RESOLVED: Intelligence should determine grades more so than Effort in School

You say that increasing one's ability to reason efficiently and increasing one's worldly and basic knowledge would help much more in the real world, but you don't explain how a student lacking such skills would be a more competetive worker than one already posessing those skills. Though there are jobs that tolerate learning on the job, McDonald's can't hire EVERYBODY, and so the people who are left over must actually put in effort in order to stand out from other applicants. For students being hired right out of college, it is homework, class work, and projects which are often cited in resumes as experience. I can guarantee that though tests scores would be considered, one's effort is much more appreciated by employer's than their intelligence- especially in repetetive jobs, which comprise of the bulk of the American workforce. Social skills, determination, and good work ethic are important right out of school, and attempting to acquire these skills after years of simply "thinking" one is smart is a disservice to intelligence, and not intelligent at all. You say social skills would increase further in intelligence centered school curriculums because more time would be liberated for social interaction, but you don't provide any alternatives for the time spent in school. What will be done with the 6-8 hours normally dedicated to classwork and projects? How will learning be assessed in between testing? You don't provide any alternatives to the reality other than an empty proposition which sounds more like a complaint. You propose that students sit through lectures, study (which is a contradiction, as homework and classwork is meant to facilitate and encourage study), learn, and ask questions to the teacher. How will students know if they learned something incorrectly? In your proposition, if determining one's performance is left up to testing, many students would fail the tests. There would be no regular maintenance on learning, and you would be left to assume you know something even if you don't (especially with students who assume they are intelligent). Again, you don't provide a viable alternative. You say students should study and learn, but you don't explain from your perspective how this studying and learning would occur. A student who assumes he is intelligent but lacks effort would not take the initiative to study. You claim that effort is required when knowledge is lacking, but your statement is not based on fact. First of all intelligence and knowledge are not the same thing. One can posess a wealth of intelligence, and effort may be the result of this intelligence because they see the value in being productive. You can posess a wealth of knowledge, and not have the intelligence to apply it resulting in a complete lack of effort on any task. We can suppose all we want, but the world demands effort and productivity, and the current system of schooling attempts to incorporate all these different aspects of society into preparing students for the workforce. In your definition of intelligence you claim it is one's intellect and ability to reason EFFICIENTLY. How would you measure this simply with tests? How will you determine in a test wether one posesses the capacities to reason, to plan, to solve problems, to think abstractly, to comprehend ideas, to use language, and to learn? Sure you can measure the entire school year, or a specific period, but unless you are testing every day your process would not be efficient. Homework, class work, and projects are currently the real time measurement of these capacities. What you propose is that we ignore the importance of effort, or at least diminish it, and concentrate on preparing students for testing- which is what you will be doing if test scores become a higher indicator of progress. You would also run into many more problems than already plague society with standardized testing.