Intelligence Is Not Black or White; It's Gray

 By Diego Garcia III | Editor of The Brownsville Beacon

The smart ones will always get you in trouble.

I am not the smartest person in the world. However, I am smart enough to know there is no such thing as one, all-encompassing, universal measure of intelligence. Intelligence comes in all ways, shapes, and forms.

There are people who are commonly referred to as "book smart." If you were inclined to put me in a category, this is probably the category I would fit into. I went to college and I received a bachelor's degree. I wore a couple of honor cords when I walked across the stage on the South Lawn of the University of Texas at Brownsville in 2008. 

The piece of card stock with my name embossed on it hanging on the wall doesn't make me smart. I've always said people who have college degrees aren't smarter than people who don't; all it means is you went to school longer than other people did. I've worked with plenty of people who have master's degrees who couldn't put together a coherent sentence with two hands and a flashlight. 

I can tell you the story about the Spanish coming to Texas and helping create a new culture among the indigenous peoples of North America. I can also tell you the story of America's emergence as the most powerful nation at the end of the Second World War. I can't, however, diagnose problems you might have with your car's air conditioner. I also have no idea how to fix a leaking pipe, or replace a seal on a leaking toilet. In the exact same way, I most definitely cannot draw blood from a patient, nor can I diagnose someone's illness.

There are all kinds of people. There are all kinds of intelligence. Saying someone is unfit for office because they lack a college degree, or a graduate degree, is ludicrous. A degree in higher education has never been a requirement to hold office. 

There is no substitute for legitimate, real-world, hands-on exierience. There isn't anything in a book that can teach you how to raise a child. There is nothing in a book that can prepare you quite the same as jumping in and doing something for yourself.

If someone wants to become a teacher, the traditional method is to go to college and go through the education program. One of the last things you do when you go through a traditional educational program is something called student teaching. You spend a semester at a public school as members of the faculty from your university and the host school monitor your progress and grade you on your performance. There are some students who excel during the standard classroom setting then fall apart when they have to put what they've learned to use. It's one thing to read and learn about something in a classroom. It's quite something else to take those lessons learned and apply them in a real-world classroom setting.

In the same manner, having all the graduate degrees in the world is no substitute for being an involved parent with legitimate interests in seeing their child's school district move in the right direction. "Book smarts" will only get you so far; they will not take the place of being a successful parent who has school-aged children who are facing the issues that plague our district today.

Some of the world's smartest people have risen to the highest elected office in the land. Over the past few generations, these same brilliant people have also been responsible for neglecting the environmental issues that are destroying our planet, they've managed to manipulate the world's economy and brought about a consistent state of economic upheaval, and they've brought us all close to nuclear annihilation.

There is a difference between intelligence and wisdom. Maybe we don't need the smartest people to hold elected office. We need wise people who know they need to surround themselves with the right kind of people to move Brownsville and her public institutions in the right direction.

Sometimes the smartest people are also the most dangerous.

There is more to life than being the smartest person in the room.