Editor's Note - August 2011: What does it mean to be “smart”?

What does it mean to be “smart”?

The question is more difficult than it seems.

Is intelligence simply a high IQ? Or is it something else — something not quite so easily quantifiable?

Whatever it is, many parents these days are doing their darndest to make sure their kids have a leg-up in the smarts department. How else do you explain this country’s nearly $1 billion dollar educational toy business?

Not too long ago, I happened to catch an infomercial on late-night television for a product called Your Baby Can Read. I watched in horrified fascination as parents of infants barely out of the womb plopped them in front televisions to learn how to match sounds with pictures and, eventually, words. I immediately Googled the program and discovered that, far from appealing to a niche group of academically-crazed über-parents, regular folks all over the country were signing on.

Why? To make their kids “smarter” — or, at the very least, to give them an edge over their peers.

While parents flock to the program, child psychologists, reading experts and others have raised concerns about it, questioning the videos’ educational merit and, in some cases, asserting children’s development can be harmed by watching TV at such a young age. The company’s founder, Dr. Robert Titzer, adamantly insists that his program is educational and based on solid research he conducted with his own child.

In April, the consumer group Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) filed a complaint about Your Baby Can with the Federal Trade Commission, asking the government to stop the company from marketing the videos as “educational”. The FTC has yet to rule on the complaint.

If the FTC’s handling of Disney’s “Baby Einstein” videos is any indication, Your Baby Can Read doesn’t have much to worry about: in 2007, the FTC denied the CCFC’s claim that Baby Einstein videos were bad for kids. Publicity over the complaint forced Disney to offer parents refunds on Baby Einstein products, but it didn’t hurt the brand’s overall image: Baby Einstein products now earn some $200 million annually in the U.S. alone, and are available in 25 countries and 30 languages.

While I appreciate the CCFC’s concern for kids, the FTC isn’t raising our children: we are. And as long as we are hell bent on creating the next Einstein, companies are going to manufacture and market products to (allegedly) help us do it.

This, for me, is the thornier issue: should we parents really be so concerned with raising “smart” kids? Wouldn’t it be better to raise our children to be inquisitive learners and hard workers? As Albert Einstein himself once remarked, “It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer.” Although a serious understatement, and a self-effacing one at that, he had a point: anyone can be “smart” if they stick with something long enough.

Certainly, some folks have higher-than-average, even genius-level, IQs. And researchers tend to agree that IQ can increase (or decrease) as we age and learn. Then again, scientists also agree that IQ is genetically based, which begs a terrible question: does that mean kids whose parents have “average” IQs are themselves destined to be…well…average? My answer is an emphatic no.

I’m a firm believer that all children (indeed, all people) have unique gifts and talents —regardless whether they are identified as “gifted & talented” in school— to be great at something. It’s up to us parents, then, to nurture those talents — and no, I don’t think that involves videos or flashcards.

Rather, I think raising “smart” kids begins with encouraging them to use their imaginations; to explore; to go beyond that which they think they are capable. It also means teaching them to listen, to be compassionate, and to care for the world around them. And yes, I also think it means teaching them to work hard at whatever it is they do, no matter how tedious or menial it may seem.

As I tell my kids all of the time: Smart is as smart does (it’s a reversal of Forrest Gump’s famous saying, “stupid is as stupid does” — I loved that movie). In other words: it’s what you do with your intelligence that matters. A high IQ may be impressive on paper, but if you don’t use it to improve yourself and the world around you, it’s worthless. Likewise, diligence and hard work pay off no matter what your innate gifts (or lack thereof) may be.

The world reveres Einstein as one of our most brilliant minds not only because he was a gifted physicist, but also because he seemed to epitomize true wisdom — not to mention a striking humility about his prodigious gifts. When asked about his intelligence, which he often was, Einstein minimized how smart he was, saying once he was “merely curious”. Perhaps this is because he had a rather expansive view of what it meant to be “smart”, one that opened the door to everyone and which I think we would do well to embrace:

Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.

Consider this the next time you feel compelled to make your kids more “smart”. And then, relax. After all, Einstein’s parents probably didn’t loose sleep over whether their kid someday would become…Einstein. Neither should we.