How would you react (assuming you are 18 years old) if you found out from a reliable source that (a) you were extremely intelligent - more so than you ever imagined, or (b) that you had an extraordinary aptitude for some type of learning (music, math, languages)?
So here is the basis for my question. When I was in the Army, I had enlisted just to get away from home and to experience Vietnam. I had failed out of college after one year, and was going nowhere. I enlisted for a school that would train me to be a supply specialist of some kind, not really giving it a lot of thought.
But when I got to Fort Lee, VA, for my "AIT," (post-basic training) I was "pulled out of the line" and interviewed by one of the sergeants doing the in-processing. He told me that I had signed up for a course that would basically teach me how to fill out self-explanatory forms and count rolls of toilet paper. I would be bored to death at that school, and in the job that it qualified me for later on. Was I interested in staying at Ft Lee (which was a drivable distance from my home) for at least a year and learning to be a Personnel Specialist, then a Personnel sergeant? Then, when I was inevitably sent to Vietnam it would be as a personnel guy, and not as a supply specialist.
Sure.
Later, I learned why I was pulled out of line. They were picking off the people with the highest "GT" scores, wanting to "hire" the smartest people to work in personnel. The "GT" score on a soldier's records was basically an IQ score, derived from two of the battery of tests that one took when enlisting in the Army. For those familiar with statistics, a GT score had a Standard Deviation of 20, rather than the 15 on standard IQ scoring, but regardless my GT score of 150+ put me in the "genius" category.
So I went to work in Personnel, starting as a Private, E-2, then shortly thereafter being promoted to PFC (E-3). The "plan" was for me to stay at Ft Lee as long as possible, but the glitch was that it could only last as long as I was in OJT status (still, in effect, in training). If I wanted to be promoted to Specialist (E-4), I would be making myself eligible for reassignment, almost certainly to Vietnam. I wanted to go to VN, but I wanted it to be after 18 months or so, so that when I finished my year tour over there I would come back and be discharged early. By a series of events that are not relevant here, I got my promotion to E-4, then was sent to Ft Belvoir, VA, for a spell, then to Vietnam, right on schedule.
But I digress. Every enlisted soldier at that time came into a unit with his physical records folder, and at the top of those records was the DD Form 20, on which was printed the soldier's scores from that initial battery of aptitude tests. These records were always examined by the soldier's commanding officer and often by the first sergeant, just out of curiosity. Over the course of my 2-1/2 years in the Army I saw THOUSANDS of DD Forms 20, and I saw exactly two (2) that had GT scores equal or better than mine. Like it or not, that GT score followed everyone around like an abandoned dog.
So, what did I "do" about what I learned when I returned to civilian life? Not much. But it did change my attitude about schooling for the future. I knew that there was essentially nothing academically that was beyond my reach. I knew that if I wanted to be a doctor, lawyer, or an Indian Chief, it was all possible if I were willing to do the work and make the other necessary sacrifices. My post-Army college was a breeze, partly because I was convinced that it SHOULD BE a breeze, and I ended up with a JD many years later. I had to study hard to get through law school and the Bar exam, but I knew that I was capable. Parenthetically, in school and in professional life I have run into quite a few people who were more intelligent than I am (mostly lawyers and engineers), but the knowledge that I had that native intelligence made a huge difference in my confidence level, how I performed academically, and in quasi-academic pursuits over the years.
But I had another extraordinary score on that battery of tests. The Army used to give what they called the Army Language Aptitude Test. I don't remember anything about the test itself, but the scoring on the test was quite remarkable. The test was given to see if you had any aptitude to learn foreign languages. The Army language schools were very good and VERY demanding, and they didn't want to waste the time and effort on someone who had no aptitude for languages. Here is the current equivalent...
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www.liveabout.com
Anyway, the test was so difficult that many applicants just gave up halfway through it. The maximum score, as I recall was something like 40; the average score was 8-10, and if you scored over 25 you were qualified for any language school the Army offered. I scored 30.
So I had (have) an extraordinary aptitude for languages. And I have studied languages...Spanish in HS, German in college, Italian in college... but the problem is, unless you are immersed in the language somehow, IT TAKES WORK! Even with the aptitude, you have to study a ton of vocabulary, a mountain of grammar, and learn scores of idiomatic expressions, and I've never been willing to go that extra mile to actually learn a language.
So aptitude and intelligence are nice, but they don't mean shit if you are not willing to work to pursue whatever it is you want to learn. It doesn't come naturally or by osmosis. And as you might suspect, there are lots of people out there who are very intelligent, and they know they are very intelligent, and they think that makes them SMART, or WISE, or WELL-INFORMED, by itself. It doesn't.
What would you do if you learned that you had some extraordinary capability, and were young enough to take advantage of it? Would you do the work and make the sacrifices to exploit your ability, or not? It's a challenge.
