Book, Street or Just Smart?

Is it just me or do you also notice that some of the great academic students seem to have no idea how to go about life outside school?

Truthfully, I am an academic type, I like book, I like reading, I like the structure of education for the mere fact that I know and understand the rules.

The rules are simple.

Read and pass.

Get noticed for your smartness and keep a low profile.

These simple rules saw me through the university and I thrived in that controlled environment.

Social media however makes me notice things I probably should not. Like how some of the great academics really are clueless about life in general.

The first class and 2.1 students seem to be looking for jobs and nothing else.

While the thirdies, yeah my guys, the ones who rebelled and turned their nose on lectures seem to be making a headway. 

They seem to know the ins and outs of the outside world. They communicate freely, make connections and socialize easily, start businesses and have this ease at making it successful. 

They seem to have all the relevant information like where the jobs are, how to get into that company, which business would thrive in that area, who to know to get ahead in this sector and many more useful stuff like that. They are to put it succinctly, street smart.

My academicians are book smart.

So which is more important? Book smart or street smart?

Can a person have both kinds of smarts?

I feel it is imperative to teach kids to know stuff, useful relevant stuff outside of school. Throw them headlong into life. This sheltered lifestyle, this narrow look where people see education as the all and all needs to stop.

It leaves our kids ill equipped to survive in this ever changing world.

Sometimes, we should teach them:

How to get your boss to like you

How to relate with  colleagues professionally and socially

How to get your boss’s attention

Office lifestyle: Mistakes and Otherwise

Business Hacks

Utilizing relationships to get what you want

How to connect with anybody, anywhere

Etc

I know some, most of us rarely have much to say but we have our experiences and that is learning.

But for those of us interested in being better at our jobs, business, life in general and hoping to give our kids well rounded education, we have books to help.

I am not saying this because I am a writer. No!

I won’t be recommending any of my own books but books read and reviewed by experts.

We should have it in our library, read it and digest it.

Those who have kids should encourage them to read these books, then discuss it with them.

What say you?

The list is below the full article.

Book smart is simply describing that the person as generally intelligent, well educated and do well academically. However, the underlying idea is that the person deals with situations (especially bad or difficult situations) from an intellectual direction, using or basing decisions on facts, knowledge or insights gained chiefly from books or structured experiences (e.g. studying).

That is in contrast to street smart, which describes the person as having common sense, knowing the ways of the world -- how things are done or doable in real life. The underlying idea is such a person deals with matters at hand from a more practical direction with more pragmatic considerations. In short, intelligence not from books but from real life and personal experience.

Both terms are used to contrast and compare each other -- kind of like two sides of the same coin. As pejoratives, the book smart is one who relies on structured knowledge and suck at real life (naive, easily manipulated, bad judgment) -- and the street smart is 'unintelligent' or 'uneducated' (or incapable of being educated), hardboiled, unsentimental.
Book smart can be described as ‘exam smart’, or ‘academically smart’. Book smarts enjoy the structure of the learning environment. Study this, take this test, get this right answer, move onto the next exam.They believe value lies in knowing things and reading things.

This is based off the notion that they have all the tools, i.e. the knowledge, but lack the practicality to put the learning into practise and execute. They have the learnings and understanding of what to do, yet somehow common sense and practicality seems to be missing.

They have the ‘know what’ and the ‘know why’ but the actual ‘know how’ is non-existent.

But what happens when you are out in the real world, with no reading at hand, and the going is getting tough?

In these situations the street smarts are ready to fight and defend themselves. They have prepared themselves for these moments. This is where their expertise comes into play.

They have the ‘world experience’ which trumps the book smarts ‘word experience’ every single time. They have the life skills which trumps the abstract learning of the book smart.

They know and understand their environment and who is in it.

Culled from Scottberkun.com, Quora.com, and medium.com

BOOKS!!!

Books: Emotional Intelligence, Rich Dad; Poor Dad, Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office, Why You Act the Way You Do, Perpetual Paycheck, Who Moved My Cheese, Accounting for Non-Accountants, Steps to High Performance, How to Break a Stubborn Habit, Entrepreneurial You, Change the Way You Think, etc, etc, etc.

The list is endless and you may add to the pile. Caution: Your kids won't read if YOU don't read.