So, How Smart are you? :: Narrative Intelligence Education Essays

So, How Smart are you? If I could give you anything†¦anything you wanted at all, what would it be? For many, the immediate response is: â€Å"I want to be smarter!!!† Why smarter? If you are very smart, what do you do with all this smartness? Is there such a thing as being too smart? My younger brother, Ian, is a fourteen-year-old junior in high school. Clearly precocious for his age and stature, there are many who envy his ability and talent to understand academic concepts with relative ease. At this tender age, where most fourteen-year-olds are simply entering high school and trying to adapt to their awkward teenage bodies, my little brother is tackling the challenges of college applications, refining his resume, and perfecting his standardized test scores. His schoolmates joke with him about being younger than everyone else in his grade and about entering college at the age of sixteen without knowing how to drive. There was even talk about how he was going to get to the prom: Would his date have to drive him? Although these events seem superficially comical, one must look at the repercussions of always being seen as â€Å"the little kid in class†. I wonder if there is a true solution to this situation. At a young age my brother demonstrated great skill and adeptness for understanding. Enrolled in a Montesorri preparatory school where students were encouraged to learn at their own pace, Ian was reading and doing long division in kindergarten. Later that year, when my family moved, my brother and I were transferred to another school system. Ian was placed in a kindergarten class filled with five-year-olds and it was clear he did not fit in. Finishing the assigned work within 15 minutes, he sat around fidgeting and causing trouble. The teacher, already overwhelmed with too many students, did not know how to handle the situation and sent him to the principal’s office. Faced with this dilemma, the principal offered my parents the option for Ian to test out of successive grades until we determined which academic level was appropriate for him. My brother took the exams and tested out of kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd g rade.