Learning From Each Other

When I invited a friend of mine (let’s call her Sally) to play Bannanagrams with me the other day, she replied, “I’m willing to play, but because I am not good at spelling, I don’t usually enjoy it very much, because it reminds me that I’m not very smart.”

I was astounded by this. Not that she doubts her intelligence. I am familiar with this struggle of hers. But rather, that she believes that there is a connection between being good at spelling, which is a skill/ability that one either does or does not possess, and intelligence, which is complex, multi-faceted, diversely expressed, challenging to define, and certainly not determined by any one single aptitude.

I shared with her that not only am I a poor speller too (knowing that she considers me intelligent), but that it had never occurred to me that not knowing how to spell meant that I was stupid.

This perspective blew her mind. A truth that had been set in stone in her mind from as far back as she could remember had been blasted to smithereens over a game of Bannanagrams sitting in a café on a rainy Eugene morning.

A week later, Sally shared this story during a dinner date with our friend Karen. Karen’s eyes widened with astonishment. She shared that her father would berate her for every spelling error, making it quite clear that not knowing how to spell meant being stupid.

Sitting there reflecting on how it could be that we had received such different schoolings on the nature of intelligence, a possible explanation occurred to me. I was raised middle-class/owning-class. They, working-class/poor. My intelligence was taken for granted, recognized, and nurtured. Theirs was questioned, denied, and ridiculed by teachers in school systems steeped in institutional classism and family members who had internalized the messages of inferiority experienced by generation upon generation.

So, for me, my poor grades in spelling in elementary school had no bearing in my mind on my intelligence: it simply meant that I was not good at spelling. For them, it was further proof of their lack of intelligence. Or, to use the words children use when they are developing their self-identities: I was smart and they were stupid.

Nothing could, of course, be further from the truth about these two deeply intelligent women. But those early lessons stick, clouding our ability to see ourselves (and each other) clearly.

I am not saying that every person raised middle-class/owning-class is fortunate enough to never question her intelligence, nor that every person raised working-class/poor questions theirs. Everyone has a unique history. What is true, however, is that the ideas we form about ourselves as children in response to the family and subculture we grow up in stay with us throughout our lives unless we have the opportunity to question them.

A similar life lesson was given to me years ago by a raised-poor friend of mine. I was sharing with her how I struggle with feelings of failure working as a receptionist when most of my high school and college classmates are doctors, journalists, authors, therapists, etc. She looked me dead in the eye and said, “First of all, where I grew up, your job was a job to be proud of. Second of all, we didn’t have this bullshit of judging a person’s worth based on what their job was.”

I still struggle with feelings of worthlessness from time to time, but now, when I do, I know that this feeling arises not out of any truth about my lack of worth but rather from the lie that worth arises out of one’s economic/social position.

And so, we need a village not just for childcare, help in the garden, and cups of sugar. We need a village of people from all walks of life to share with each other the parts of our humanity that were left intact as we navigated this world that can be so destructive to it, and so help each other heal and reclaim our full selves.

I can remind you that your intelligence is something you were born with, not something to be measured by how well you did in school. You can remind me that who I am is infinitely more important than what I do. Together, we help each other thrive.