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Dunce Or Not?

Remember those old pictures where the kid that failed the test would wear a dunce cap and be sent to the corner to sit? Wow, that must be really hard, especially if your problem is not necessarily a normal one. Do you feel that common sense overrides intelligence or are they one and the same? I have met many a person with great book knowledge but terrible logic or common sense. Yet I have met many that had no certificates or formal schooling, but are sharp with life and handle themselves well. What is your view. At the same time there are those who have genuine learning disabilities like dyslexia which was unknown until some years ago. I am sure a dyslexic person of today would have been treated as a dunce many years ago. How do we know if someone is intelligent? Is it by there certificates? Is it by what comes out of their mouth? What is your input?

Not Dunce

I think that you're absolutely correct. Intelligence and common sense are two completely different things. Being book smart will not necessarily get you through life. But if you know how to handle all different situations well and you know how to think through problems, you're much better off. Sometimes people who are extremely educated do not have the common sense to use what they know, so it doesn't really matter how smart they are.

Dunce Or Not? UFO & Writing Art Education Sciences

For those of you who were able to see the reality show "The Apprentice" where Donald Trump brought in 16 men and women in a contest to become his next executive; can see the true rivalry between book sense and common sense. One of the final contestants was this young man who had no college training but built a business from the ground up. Here he was competing against Harvard, Yale and other college graduates, and did very well for himself. It just goes to show that college educating is not the end all of intelligence. Donald Trump himself was never that well educated but look how well he has done for himself.

Not Dunce

I have met many people through all my life who were great with books but terrible in applying those ideas in their lives, some of them, ended up failing in a lot of things in life while others who were not great at school ended up being more sucessful. I suppose it is not a matter of grades or the school you went, is a matter of being 'SMART' and that is something you cannot learn at school.

Not Dunce

Intelligence is often associated with the results of an IQ test. However, most IQ tests that people currently take only offer a small portion of what it really entails. Most people take the written portion and think that is all there is. There is another half of the test. A hands on portion that measures mechanical aptitude and other aspects that book learning really cannot convey. So, I think in order to get a full picture as to a person's intelligence you need to survey not just the education that they have.

Dunce Or Not?

I definitely think common sense and intelligence are two separate things. My mother is an extremely intelligent woman, but if you hand her a practical problem she will find to most round-a-bout way of solving it that I have ever seen. My dad is the opposite, while not the brightest bulb, he excels in simple, easy solutions to problems.

Also many role playing gaming systems bring up a difference between intelligence and common sense (or what they call wisdom) as a fundamental element to the game so the difference between these personality traits seem to be universally recognized.
-Unferth

Dunce Not

I do believe that there is a differenced between common sense and intelligence. I also believe that there are many different kinds of intelligences and types of common sense. Somebody may not have very good street sense, but they might have a great many skills with money: money sense.

There are a lot people, adults and children alike, who are quite often underestimated and branded dumb simply because they don't respond to the same types of assesments that we do. Dyslexia was mentioned earlier, and it's a great example. I had a roommate who was dyslexic, she had a lot of problems reading. But she was one of the best bari-sax players I've ever met. Deaf people have often times been considered dumb because they couldn't hear. With ASL (American Sign Language) interpretations, if something is interpreted to a hearing person exactly as it's signed, it would make a deaf person sound dumb.

Case and point:

A deaf persons makes a sign meaning: "I'm going to the store."

If it were translated exactly as it was signed it would come out more like "Me go store."

I'm not sure if I've strayed off there. Sorry if I did. My whole point is being that people can have all sorts of different intelligences, and sometimes they aren't interpreted as intelligence or common sense.