Intelligence in children
http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/Article.aspx?eid=31821&articlexml=Intelligence-in-children-08082017021011
Aug 08 2017 : Mirror (Mumbai) - Dr Altaf Patel
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Thank-you.
What took you so long to address one of the most pertinent issues of our time?
Anyway, I'm glad good sense prevailed atleast, finally.
You’ve summed intelligence as follows: Intelligence is defined in several ways - brain power, power of reasoning, understanding, insight, alertness, cleverness, brilliance.
Sir, I disagree squarely.
We really don't know what is intelligence.
Example: I'm not into sports. Infact, I've never been great in outdoor sports. Also, I don't follow sports.
Nevertheless, I played football, cricket and chess in my teens. I’m now XX.
Let me give you an example of batting. I’m referring to over-rum bowling cricket with hard tennis ball. I used to open batting whenever I played. I used to play like an absolute idiot. You may imagine me to be like Virendar Sehwag or Krishnamachari Shrikhant or even Sir Vivian Richards. My fielding and bowling was absolute zero.
If you don’t know this, please educate yourself now. It requires humongous mental strength. End of the day it is plane mind game. If you mentally dominate your opponents you’ll see the ball like a football despite average technique. Atleast, I believe so. Also, you need to be resilient like hell.
Now let us take example of football. I played centre forward.
I used to be mad about winning. More often than not I scored multiple goals directly or indirectly. Again, it is mind game. However, I got tired too quickly and I needed to rest after couple of attacks. Be that as it may, I wouldn't rest until my side had a upper hand.
I also played chess. Here, I must admit I’m probably a good or decent player. However, believe me it doesn’t require much. Sure, there is some mind game involved. However, you can do without that. All you need to do is not look at your opponent. So it’s your capacity to dry run your moves in your mind that decide outcome. The more number of moves you imagine, the better player you become.
Finally, I believe resilience, implicit knowledge, dogged pursuit of excellence, love or passion for the task at hand and ...... unknown unknowns together add up to form what we know as intelligence..
Just so you know. A soldier who goes to the front-line doesn’t have much chance of surviving. Also, if he survives he is risking permanent disability from mines, projectiles or .. . Yet, may doctors eagerly step forward to join soldiers in their daring missions. Also, soldiers happily go down fighting for themselves and themselves alone.
Do you know why?
That short period of time of real hyper selfless action is probably longer than our entire life and no video game can replace it. It maybe comparable to adventure sports. However, when the action is truly selfless the returns become truly immeasurable. So, it’s not plane training and adrelanine rush as imagined in medical circles. It’s capacity to see beyond the obvious. Infact, we really don’t understand it.
Actually, that’s what motivates many simple MBBS doctors to work endlessly and selflessly more than anything else. One immediate example I can think of, Dr XXXX XXXX practising nearby.
Hence, I reiterate. No one really knows what is intelligence and no one can judge intelligence. It’s more a matter of perspective.
