Education and being intelligent are two different things but they somehow complement each other. I have read quite a few posts on this topic and many of us understand the relationship between the two bodies.
Is going to school and getting good grades a measure of intelligence?
There was a guy in my department then who didn't graduate as the best student in the class but he was the best to us.
He took us programming classes and even lecturers seek his help when things get twisted. How he didn't graduate as a first-class baffled everyone and it would interest you to know that the best graduating student doesn't have 10% of this particular guy's programming knowledge.
He learned programming from someone and developed himself. If we are to rate their intelligence academically, the best graduating student should be the most intelligent person which is wrong.
The guy who had solved several problems for the class and even the polytechnic with his programming knowledge is the intelligent one.
I think using academic performance as a measure of intelligence is wrong to an extent. It is not completely wrong and here is why,
Education is a way of acquiring knowledge while intelligence is the application of knowledge. There might be a contrary definition to this which is fine since this is just my opinion about the topic.
Before I go on, I will like to make something clear. Education doesn't end with the knowledge acquired in a classroom, there many ways of acquiring knowledge. Here in Nigeria, there are business apprentices and different ways people acquire knowledge.
Being intelligent has to do with possessing problem-solving ability either by applying knowledge acquire from the classroom or outside the classroom. It might seem impossible to be knowledgeable without formal education but it is not true.
There are a great number of people who didn't see the four walls of a classroom but have proven to be intelligent.
Many years ago, I met a woman who owns a different business in different parts of Nigeria.
I was lucky to interact with her and her spoken English made me think otherwise about her. I was wondering why she made cheap blunders despite being successful.
Her PA told me that she has more than 100 graduates working for her and I was wowed. Not everyone who acquires knowledge can apply them and that's where being intelligent comes to play.
What are your thoughts on this?
As I said earlier, education and intelligence compliments each other. Academic performance is not enough to rate one's intelligence but education can boost an individual intelligence.
The knowledge we acquire in school or outside can improve our intelligence and it only counts when we apply that knowledge in reality.
There are lots of knowledgeable people across the world but not every one of them can be referred to as being intelligent because they have used that knowledge for something practical e.g creating solutions with the knowledge.
If education makes us intelligent, it means every educated person in the world is intelligent and that's wrong. The world wouldn't be where is it at the moment if every educated person is intelligent.
Do we all need to go to school to be intelligent?
School doesn't make us intelligent but it influences our intelligence if we apply the knowledge acquired.
The knowledge acquired outside school counts just like my coursemate I mentioned earlier, knowledge can be acquired anywhere and it is not necessarily in a classroom.
The knowledge acquired in school can be applied if truly we understand what we were taught. Education is not what it use to be and that's why we can hardly choose intelligent people among scholars today.
Or is there something else that needs to be done?
There is nothing else to be done, the difference between an intelligent and educated person is the application of the knowledge acquired to solve problems around us, within the environment, or even on a bigger scale.