Examination and Intelligence

Albert Einstein once said:

“Everybody’s a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid”.

So may I present to you the modern education system; a system which is unique in its kind, peculiar, judgmental yet adopted. Now this system not only rates the fish by its climbing skills but it also makes the fish climb down and do a 10 mile run. It labels the fish with this rating which is least related to the skills it actually processes and leaves this fish to survive at mercy of society for rest of its life. This process of rating an individual is known as ‘Examination’.

Whenever we hear words like examination or grades an idea spontaneously sparks to our minds that this will be related to level of intelligence or rating of intellect of a specific individual. These sudden thoughts have been imparted to our minds by the generic response of our societies where we grew up. However the realities lie outside this box. For further assessment let’s compare the two dimensions. Now, Cambridge dictionary defines examination as an act or process of carefully looking into something in order to discover something new. On the other hand, Intelligence refers to one’s ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills.

Consider a case-scenario; John and Henry are giving exams on shrimps. Now, John here is our lucky chap. His family has been in shrimping business from ages. He is well aware of all kinds of shrimps, how they are caught and how they are handled. He also processes terrific skills in shrimp netting. Conversely, we have henry a farmer who has read only an article about shrimping from newspaper. Unfortunately John becomes ill at time of exam and fails to deliver his ideas. Henry writes everything he remembers about the shrimps from article. Resultantly, Examination system labels john with failure and henry with success. Apparently this means that John is a failure when it comes to shrimping business and henry is an absolute success, however , the realities are exact opposite.

Exams test memory more than analysis, creativity, or real understanding. This memory cannot certainly represent skills, intellects or extent of imagination of an individual. Still not satisfied, let’s move to ship of history and sail through past. On the first stop we have the inventor of light bulbs, Sir Thomas Edison. Young Edison wasn’t such a bright student. He was lied below the average standards which were set by the school. His master used to call him ‘addled’ but my question here is did that standards defined his imagination, his determination, his acumen, his perspicacity ? Negative, it only defined his response to limited words being called out as lecture. His grades fail to justify his 1093 patents and inventions. Next on our sail we have one of the best presidents of United States. The Examination system marked Abraham Lincoln as being lazy. But can this title justify his leadership abilities which at time of chaos guided nation through pits of slavery?

History can show you Winston Churchill being punished for his dismal academic records and it can also show you his name in one of the most towering political figures of the twentieth century. You would be amazed to know that the famous William Shakespeare who is now a standard in much literary examination is himself a high school dropout. The book of history is full of such examples in which examinations labeled individual as a failure and time proved him to be the greatest success , may it be Henry ford or Mark Twain, Steve Jobs or John Glenn. All of these were stamped an ‘F’ on paper! But this did not stop them from being an ‘A’ in life. 

If we compare the last 150 years; the cars we drove aren’t the same; the houses we live in have changed abruptly. Almost everything has changed, has evolved. Wait it’s not everything! I see classrooms same as they were 150 years ago, same pattern, same methods and same examinations. Isn’t it shameful? Where did this pattern come from? 

Let me explain. Records show that schooling came from training people in factory and they implied the same method to little children. Putting students in nice and neat rows; telling them to raise their hand to speak; giving them a short break to eat and for eight hour a day telling them what to think. All of this to compete to get an A ,a letter which determines quality hits which graded factory products and now they are grading humans.

Human intellect is vast, creative and immeasurable. Intellect and discernment cannot be contained. Human Nature is unpredictable and you cannot justify it under certain grades or certain number. The only limit to what a man can do is what he thinks and this thinking can be limitless. Learning is creation not consumption, knowledge is not something a learner absorbs but something a learner creates. All the students can learn and succeed but not in the same way not in the same time. Labels can clue about what is in the box but they cannot tell but how well it is or how bad it is.

So even if the modern systems of examination declare you as a dismal in a specific skill doesn’t mean that you are a failure. In fact it means you now lie in group of Albert Einstein, whose name now equates to definition of genius ; who published more than 300 scientific papers; the man behind E=MC2; the man who came up with the theory of relativity; and the man who won Nobel prize. Yes, he was a high school dropout. He attempted to get into university, but he was declared a dismal by entrance examination.

In Pakistan and in many other developing countries, it is a common practice rather a trend that one is intelligent if and only if his report card says so. If the grades are bad this labels him unintelligent. How can this be possible? How can you judge a human mind where hundreds of reactions occur in a second at speed of light by mere numbers and grades? How can it define the success rate of your life? 

Exam results shouldn’t be used to label students

So even if you are labeled a failure by examination, it doesn’t mean you are bad at your work. You can still be as intelligent as the greatest mind of twentieth century [Albert Einstein] or as rich as the richest person alive on earth [Bill Gates]. A label of F does not mean that a successful life is not there for you. Everything is still possible, even the word impossible says I’m possible. Thereby we as individuals should not let this label affect us and as a society we should not use these labels to judge intellectualism among individuality. Remember a fish may fail to climb a tree but still it can break any records in the sea.

“I failed my exam in some subjects but my friend passed. Now he’s an engineer in Microsoft and I am the owner.”-Bill Gates.