Great observations, those last few. General intelligence is no measure of the ability to make money.
So when I was working on a job training program for people with disabilities I should have been teaching them vocabulary instead of job readiness skills.
When I was working on the program I mentioned above we spent most of the our time on basic job readiness skills. Most of the intellectually challenged people in our program did not have any grounding in the basic work related skills we take for granted (showing up on time, calling in sick etc.) It wasn’t that they weren’t capable of learning these skills, it’s just that their parents and the school system didn’t feel that they were ever going to gain meaningful employment. This meant that our students fell into one of three groups;
1). People who had been told that they can’t do anything and they believed it. They would enter our program and they would say “It’s too hard, I can’t do it.” You could guess what their prospects for employment were.
2). The ones who were burning to be seen as “normal”. They had the desire to succeed and they did quite well in their jobs.
3). People who came from loving, nurturing backgrounds, where they were told not to take no for an answer. They did quite well as long as they didn’t have unrealistic expectations attached to their work prospects.
Unfortunately none of them will make huge sums of money, but the satisfaction they gain from working helps to improve their self-confidence and social skills.
Keith