365QOD-Day33

"Give me a smart idiot over a stupid genius any day." - Samuel Goldwyn

Having spent 18 years teaching at university level I can not agree with a statement more.  Through my courses have passed several thousand students.  Out of those there were only about five true geniuses.  They stood out based on their performance and attitude.

Isn't it amazing that there were not more?  What is more amazing is that there were probably at least 5% who very extremely smart that earned an F in my courses.  Why?    They were smart, knew it, and did not want to work to earn their grade.  It was almost as if it was beneath them.  

I often take the syllabus in a course and on the board write out the requirements.  I then tell a story about two student types that I have seen over the years.  First one is Ms. Smart and second is Mr. Average.  

Ms. Smart likes to pick and choose her battles.  She might not show up for class, not turn in homework, miss labs, not participate, and expect to do well on exams(which often does not happen since the material always get tougher).

Mr. Average likes to fight all of his battles.  He will show up for class, turn in every homework, never miss labs, participate, and expect to do OK on exams(which often he does an average or slightly above average on) .


In the end when I use those as rules the points work out that Ms. Smart often times gets an F or is groveling for a D.  Mr. Average usually gets a solid to a high B and at times reaches an A.

There has never been a successful general that picked and chose which battles not to fight.


Today's question is:
Are you fighting all of your battles, or are you picking and choosing them, in order to win your war?