So here is the basis for my question. When I was in the Army, I had enlisted just to get away from home and to experience Vietnam. I had failed out of college after one year, and was going nowhere. I enlisted for a school that would train me to be a supply specialist of some kind, not really giving it a lot of thought.
But when I got to Fort Lee, VA, for my "AIT," (post-basic training) I was "pulled out of the line" and interviewed by one of the sergeants doing the in-processing. He told me that I had signed up for a course that would basically teach me how to fill out self-explanatory forms and count rolls of toilet paper. I would be bored to death at that school, and in the job that it qualified me for later on. Was I interested in staying at Ft Lee (which was a drivable distance from my home) for at least a year and learning to be a Personnel Specialist, then a Personnel sergeant? Then, when I was inevitably sent to Vietnam it would be as a personnel guy, and not as a supply specialist.
Sure.
Later, I learned why I was pulled out of line. They were picking off the people with the highest "GT" scores, wanting to "hire" the smartest people to work in personnel. The "GT" score on a soldier's records was basically an IQ score, derived from two of the battery of tests that one took when enlisting in the Army. For those familiar with statistics, a GT score had a Standard Deviation of 20, rather than the 15 on standard IQ scoring, but regardless my GT score of 150+ put me in the "genius" category.
So I went to work in Personnel, starting as a Private, E-2, then shortly thereafter being promoted to PFC (E-3). The "plan" was for me to stay at Ft Lee as long as possible, but the glitch was that it could only last as long as I was in OJT status (still, in effect, in training). If I wanted to be promoted to Specialist (E-4), I would be making myself eligible for reassignment, almost certainly to Vietnam. I wanted to go to VN, but I wanted it to be after 18 months or so, so that when I finished my year tour over there I would come back and be discharged early. By a series of events that are not relevant here, I got my promotion to E-4, then was sent to Ft Belvoir, VA, for a spell, then to Vietnam, right on schedule.
But I digress. Every enlisted soldier at that time came into a unit with his physical records folder, and at the top of those records was the DD Form 20, on which was printed the soldier's scores from that initial battery of aptitude tests. These records were always examined by the soldier's commanding officer and often by the first sergeant, just out of curiosity. Over the course of my 2-1/2 years in the Army I saw THOUSANDS of DD Forms 20, and I saw exactly two (2) that had GT scores equal or better than mine. Like it or not, that GT score followed everyone around like an abandoned dog.
So, what did I "do" about what I learned when I returned to civilian life? Not much. But it did change my attitude about schooling for the future. I knew that there was essentially nothing academically that was beyond my reach. I knew that if I wanted to be a doctor, lawyer, or an Indian Chief, it was all possible if I were willing to do the work and make the other necessary sacrifices. My post-Army college was a breeze, partly because I was convinced that it SHOULD BE a breeze, and I ended up with a JD many years later. I had to study hard to get through law school and the Bar exam, but I knew that I was capable. Parenthetically, in school and in professional life I have run into quite a few people who were more intelligent than I am (mostly lawyers and engineers), but the knowledge that I had that native intelligence made a huge difference in my confidence level, how I performed academically, and in quasi-academic pursuits over the years.
But I had another extraordinary score on that battery of tests. The Army used to give what they called the Army Language Aptitude Test. I don't remember anything about the test itself, but the scoring on the test was quite remarkable. The test was given to see if you had any aptitude to learn foreign languages. The Army language schools were very good and VERY demanding, and they didn't want to waste the time and effort on someone who had no aptitude for languages. Here is the current equivalent...
Defense Language Aptitude Battery (DLAB) Testing
Learn about the military's Defense Language Aptitude Battery (DLAB), the test given which measures the ability to learn a foreign language.
Anyway, the test was so difficult that many applicants just gave up halfway through it. The maximum score, as I recall was something like 40; the average score was 8-10, and if you scored over 25 you were qualified for any language school the Army offered. I scored 30.
So I had (have) an extraordinary aptitude for languages. And I have studied languages...Spanish in HS, German in college, Italian in college... but the problem is, unless you are immersed in the language somehow, IT TAKES WORK! Even with the aptitude, you have to study a ton of vocabulary, a mountain of grammar, and learn scores of idiomatic expressions, and I've never been willing to go that extra mile to actually learn a language.
So aptitude and intelligence are nice, but they don't mean shit if you are not willing to work to pursue whatever it is you want to learn. It doesn't come naturally or by osmosis. And as you might suspect, there are lots of people out there who are very intelligent, and they know they are very intelligent, and they think that makes them SMART, or WISE, or WELL-INFORMED, by itself. It doesn't.
What would you do if you learned that you had some extraordinary capability, and were young enough to take advantage of it? Would you do the work and make the sacrifices to exploit your ability, or not? It's a challenge.
