The idea that we are either smart or dumb is enormously destructive. Many people have written books on how cognitive skills can improve with effort and time. (One, Two, Three, Four.)
That said, this mainstream idea that our mental capacity is fixed is an idea that I’ve been trying to debunk for years.
Because I spent some time in education, I have a nuanced view on this. Not everyone will have the capacity to be a Gauss or an Einstein. That’s okay. It’s not needed. But I think that most people will agree that our current state is bad. Especially in South Africa. As a teaching assistant years ago, I encountered third year engineering students who could not perform simple cross multiplications. I encountered this sort of thing countless times and on all levels—yes, even at university level.
How students get to a certain level without sorting these kinks out is a topic for another post. This post is simply about this: everyone has the capacity to improve their cognitive skills. Everyone. I would go so far as to say that improvements in cognition will improve IQ. An IQ test is simply a test that measures cognitive skills. And if cognition can improve, IQ can too.
My own IQ scores improved after years of grueling mathematics and physics courses. But it wasn’t an overnight thing. And it took many, many hours of deep work. It was an effortful struggle. And when it comes to education, struggle is beneficial. If you’re not struggling, you’re also not learning that much.
This is why an educational system that makes everything trivially easy is so devastating. Students never learn to deal with the discomfort of trying to figure something out. I don’t believe IQ is fixed. I believe that cognitively demanding tasks—especially non-trivial tasks—can improve IQ. But I also think the opposite is true. If we spend our time doing mindless things, we’re going to become dumber. The educational system that says that everything must be easy, is indeed making people dumber.
It’s easy to become distracted by wanting more resources. And it’s easy to be fooled by ideas that you’re not smart enough. But improving thinking is very simple: Read more. Write more. Solve a problem from a textbook. Don’t get distracted by technology. You don’t need anything fancy. Just go to the library. Go to a second hand bookshop.
No fancy tricks. Train your focus and grapple with the material to the point where you understand the ins and outs.