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<p>But, as I mentioned earlier, not everyone is forced into the musical world.</p>
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<p>Well, could they? Grades and awards can just be attributed to effort, so that’s not worth discussing. However, I think in some IQ tests, they measure your affinity for logic, music, etc. and while the average of two people might be the same, how it is distributed could be very different.</p>
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<p>I don’t believe that intelligence has much to do with accomplishment (except for the fact that your ability to learn might increase as you learn more). In my view you can be a horrible, unlikable, lazy, immoral person and still be intelligent.
But the nature of intelligence is highly debatable.</p>
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<p>Not everyone is forced into intellectual pursuits. You can be dumb as a brick and no one would care if you throw for over 300 yards every Sunday.</p>
<p>(Before you say that everyone is forced into school, everyone is also forced into fine arts classes.)</p>
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<p>Like one or two. Not multiple classes every day for four years. And no one is expected to go to art school so they can get a better job after college than they would get otherwise.</p>
<p>(And of course I’m not saying school shouldn’t be required…I’m trying to explain why being seen as academically untalented is worse than being seen as a bad artist.)</p>
<p>some of the dumbest people i know make the highest grades in the school, while some of the smartest just don’t get the academic system. There are also some people who just take level just to not do the extra work…</p>
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<p>The only class where you’re forced into 4 years is English. Heck, that’s not even true, you could drop out when you turn 16.</p>
<p>More often than not the “smart” kids who take advantage of AP classes have college-graduate parents that explain how everything works and push them into it. Believe it or not, at a lot of public schools, most parents probably couldn’t even tell you what “AP” means. You can’t fault kids for their crappy home life.</p>
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<p>Crappy home life ≠ parents don’t know what AP means, but otherwise I agree.</p>
<p>I usually remind myself not to judge other people in lower classes, but I sometimes do it inadvertently, which is sort of hypocritical as I’m taking regular US History this year, while many other people I know who I sometimes think of as not that smart (in science and math) are in APUSH (ap history isn’t really my thing).</p>
<p>I pretty much think I’m one of the dumbest kids to walk the planet because I completely lack confidence when it comes to intelligence… so no, I don’t see myself as more intelligent based off my schedule.</p>
<p>It would be a safe assumption that I have more motivation and/or a higher work ethic.</p>
<p>I absolutely do not think my classmates who are in lower level classes are dumber than me.</p>
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<p>(I know this post is a couple weeks old, but I think some of the points here are still relevant to the debate.)</p>
<p>While I agree that these factors affect academic performance, I don’t think they’re limited to performance only in academics. What if you have a kid who might have been the star quarterback of the football team, but couldn’t ever go to a practice or learn the sport because he has to work to support his family after school? What about the potential virtuoso whose parents couldn’t afford to buy her a violin? It seems odd to account for environmental factors only when discussing academics.</p>
<p>Personally, I’d agree that being in lower level classes does not necessarily mean a person is dumber. To succeed in higher level classes like AP/IB, I think a person has to have both natural intelligence and motivation. People in lower level classes may have one or the other, and could still be reasonably smart. One of my good friends is one of the best math students in the school, but dropped out of the IB Program to take lower level classes because he just lacked motivation. It’s the people who lack intelligence and motivation who really seem “dumb.”</p>
<p>That said, I feel like I tend to have a subconscious prejudice that people in lower division classes are less intelligent. It’s really only when I know someone well that I can appreciate their intelligence in a more subjective sense.</p>
<p>It wouldn’t be in my place to say someone is “dumber” when I’m only taking 1/2 honors. I see another boy who’s so sophisticated and everything above, but he still isn’t taking the hardest course load. I don’t know if he has a mental problem but he seems pretty smart to me.</p>
<p>Not really, I mean I’m probably smarter than them at school stuff but they are probably smarter than me at other things. The only kids who I look at as “inferior” are the kids that don’t care, and disrupt class and do all of those things.</p>
<p>At my school, almost everyone in the regular classes is dumb or average. All the smart kids (even the lazy ones) take Honors/AP classes. I hate to say it, but it really is true (at my school).</p>
<p>How do you know they’re dumb or average?</p>
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<p>heather, because he is the founder of the dumbass calculator.</p>
<p>Hahaha…he should publish the app.</p>
<p>I don’t think generalizations work. There are gonna be smart and dumb people in regular classes, and the same for advanced classes. I think it differs a little from school to school, but generally kids in honors/AP are just trying harder or they care more about school.
Personally, I don’t think people in regular classes are dumber. I have quite a few friends who haven’t taken more than 4 advanced classes, and they’re still brilliant. Conversely, I’ve met some people who are obsessed with AP classes but are really effing dumb in my book.</p>