There's no doubt that education has succeeded in bringing about significant growth in the world at large. Education is responsible for the economic, social, and political growth and development of society in general.
Going to school offers children the ability to learn about different fields of Education, including humans, literature, culture, mathematics, politics, and several other topics.
It also plays a very big part in enhancing the mechanism of reasoning in children.
However, I certainly don't believe that one's level of intelligence should be pinned down to just going to school and having really good grades.
Intelligence is the potential to use one's memory, knowledge, experience, understanding, reasoning, and judgement in order to interpret,
think, solve problems and adapt to new situations.
From this, we can say that reasoning, problem solving, and learning are significant elements of human intelligence.
Now, do school grades determine one's level of intelligence?
The answer to this has to be "No"!
School examinations do not measure intelligence rather they tend to measure academic achievements of a student.
Back in my high school days, in the different classrooms, you find that everyone considers the students with really good grades as the intelligent ones and those with poor grades as the dumb one's.
I always wondered if this was truly the case because I happened to know a good number of people who never even stepped foot in a classroom but are still able to handle their businesses successfully, critically solve problems and go about their daily lives pretty well.
But you see, the thing is that grades are not really concerned with student’s logical thinking, reasoning or intellect. Rather, they are just a combination of the pupil’s overall understanding of the lessons. Sometimes, having high grades in certain school works is based on how much you are able to meet the teacher’s own standards.
In my opinion, most schoolwork is based on memorization skills. A good number of students are actually capable of this. Some even try to pass examinations by mere cramming.
I honestly don't think that the ability to remember a specific concept can accurately determine one's comprehension skills or understanding of something. It should rather be something more practical.
We must also not forget that some students are capable of maintaining really good grades through just cheating their way to success. I used to know some students back in school that were pros in exam malpractice. They would occasionally receive awards for their outstanding performances in some subjects. Little did they know that they were only cheating themselves because they would eventually end up with no practical knowledge and understanding on the topics.
In the end, having soaring grades comes down to how much commitment and hardwork a student is willing to throw in to work for their grades.
A truly intelligent student without the right amount of motivation and commitment may not even be able to maintain good grades.
And of course, one doesn't have to go to school to become intelligent.
The truth is that intelligence is completely natural, you can choose to sharpen your mind by placing yourself in mentally challenging situations and committing to learning new things.
The level of intelligence in an individual is actually dependent on various factors, including your genetics, upbringing, environment, and access to education. And education doesn’t even have to be formal to positively influence your intellect.
We can become more educated simply by experiencing important things in our lives. For instance, every time you make a mistake or try something new , you’re only educating yourself and testing the boundaries of what you can do.
In conclusion, school and good grades shouldn't be the determinant of one's level of intelligence, rather, this capacity can be measured by tests used to examine your capacity for learning, like an IQ test.
This post is my response to the @hive-learners weekly posting topics for week 31 edition 01 on the title "Intelligence".
Thanks for reading! ❤️