While working for the Denver Fire Department it struck me as funny one day when a colleague of mine made a rather profound observation and comment. “Thank God for stupid people, they keep me employed!”
Call #1:
The call was for a person locked out of their car. When we arrived on scene the customer was perplexed because the car would not open when they pushed the unlock button on the key chain fob. Patiently we removed the keys from the person’s hand, used the key on the key chain inserted it into the door and unlocked the door. After opening the door we noticed two things.
- The alumni plate cover for a well known East Coast University.
- The car was equipped with “OnStar”. I asked the customer if they actually paid for the service and the customer readily admitted paying the bill monthly. I asked the customer if they were aware that the monthly service could open the door for them and they had “forgotten” that.
We then had to explain why the call was an abuse of the 911 system. While we resolved a simple matter of unlocking your door, somebody in dire need of emergency services may have been waiting for us.
Why did this happen?
Here was a seemingly educated individual who, when faced with a stressful situation, could not logically reason their way out of the situation.
A growing body of research suggests that differential success in academic and non academic environments reflects, in part, differences in intellectual competencies that are required in these arenas.
The distinction between academic and practical kinds of intelligence is paralleled by a similar distinction between two types of knowledge. An academically intelligent individual is characterized by their facile acquisition of formal academic knowledge, and the knowledge sampled by the ubiquitous intelligence tests and related aptitude tests. Conversely, the hallmark of the practically intelligent individual is their facile acquisition and use of tacit knowledge.
Tacit knowledge has three characteristics:
• It is procedural in nature
• It is relevant to the attainment of goals people value
• Tacit knowledge is acquired with little help from others
Tacit knowledge is experience. Those who try to only apply academic solutions to everyday problems tend to fail miserably. Colleges tend to teach a great many theories, but do little to help the student apply theory to everyday life.
References:
R. Sternberg, R. Wagner, W. Williams, and J. Horvath (1995) Testing Common Sense American Psychologist, Vol. 50, No. 11, 912-927, retrieved from http://www.gl.iit.edu/reserves/docs/psy504s.pdf
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