What’s So Smart About Intelligence?

This book is about students finding, and reaching, their potential. It is definitely not about everyone becoming an academic! Or about everyone going to university! It is about each person giving themselves the opportunity to choose. So many students end up doing trades, or taking sales jobs, not because that is what they want, but because that is all they think they can accomplish. We need great trades-people, great sales assistants, great workers in all kinds of areas of employment; if you choose such a position, rather than feel that you have to do it because you have no other choice, then you have a much better chance of being successful in that employment and ultimately doing a great job at it. My desire is: To encourage all learners to achieve their best with smart and hard work, To motivate the love of learning, To argue against the widespread and long-held view that intelligence is fixed & unchanged and that it can be measured. To present arguments that “intelligence” is changeable & modifiable and how it is impacted and influenced by many varying factors that can impede learning and academic outcomes. To demonstrate that through smart-hard work and perseverance, learners can improve, achieve, succeed and, above all, love learning.