SMART, BUT NOT INTELLIGENT

Here’s an amazing and even shocking fact— A person can be smart but not intelligent. You can be smart about lots of facts and yet not able to intelligently use those facts. This is the problem with most schooling. Schools generally teach facts and test students on their ability to retrieve knowledge, but they do not generally teach people how to think. So, who does?

If you’ve ever watched the television show Jeopardy! You have seen people who are called “exceptionally smart” solely because they are like walking encyclopedias— they know lots of facts. They also know lots of facts that are not very useful. Actually these people actually are exceptionally knowledgeable, but not intelligent. They can impressively recite lots and lots of facts. But that is not intelligence. Similarly, you could know a lot about coaching, and not be able to coach effectively.