I want to create a discussion about tracing the different reasons for “stupidity” of a student/schoolchild/learner. By this term I understand persistently low performance. I will start with my ideas and observations and expect you to share yours and give comments to mine.
Very often teachers relate stupidity to low IQ, or brain functioning. However, it may have psychological origin as well. It may also be a self-reinforcing phenomenon. Consider the case when a timid pupil with average IQ comes to a class but misses something, and authoritarian teacher presents him as a stupid, and later class starts laughing at him, so that he loses interest for studying and performs even lower. I read a book about an experience of private teacher in mathematics who found different pupils to be locked at some level of school program. She was able to help many of them with an individual approach.
But stupidity can also occur even with experienced teachers if they start some other studies not in young age. For example, learning a foreign language is much easier at young age, because the ability to memorize unknown words has a tendency to decrease with age.
Some older people can never learn how to use computer or mobile phone. Young children can use a completely different scheme for that based maybe on some memory of fingers where to click. They also cannot explain this rationally to older generation, because this skill comes at early age. On the other hand, books about software are too long and detailed to be read and used by the majority of people. Here we have especially hard problem for the beginners.
What are the reasons for stupidity?
Possible reasons that prompt stupidity also include:
Human stupidity is natural.
“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
― Albert Einstein
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Human stupidity is a gift for recruiters to terrorists. Judging by the tragic events in the world, the number of candidates for the praise of stupidity grows.
So we have bifurcation of this term stupidity. It is under-performance in some work that requires some intellect - here we all agree. But the reasons may be: a) low IQ, b) psychological problem, c) being too smart (more than problem needs) as Mushtaq says.
Vladimir mentions one consequence of stupidity (being recruited by terrorists). But this is not the only one. Bad people often use stupid people for actions that they do not understand (or see the minor good goal that is used for manipulation).
The Scriptural example of Wisdom and Stupidity is Solomon. By all accounts he built the most spectactlar ancient temple honoring God Jehovah and then squandered His Kingdom seeking pleasure through whoring and worshiping foreign gods. At the end of his life he was bitter and mad. In his last days he was repentant of what he had done with his life. Following our example of both Solomon and his father David wisdom is finishing well in our lives and consistently following this example is wisdom not to confide in ourselves but consistently serve Him who is greater.
What are the reasons for stupidity?
Possible reasons that prompt stupidity also include:
Han Ping Fung Very good response!! Us westerners have a big issue with impatience. I understand Asian cultures have a much long term prospective. Is that true?
Pride seems to be a root of both stubborness and ignorance.
When we are humble we can accept and learn from others and I for one have a pride that can kindle into anger. All of these are soothed when Love is the dominant course and destination.
Best Regards, PRH
Han's approach to stupidity puts us into research of person's actions to solve a problem. Here we need to distinguish between intellectual (I meant more that in my original question) and life stupidity. Some people who can solve mathematical problems at school pretty well often cannot solve simple life problems. Some of them probably did not learn at school how to model them. Indeed, school does not teach this. Those (more clever) design own algorithm how to learn from life mistakes. More stupid cannot derive this algorithm (because they were not taught that in school) and those become double stupid. Finally, some people are "genetically" smart; they have intuition about life problems without any ability of mathematical modeling. These can be stupid only in class, but intiutively smart in life.
Many people have found alternative reasons for stupidity, like persistent inability to learn from one’s experience.
It is also interesting why people having high results in one area may be stupid in another. The first example comes from school. There might be pupils having good grades in all subjects and only in part of them. So probably, some psychological abilities for study have positive correlation with a subset of abilities, but not with the whole set.
I know people who were very talented in languages but could not perform the simplest mathematical calculation. A good historian does not always have a good geographical orientation. Some subjects require remembering many facts (history, languages) while in others one needs to learn few principles (laws) to be applied in correct environment (math, physics). So what psychological components in our brain are responsible for an asymmetric performance in learning even in ideal environment (good teacher, interest to learn)?
Another important dimension is teacher's approach. Even a good teacher uses methodology that may fit not all students. Some need a very special individual approach to be able to learn, and perform badly in a normal class.
Yuri Yegorov, you pose an interesting answer to the question. This asks the subsequent question: If someone is good at something but poor at something else then is that person stupid or is it the person trying to judge them that is stupid? Again, I believe it to be a matter of ignorance and different perceptions.
Praneel, I think that we can define stupidity as a relative feature, like stupidity in math, stupidity in geography, stupidity in languages (or just one of them). All people are then stupid in something, but if they never use this subject in life, nobody knows about that.
Sometimes stupidity may be seen as inability to do something, but if a person has never studied that, it might be an excuse. Like: Can you play piano?- I do not know, I never tried.
Also we can distinguish between stupidity in learning and in application. Some life applications require learning in many fields, and people's behavior may seem stupid because they are not yet experienced to put those pieces of knowledge together.
Finally, we can define an absolutely stupid person who is unable to learn anything. But this is probably more an academic example, unless he or she has some fundamental problem with brain.
Indeed, the use of term “stupidity” may sometimes be non-proper and even offensive. Wives often criticize their husbands for being unable to do some repairs at home or for earning less money than a neighbor. I think that this is more a result of non-proper match with too high female expectations. Some boys whose fathers can repair cars or something else also grow with those skills. Others spend their time on learning school subjects or doing sports, and simply were never studying that.
A neighbor can earn more money being even less skilled because of some other factors, like being a member of a criminal gang, or having a powerful relative who put him in a well-paid job, even without proper skills.
To summarize, stupidity in life is used in common speech as some inability to be as successful as somebody else, but often this success is not due to lack of stupidity (and lower performance is not due to stupidity), but because of other factors.
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