Get Over It by Delphi That's Smarts? The other night, I watched a television show that I wouldn't ordinarily watch. I'm still not sure why I watched it. It was alternately called "The Battle of the Child Geniuses" and "The Search for the Smartest Kid in America". I don't know what their original criteria were, but they took fifty of these "super-smart" kids and plopped them in front of monitors, and using a process which appeared to be much like the weeding process on "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire", they got bit by bit, down to two kids. They duked it out for the title, plus a great deal of prize money, in a trust fund, of course, and a trip somewhere, I believe. The kid who won was obviously very into both the game and the winning, and looked very happy and relieved to have done so. His family looked ecstatic. The boy who I suppose must now be called "The Second Smartest Kid in America" was quite a gracious opponent, shaking the winner's hand and walking offstage so that we could all be treated to people jumping up and down for joy at being called smart rather than being incredible athletes, or matching our guesses to some celebrity's. But I digress. The only problem with the entire affair is this: it didn't really have anything to do with intelligence. I don't mean to knock the kids who are scoring 1600 on their SATs in seventh grade, or going off to really tough colleges at 16. But what went on on this show was nothing more than a recital of facts. What that tells you is that you have a good memory. Theoretically, it would also mean that the kid in question is "smart" enough to understand certain concepts earlier than the rest of us schmoes. But very few of the questions asked could be used to prove this. Most of them were along the lines of "What's the deepest place on earth?" It takes no special smarts to be able to remember the Marianas Trench. Our theories of intelligence are all based on the idea that we all know it when we see it. That someone who is intelligent is also well-spoken, well-read, well-rounded. None of those things are necessarily true. Is the person who cannot produce a complete English sentence but can take your car apart and put it back together in two hours stupid? I don't think so. Is the person who cannot figure out how much money they make but can sit down and learn any instrument in a few hours stupid? I don't think so. And yet we have created an entire school system and employment culture around just that one person who can speak well, regardless of what their other shortfalls might be. It is to our discredit that we are unable to recognize any other form of intelligence as anything other than a "neat trick". Imagine how happy we would all be with a public school system that allowed its students to explore and excel at whatever sort of intelligence they were gifted with, instead of making them feel stupid for not having just one.