There are some acutely smart people in the world. I wish I were one of them. Maybe.
Apparently, those real smarties have some common characteristics among them. These are a few:
They’re highly adaptable
They understand how much they don’t know
They have an insatiable curiosity
They read a lot
They’re open-minded
They have high self-control
They’re really funny
They’re sensitive to other people’s experiences
Those things they do.
I recently read an article about a two-year-old girl with one of the world’s highest IQs. She is Mensa’s youngest genius. Her name is Isla McNabb, the little smarty. Her parents first noticed their two-year-old’s intelligence in the way of her alphabet. She left the blocks strewn throughout their home near Louisville, Kentucky.
But there was no randomness to it.
She arranged those blocks to read “sofa” by the couch. Near a remote control, the letters spelled out “TV.” By the family’s tabby cat, named Booger, appeared the word “cat.”
By age two, she was reading like a kindergartner.
They took Isla to a psychiatrist who carried out an IQ test. And what they found was pretty amazing. She was ranked in the top one percent of the population in the way of brain power.
That immediately qualified the toddler for membership in Mensa. To clarify, Mensa is the largest and oldest high IQ society. Isla is now the youngest member. It is an elite group with around 50,000 members in the US. Of those, there were only three others younger than four.
Even before her second birthday, Isla could sound out letters and soon read whole words. As you might expect, her vocabulary grew exponentially. Isla also performed basic math skills like adding and subtracting.
This all reminds me of the movie Parenthood. If you haven’t seen it, I would recommend this great film. The cast is wide. Steve Martin, Dianne Wiest, Keanu Reeves, Rick Moranis, Joaquin Phoenix, Mary Steenburgen, Jason Robards, and on and on.
At any rate, Rick Moranis and Ivyann Schwan have a daughter in the movie, and she is a little genius. They are flipping flash cards for her, about geography, foreign languages, math, and vocabulary. And then there is Steve Martin and Mary Steenburgen’s son, who is the same age and running head first into the walls with a loosely-fitting football helmet on his head. The entire movie howls.
But. Back to real-life Isla. Not only is she smart, but she also appears to be socially adept at this point. It seems that many high IQ folks are a bit “iffy” with this skillset.
Of course, being the smartest person in the room can’t be easy, especially for young kids. A lot of times, the education system fails them. They surpass those around them and are left waiting for more.
The parents are hoping she will get into Harvard in the near future. Um. She’s two.
On another note, the article said her father is a dentist. They did not mention what her mother did. Perhaps she is the primary caregiver.
Here is the thing. I had very smart parents. My Dad was exceptional, a genius, but my Mom was intelligent too. Our home environment encouraged us to learn, to problem solve, and especially, to think for ourselves.
I often forget this is not the case in a lot of homes. So many people have lived their lives just “eke-ing” by in the way of learning. I am grateful I was taught early on, how important it is to continue to seek information in this vast Universe of ours.
Physically, though, some people have a higher aptitude for this than others. Take, for example, our two-year-old Isla.
It does us well to remember this as we move through our days. There are many levels of “smart” out there. Not only in the way of intelligence but also in emotion. And the navigating is ours to do. Hopefully, with compassion.
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“It is not that I’m so smart. But I stay with the questions much longer.”
― Albert Einstein
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“I don’t know what good it is to know so much and be smart as whips and all if it doesn’t make you happy.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey
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“It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment
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Smarter than we think. We are. Or not.
