Friday was one of my worst days at Chinese class. Bad days are common for me. Some days I feel I cannot keep up with the teacher. Some days I struggle to speak in response to questions. Some days I want to quit. Friday was one of them.
Struggling in class unfamiliar to me. I was always a good student. But the feeling of failing is a utterly foreign. And most days in this rediscovery of student life I feel that way.
In some of my many musings on dimensions of intelligence I recognize the vast differences in people’s abilities to pick up new skills. Athletes with kinesthetic intelligence quickly master a new sport. Creative savants can piece together fascinating art with unplanned materials. And historically those gifted with language have been the first of their culture to cross geographic divides into foreign lands. Imagine the first European linguists using their genius to decode the strange tongues in North America with zero context or reference.
In language there is surely a continuum of capabilities defined not just by experience but an innate intelligence. It spans from the genius Europeans that first spoke with southern Africans and native Americans to the dullards that cannot imitate or comprehend a strange uttering. I am not so pessimistic as to sort myself completely at the simpleton’s side of this range. But in a class full of people interested in learning a new language, I know I am one of the closest to it.
My struggles in class have changed me profoundly. I have visceral and emotional discomfort from my failed efforts. But I am earnestly trying to keep up. I believe in my heart that I am not stupid. But I recognize that with languages I am not bright. I acknowledge my relative stupidity with language intelligence and simultaneously like to believe I have some gifts with logic intelligence. If this is true, then there is a world of people whose intellect is an inversion of mine: they would be great in languages and bad in logic. When I met these people how did I judge them? With insight and wisdom or in the narrow field of the intelligence I understood?
I am fear that I have regularly failed to see multi-dimensional intelligence. I think most people automatically recognize and value logic intelligence but may miss the other dimensions. And most corporations and their managers measure success along a fairly limited selection of objective deliverables. But organizations need diversity of all types to build successful teams. And many people–certainly my previous self–are inclined to select peers and subordinates that match our skills, not complement them. And in a dangerous and self-defeating bias, we are judgmental of team members that struggle and perceive them as intellectually unequal.
This narrow-minded judgment is an obvious failure. And one that I am happy to identify today with decades left to appreciate. People struggle in life for so many reasons that are not obvious to others. Not just varied intelligence but challenges in health and family and spirituality. Judging someone a failure is instantaneous. Uncovering their genius can take a lot of time, indeed. Which choice will you make?
As for me, I have learned a lot about empathy from my Chinese studies. I will never again look at someone failing and draw a general conclusion about their capabilities or effort. For the times in my past I have done this I am regretful. But that stops now. Failures are a single note in the grand symphony of life. There are other instruments and melodies to try. And there is a vast network of people to learn from and add beauty to our shared efforts.