Failing At School Often Has Nothing To Do With Intelligence

A lot of children and young people around the world fail at school. In fact, it is considered one of the major problems in the current education system.

This phenomenon is often thought to be linked to low intelligence. But this belief is completely wrong because the reasons for not being able to cope with school are very varied and not always due to learning difficulties. In this article, we take a closer look at this.

The problem of failing at school

The fact that a child fails in school indicates difficulties in achieving the academic goals set by the education system. It can manifest itself in the following ways:

• The student gets bad grades.
• The student drops out of school.
• The child performs academically far below the potential for his or her intellectual abilities.

Unfortunately, it is common to see some of these behaviors in schools and institutes.

In Sweden, almost every third student, roughly estimated at around 35,000 young people in each year group, does not succeed in completing their schooling until an approved final grade from upper secondary school. This is very worrying because education is the responsibility of society as a whole and it is obvious that something is not right or poorly implemented.

What is intelligence and how does it relate to performance in school?

According to psychologist Howard Gardner, intelligence is the cognitive abilities required to solve a problem or to create products that are important in a cultural context. Therefore, it can be said that there are several intelligences that help us to be competent in different disciplines.

Each person has a series of boundaries and potentials within the different areas of knowledge. But the education system usually only evaluates intellectual abilities in terms of linguistic and mathematical logic.

Therefore, there are many children who are frustrated with the schools’ academic requirements because they also have a need and interest in developing other cognitive skills.

In addition, it is worth mentioning that students who do well in school do not necessarily have a high IQ. Their rating may be due to the fact that they:

• Spends a lot of time studying.
• Strived to get good results.
• Has plenty of motivation for school work.
• Shows great interest in the subject.

Failure in school often has nothing to do with intelligence

By understanding the concept of intelligence, it becomes easier to understand that failure in school has little relation to the intellectual level. Although intelligence affects a student’s academic performance, there are other internal and external factors that determine success or failure in learning.

Failing at school can be the result of many different factors, such as the student:

• Shows very little attention and concentration during lessons.
• Has limited short-term memory.
• Shows a total lack of motivation for learning.
• Gets bored in the classroom.
• Has a lack of support and encouragement, both at school and at home.
• Living in a poor and dysfunctional family and sociocultural context.
• Experiencing stress, depression or anxiety.
• Has a specific need for educational support.

All of this can prevent students from developing their abilities properly, causing them to fail in school.

All children, regardless of age and intellectual capacity, can fail in school. Thus, the education system has the responsibility to observe all students carefully and help those who have poor school performance.

That is why we must identify the causes and implement different changes according to each student’s needs. All children have the right to a good education so that they can succeed in their studies and in life.