People Online Break Down 25 Subtle Signs That Someone Is Actually Really Intelligent

Rather than hating them, try feeling sorry for them for having such a limited view of the world around them.

I overcame it but I place the blame squarely on my grammar school teachers! If you didn't raise your hand because you didn't know the answer, they would intentionally call on you. Why? Why do that except to embarrass the poor kid? Once I got wise to it I would randomly NOT raise my hand when I did know the answer and the teacher would always call on me. After a few times of that happening the teacher finally asked me why I didn't raise my hand if I knew the answer? I simply said, "It guaranteed you would call on me". She just gave a "this one's gonna be trouble look" and that chit ended that day for everyone.

People who are from impoverished backgrounds are the least likely to ask for help or to admit that they don't know something due to insecurity. They already feel at a disadvantage and don't want to highlight any weaknesses in front of their peers. Failure to admit when you don't know something comes from either a lack of enough intelligence to know you are wrong or from a deep insecurity of feeling more inferior than you already do. Best approach is to voice that it is a sign of strength and intelligence to know when you don't know something. Start with the benefit of a doubt.

This had not been my experiance. I have worked in schools in well off areas and in very very deprived ones. You are not the only person who has made this comment, so I wonder if it is true in some parts of the world (are you in the US? I have little knowledge of the system there). 30 years working with children in a few European countries, this is not true here. It can be that poor areas can at times fail to attract quality teachers, and children living in poverty have a lot more to think about than just school work - children from wealthy backgrounds have a much easier time achieving. But as for impoverished children do not ask questions, I almost find it the opposite.

Really, all of us should try this more. I plan on doing so, as well.

We had a set of the World Book encyclopedias growing up as well, from the mid to late-80s. I probably read the entire thing. My mom had it probably until she died in 2010. It was interesting to go back and see things that no longer were, such as the USSR and East/West Germany and Berlin.

I remember using a set of encyclopedias and a big dictionary with the wee step cut out bits for different sections. It was to do my homework in the 90s, and I also perused them when I was bored. There were better more updated ones at the library, plus Encarta cdrom (short lived stop gap) came out, but we were told if we had access to the internet we couldn't use it as a resource for homework (makes sense given the decade). I just felt lucky that we had encyclopedias, we weren't well off but we had lots and lots (and lots) of books. A panoply of books. A plethora. Lots 😉

I understand what you mean about finding a quiet spot & losing yourself in the encyclopedia. We didn't have the Encyclopedia Britannica, but a door-to-door salesman got to my parents at just the right time & I got the complete set of the Book of Knowledge — read every single volume & loved it

Argie Smith

Argie Smith

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Me, too!! I read that encyclopedia from A to Z. I have always had an insatiable curiosity about everything.

Niiiice. For me it was field guides, anything nature. Ultimately you can never exhaust resources since the web of life includes so much. Take the SF BAY AREA. The endemic plants evolved with the geology, non-natives cant handle the poisons in serpentine, so plants adapted to the area evolve more that geology drives evolution. Sorry I got carried away 😬 it’s just so exciting

Agree

I'm in the happy place where my mom is just as curious at her 80s as I am at my 40s. And we share the interesting tid bits all the time.

It's not a matter of all intelligent people, but rather those who can do this can be considered intelligent. Apples are fruits but not all fruits are apples.

If you can't explain what you're doing to a fifth grader, you don't understand what you're doing.

It's called emotional intelligence, and yes I agree too few smart people can do this.

ADHD and ASD factor into this also. People with these disorders have difficulty in reading others' emotions, and in the case of ADHD, the hyperactivity induced by uncontrolled emotions triggered by social interaction can literally make them say things before they can think about what they are saying. A lot of it depends on if you can capture the person's attention long enough to get them excited about what you are talking about. Once you've got them emotionally involved, they are more inclined to hear you out. The same goes for anger and fear. If you project those emotions onto another then it's almost like a negative feedback loop of increasing negative emotions and thoughts that resonate between the both of you.

I agree completely!

I agree. It seems like they're conflating extroversion with intelligence.

Yep, one of my professor in university was one of the smartest guy in his field, yet we could barely understand what he said in class.

It does; it's called code switching, and it applies just as much to dialects as it does to verbal registers.

a lot of these sound like part of a skillset necessary to be an educator

Most are fools then

S**t thats me, although its all joking usually

Or a hillbilly. They know everything

Oh the irony.

I was going to say the same thing. There are intelligent people who make you feel stupid and others who make you feel smarter. The latter are rare, but a true treasure. All great teachers are like that.

This is about empathy - not intelligence