fool-proof intelligence test) is fixed at birth. Right?

Uh. Wrong.

IQ is not your intelligence

The I.Q test does not measure how smart you are. It measures how good you are at taking the test. Period.

(I’ll explain why I think the IQ test is flawed in another post).

Intelligence is generally defined as an ability to do and know stuff. In fact, intelligence – or the act of being smart – is so hard to clearly define that there are not less than ten different attempts at defining it (that I could find – there might be more).

The reason smart is hard to define is because it is big, complicated and different for everyone. And the truth is, everyone is smart.

Like a fingerprint, my smart is not the same as yours. As a result, when we try to define our intelligence by comparing it to someone else’s we will always fail. So, instead of writing yourself off as not smart in general, or not smart in something specific, give your self a break.

And, because smart is different for everyone, it takes some investigation to learn how your smart works. Really, it’s a journey and you never stop learning. But once you have a better understanding of how your brain thinks, where your strengths lie, and how to build on what you have, it will be much easier to build your smart. In this blog, I’ll be giving you plenty of ways to learn how your smart works, but you can start by discovering your own brain bias.

The second thing about smart is that you have to work at it.  But, it’s not about “hard” work.  It’s about smart-work.   It’s about developing those learning skills and habits to make learning easy. You know those ‘study skillz’ your teacher never taught you? Yeah, those, but not as boring. But again, don’t worry, I’ll be giving you plenty of guidance, tactics, and tips to strengthen your own type of learning muscles.

So, how do you learn your smart? 

You can start by figuring out how your brain works and how you see the world.  Uncover what you might not have noticed about how you think, process, and act.  And, do your learning in a way that makes sense to you, because learning should feel natural and not forced.

To begin your journey of learning your smart, start here:

1. Brain Hack; How Do You Learn Best?
2. Visual Learning Style
3. Aural Learning Style

And remember: just because something is hard for you, it does not mean you cannot do it. Everyone is smart!