I am not book smart, meaning, I am not good at being in a classroom while listening to a teacher and reading books on the lesson being taught. Retaining that knowledge and then writing a test at the end.
Other people excel in this area, I do not. I'm not sure if it's my attention span, or my interest on the subject being taught, I find my mind wandering to other subjects if I start to get bored.
I do, however, excel in learning something new if I am actually doing the task being taught instead of reading about it. It's harder for my mind to wander if my body is working and my attention is focused and continues to be involved in the action being performed.
I have worked with people who are book smart, but not physically smart, they can tell you how something works but have no idea how to repair it or make it better. I find myself annoyed when I have to physically work with someone who has no idea how to work with their hands.
I'm guessing that if I had to work with someone and we had to write a paper together on the fundamentals of particle physics, that a book smart person would become equally annoyed with me.
These two types of smarts should be separated in my opinion, as neither one can really help the other.
Do you think that there are people out there who have the best of both worlds? These people understand how to read something, make it better, build it themselves, and then sell and market their product. I think there are and we probably call them geniuses.
What are your smarts?
Scott Goerz
