The Burden of High Intelligence
Hao Liu
Seminar 126G
Theodora Dimitrakopoulos
March. 26th 2012
In recent years, Chinese parents are getting more concerned about their children’s
education. Actually, they always tell their children that high education and a
certificate of honor are very important for one's future life. Children at school are
compelled to learn knowledge and get high scores in the exams or attend a variety of
competitions which make some students really hate studying. At the same time,
because of the pressure from the society, many students give up their future and
choose to waste their life. Does high intelligence totally mean a better job or a
beautiful future? Is it worthy for a student to give up his own interests and hobbies, at
the same time to bear the pressure from others, to get a high degree? The truth is that
the pursuit of “high intelligence” should not control one's life. As Isaac Asimov
mentioned in his paper "What is Intelligence, Anyway?", he was smart, but he could
only call an auto-repair man to fix his car when it was broken. High intelligence does
not mean a person will become a superman. He is still a normal one who need help
from others. On the contrary, when students are studying at school, the excessive
pressure from family, teachers, and peers only bring them, especially Chinese children,
negative effects leading them to drop out of school and leave their homes, fail to find
a job due to their lack of social skills, and even worse to commit suicide.
Nowadays, Students dropping out of school is becoming more common in China.
The main reason of this phenomenon can be attributed to the fact that parents and
teachers have extremely high expectations of how students must perform at school. In
China, there is an old saying that states that "every parent wishes the boy to be a
dragon, and the girl to be a phoenix in the future." Parents and teachers strongly hope
children become successful years later, so they pay more attention on urging children
to study. In the high school, students almost have no free time, especially the days
before college entrance examination. During that time, students have a large number
of assignments which should be completed everyday. Before they finish the
homework of a subject, they will get another one instead. This means they do not
have enough time to relax themselves and work on their interests. Yet, what gives
students more pressure is the test.
Students will do many exams in a semester whose scores also determine the
position of children in both teachers' and parents' hearts. Because most of the time,
teachers and parents more focus on the children whose grades are high and ignore the
students who do not do well in the test, students worry about their scores and hate
examination. Every time, when students are doing the test, they will feel pressure
from the high expectations of family and teachers what sometimes makes children fail
the exam. The excessive expectation parents put on students' shoulders becomes a
kind of responsibility to show their values. So when they get low scores which they
cannot accept, they will have negative feelings such as I let my family down, I am a
useless student and etc. Once all these kinds of negative emotion are excessively
drastic, the students will give up themselves and want to get rid of school and home to
avoid pressure on them.
On the other hand, peer pressure has become another cause of children dropping
out of school. In China, there is a phenomenon that parents like to compare other
children to theirs and ask their children to be as well as other ones which increases
students' pressure a lot. Due to comparison, parents drive their kids to learn something
they do not like. For instance, a student who is interested in sports, but his parents ask
him to give up sports and to learn music because if students have high level of playing
musical instruments, they can get extra scores in the important examinations. In this
way, parents think their children are better than others. Nevertheless, there is also
strong competition within the classroom which students want to show off who the
best is. Students who fail during the competition may be isolated. Teachers pay less
attention to those students who do not perform well, and their family probably is
disappointed about them. All these conditions may give students more psychological
pressure which will influence their emotions and attitude of life. Some of students are
so sad that they can not bear the pressure of competitions and choose to leave home to
release the burden of being constantly labeled at school as good or bad.
From Howard Gardner's article "Multiple Intelligences", there is an experiment
which impresses people a lot. It is an long time test of a boy, whose intelligence is on
the average level in his age, and a girl, who is smarter than others. In the school, the
girl always did much better than the boy. However, after several years later, that boy
is successful not only in his career as an engineer, but also in the relation with people.
Comparing with that boy, the girl's achievement is really normal. She just have little
success as a writer, and her interpersonal relationship is also not very well. From the
big changing between these two guys, it is obviously that studying well in school is
not equal to doing well in society.
It is a long time of a person from starting education until being graduated from a
university. However, graduated students have many difficulties of finding a job. One
of the most important reasons are students have no social skills at all, especially
Chinese students. Students there are studying in a closed environment. In this way,
they can be protected very well; at the same time, they have nothing to do but study.
However, students also have less chances to develop their personal skills of working.
Then the result is when they go out of colleges, it's difficult for them to find a suitable
job. Comparing with most of American students, they lose the most important
experience when they are young. They do not know how to get along well with
managers, how to get works from companies and how to complete assignments
perfectly. What they can do is just following others' behaviors, and it is really not
good for their careers. A lion without sharp teeth and claws can not be the king of
animals. In the same way, a man who has nothing but only high intelligence can not
get a high position in a company. Without the skill of getting along well with
colleagues, he is easily dismissed because of the solitary of them, even managers. For
poor families, they spend all the money on children's education in order to get more
back from their children in the future, but a large percent of them are failed because
high intelligence is not the only important thing in people's careers.
Among the graduated students who have no job, some of them can not find works,
but others are the people who do not want to work at all, they hope they could live
better without working. These students are not confident and brave. They are afraid of
all the things in society, for example, the high pressure from competition and daily life.
They spend their whole young life in the school and enjoy the time of studying. Most
of students are high intelligence, but their mental models are not mature enough to
support their intelligence. To compare the life at school, the competitions in society
are more drastic and dangerous, so students who do not want to be failed prefer to
stay at home, rather than fight for their lives. This unusual psychology is more serious
for the students who have higher level of intelligence.
Some students whose minds are weak choose to give up their lives when they fail
in the competition. Parents' excessive expectations give children so much pressure
that they cannot endure any more. The students who are more conscientious are more
easily to take unnecessary pains because their tender heart are hard to accept the result
of their failures. If people cannot deal with their mental problems well when they are
broken-hearted, student may try to hurt themselves badly to release pressure. So far,
thousands of beatific families broke up because of pressure; nevertheless, there are
lots of adults cannot learn something from these tragedies yet which makes these
things still happen on the world.
High intelligence is not the thing that is worthy for a student to pay his whole life
on it. It is just a tool to help people get a better future, but people should not rely on it
too much. David Elkind said in his paper "Childhood's End", "Children need time to
grow, to learn and to develop." They should improve themselves step by step, rather
than change in short time. Keep a balance between pressure and education, to know
high intelligence is not everything in our life. The excessive pressure can just make
negative effects.
Bibliography:
1. Asimov, Isaac, "What is Intelligence, Anyway?", P1, Class Material Print.
2. Elkind, David, "Childhood End", P25, Class Material Print.
3. Gardner, Howard, "A Rounded Version: The Theory of Multiple Intelligence",
P377-378, Class Material Print.