When I think of giftedness, I sometimes think about why we want to know about it and how it affects people. To start with, I see high intelligence and giftedness as being about how some people are. Whereas different identification processes are often helpful when trying to support the learning needs of an unusually intelligent young person, I like to consider the relevance of what the child or grownup is like; why does their intelligence matter in this particular setting? The setting matters. High intelligence is relative for where it is happening. Sometimes being the smartest doesn’t matter at all. And it’s possible for the same person to be the smartest person in the room and at other times, not so much. It really is relative. That’s what this story is about.

Elizabeth’s Story

I spent the better part of 12 years absorbing information about high levels of intelligence, its sources, the effects of environments, and how to assess and evaluate intelligence. I was extraordinarily fortunate to be able to afford not only graduate schools through a PhD, but to travel and attend conferences and seminars around the country where I met and interacted with experts in all aspects of the field. One of the people I met was Elizabeth, who, like me, was not yet an expert. We met at a small three-day event in upstate New York, a symposium at the Bard College. As we chatted about the different speakers and things we were learning, she mentioned she was the “dumb one” in her family. Although her own Stanford-Binet L-M IQ score was 183 (profoundly gifted, and this test has an entirely different scale than modern tests), her brother scored over 200 and got all the attention and admiration. When she told me about this, she said it with a sense of loss and sadness. In almost any other family, she would have been the one with the highest IQ, but from her relatively “lower” IQ position, her family didn’t see her as needing the time or attention her brother required.

Christine’s Story

A dear friend of mine, Christine, grew up in a family where money was tight. Her parents could only afford to send one of their children to college. I met her during the years I worked retail — for the health care coverage and no homework aspect — during my “finishing my dissertation” years. Several years after I graduated and started my own consultancy, she complained to me about the lazy people in the Target shoe department where she was manager. I asked her what made her think they were lazy. She explained,

“They don’t even try! They walk right by boxes that should be put away. They avoid doing anything to make obvious things go better in our department. They don’t care. They leave it to other people.”

I told her that she is likely quite a bit smarter than the other workers. She disagreed. I knew a lot about Christine. She gave me the information I needed but I could not persuade her to take a different view about herself. Because she hadn’t gone to college, Christine did not see herself as smart.

I explained education doesn’t make you smart; if it’s any good, it makes you more knowledgeable. She had worked for the railroad for more than 20 years, and when she left, they tested her and gave her career guidance. Her Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) score was 136 (out of a possible high score of 150). This puts her in the highly to exceptionally gifted range of intelligence, well into the 99th percentile range. Although Christine was underemployed — relatively speaking — for most of her life, she was frequently lucky enough to find herself among enough others who were also smart and employed in nonprofessional jobs. She had a wonderful circle of very good friends and “true peers.” In cases like hers, employers sometimes take advantage of the high intelligence and lack of “credentials” to pay people like Christine lower wages than they are really worth. Something about a free market, I’ve been told. Ah.

Michael’s Story

A few years after my first 5 Levels of Gifted book came out, I worked with a Native American family and the mother was an educator in the Yellow Medicine-Granite Falls area public school district. She read my first Levels book and decided to have me evaluate and guide her son, Franklin, as she believed he was probably gifted. When I tested him, he scored in the Level One — moderately gifted — range with a full-scale score of 124 (about the 94th percentile)on the Stanford-Binet 5. He was heads above the other students in his intelligence and school achievement according to both his parents and his teachers. Was he gifted? I said yes.

In a typical suburban community, Franklin would be a Level One gifted student. In his rural school populated mostly by children from the “reservation”, a community with many people who had suffered generational poverty and trauma, he was an outlier in his abilities. Indeed, because his mother was an educator and his father had a good job, the family was also one of the more financially well off families in the area and could afford their own evaluation of their son and had access to a mortgage loan and their own home. Nonetheless, the administrator who could arrange for Franklin to receive more appropriate academic and social support laughed at the mother when she shared the results and recommendations. “That’s not gifted!” the administrator roared with a mocking laugh, and he, Franklin’s mother said, sneered. Undeterred, the family moved to a larger school district where Franklin did very well and thrived. There were more students in his ability range and it provided a better fit for him. Now in his late twenties, he works for a healthcare system as a physical and sports trainer.

Why Understanding the Relativity of Intelligence Matters

Emotional health, a good self-esteem, and a sense of understanding yourself and your possibilities in life are all enhanced by knowing why some settings work better for you than others. Most people need a sense of belonging and fitting in. You can design your own social and work surroundings as an adult — or for your child — when you have a sense of where you will most likely be a natural part of the group rather than someone who is comparatively too unusual. Such differentness can lead to loneliness and lack of confidence. But before you can do that, it helps to know enough about yourself that you can feel at home in your settings.