By Rebecca Bromwich, Instructor, Department of Law and Legal Studies
No, I’m not “Canada’s Smartest Person,” as measured by the tests offered on reality TV, and the demonstration of that on national network television offers a wonderful teachable moment.
This fall, I was nominated to go on CBC’s reality TV gameshow Canada’s Smartest Person. The show was not something I would have thought of doing on my own, but I was nominated, and I like a challenge and enjoy adventure, so I agreed to do it. First of all, I’d like to thank my (anonymous) nominators, the many social media cheerleaders I’ve had, and the CBC for a fun celebrity experience and for putting together a great game that celebrates and incites questions about what we “count” as intelligence.
My goal in playing along was to show that perseverance, or grit, is as important as talent. People like me, with law degrees and PhDs, are often both successful and cognitively relatively ordinary on a number of indicia (if you accept their tests as valid).
My five post-secondary degrees do not give me special powers, nor did I attain those degrees because I have some sort of weird mutation or superhuman skill. I have attained many goals because I have worked hard, stayed with problems long enough to make progress with them in all of their muddy complexity, and been able to attain a critical and thoughtful perspective on what surrounds me.
My post-secondary education helped me learn how to ask questions at least as much as it helped me see certain answers. I can apply a certain type of thinking to critically evaluate paradigms, just like I critically evaluated the game as I was playing it. In particular, I have been part of research teams that have debunked the assumption behind the show’s assessment of “social intelligence” – that we can tell what someone is thinking, feeling, or whether they are lying, by looking into their eyes for 10 seconds. This in particular is a dangerous idea. The reason we have a criminal justice system is because it is not so simple to figure out what humans have done, or are thinking, just by looking at them.
The show has as its ambit “to ignite a national conversation about intelligence.” I’m grateful to have had an opportunity to participate in that conversation for the purposes of calling into question the assumption that education is all about intelligence, and of problematizing the notion that “intelligences” are what matter most. It would be an overstatement to say that intelligence and two dollars will buy you a chocolate bar, but innate intelligence has been overestimated as a factor in academic, corporate, professional, and human success. Learning matters.
It is not better neuro-processors or superior cognition but a strong work ethic, dedication, perseverance, passionate commitment, and grit that have carried me forward to where I am today. And it is those things on which I will continue to rely, and on which I encourage my children and students to rely in life. It may seem counter-intuitive, but I take heart in this confirmation that what I have achieved in life have truly been accomplishments: if academic and professional success were predetermined by super powers, I could not really claim them as triumphs. In the end, the show demonstrates the importance for educational success of hard work, grit, mentorship and even a bit of luck along the way.
As was famously the theme of the 1990s film Forrest Gump, “stupid is as stupid does.” The same can be said of smart. That’s a democratic win for potential and for the benefits of teaching and learning: not just for mine, but, more importantly, students, for yours.