Street-Smart is a very broad way of defining smart. The idea that we should be looking at is the smartness of logicality and reasoning. Anything logical fits into this category and anything that requires reasoning also fits here. Logic and Reasoning are one of the most important features to a human being.
Book-Smart is very different. Book smart is the ability of memorization and retaining the memory. It is the smartness of knowledge. Humans are unique that they want to know everything, they are curious. As a result of their curiosity, they create systems of storage outside the human brain. Because most people are capable of only holding a limited amount of knowledge, we store the knowledge elsewhere which can then be learned later on or by another human.
Having both of these characteristics is something everyone wants, however the problem with having one word to envelop both of these definitions is the problem. In school, you may have been called smart once, but for what reason? Was it because your reasoning in a situation was excellent, or was it because of your ability to bring something you knew to the table that no one else knew? School systems praise Knowledge but shut down Logic and Reasoning. It's good to be strong in one, but you must also be strong in the other. While many school are noticing that Logic and Reasoning is required, the majority of school systems still lack Logic and Reasoning. Our grades in school are completely dependent on Knowledge. That's why some people are considered smart while they may have bad grades. To bring back what I mentioned before, I said, "In truth one of these is not actually smart, it is skill." Which one do you think is skill, and which one is smart?
This reminds me of a recent discussion I had with a friend of mine. The topic shifted to today's policies in regards to education, specifically the common core that's being implemented among younger students. My friend and I agreed that whether or not the common core is effective will be determined in the next twenty years, when individuals who received common core education hit the job markets. However, I also brought up the point that, historically speaking, America was never really a nation of thinkers - it was always a nation of reasoners and logic...I'm not sure there's a word for it, so I'll say "Logic-users." Abraham Lincoln, who got our nation out of the civil war, was a midwestern farm boy who eventually got into law school. George Washington received education on par with most fifth graders. These men are regarded as among the greatest heroes in American history, and neither of them used calculus, trigonometry, or any of the other things we're being taught in high school. They got where they were and did what they did with good old fashioned common sense. Ironic, isn't it, that the government doesn't make logic a priority, when it was founded by logic-users like Washington and shaped by reasoners like Lincoln?
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