You are far more intelligent than that.
I wrote about how scientists disproved the hypothesis that right-brained people are creative and left-brained people are analytical. Our creative and analytic skills live in both halves of our brains. Everyone possesses both artistic and logical capabilities.
When you designate yourself as right-brained creative or left-brained analytical, you put limits on yourself that don’t exist. The same is true of thinking you are a visual learner rather than a verbal or auditory one.
Everyone has taken a course, not studied enough, gotten a C or a D or an F, and then blamed either the teacher or “type of teaching” favored by the teacher. Will everyone who’s done this raise a hand? I am raising my hand.
To convince ourselves we are smart, we tell everyone we are so dumb we can only learn through one technique. That’s not that smart.
The truth is, we didn’t try hard enough. We didn’t make the effort on our own to learn something new and now we don’t want to admit it. Sometimes, the course material is difficult, or we don’t have enough time. More likely, unjustified feelings of inadequacy keep us inadequate. When I started teaching, the role that fear and expectation play in a classroom surprised me.
My first class of students made me immediately aware of the entitlement to intelligence we carry. We don’t just want to appear to know everything; each one of us believes we should know everything. Our vast ignorance, individually and collectively, is an affront.
We won’t acknowledge it either. Don’t let any self-deprecation fool you. I know the faces and reactions of students when they are caught oblivious. We take classes, not because we are ignorant, but because we just haven’t opened that book yet.
We’re not stupid, you know.
Meanwhile, “If I don’t make an effort, I won’t fail” is a coping mechanism reaching epidemic proportions.
The truth becomes hard to distinguish: no one else can learn for us. Sure, some teachers engage more than others, but good students study and learn regardless.
The natural learners of the world have tried to make studying easier for centuries. They created books, libraries, the Dewey Decimal System. Plenty of current world leaders became brilliant with just a library card. Many other “autodidacts” lead without a college or high school degree.
They weren’t born smart. They pursued the specializations that made them successful on their own, and they didn’t even have the Internet yet. The Web and smartphones will give many more the opportunity.
Scientific studies show no evidence for learning types. They indicate people who believe in them actually limit their potential. I see this teaching the Internet. Adult students blame their inability to use smartphones and computers on the “type” of learning they require, when they are simply embarrassed by their need to learn at all.
Students of all ages do these foolish things because they don’t want to be dumb, when the truth is they are not dumb, at all.
If you fear deep down that you are not smart—and if you hide this—you’ll never reach the wonderful conclusion that you are ignorant about a whole lot—which is true of everyone, even brain surgeons and rocket scientists. You’ll never understand that our common illiteracy is the opportunity and potential within all of us to become brilliant.
Most people are intelligent and have the chance to become brilliant, but they give up the chance for fear of looking foolish. Brilliant people understand they have a lot to learn, and will always have a lot to learn. That’s why they study and work so hard.
But because the majority of the world is so quick to judge and laugh at ignorance, brilliant people keep quiet.
Which is luckily the rule in libraries.