Defining Intelligence

Intelligence.

It is hailed from the Latin verb "intellegere", which means "to understand". Despite the long century of debate, people, have been trying to define intelligence. What is intelligence? Intelligence, some people might say, is the ability to learn from and about, ability to understand and the ability to interact with ones environment. Others might say, the ability to solve complex problems. Thus, there emerged a lot of contrasting theories. But, there are four kind of theories that has the biggest followers. They are, General intelligence (Charles Spearman, Primary mental abilities (1938 - American Psychologist, L.Thurstone), Multiple Intelligence (Howard Gardner - Harvard Psychologist) and Triarchic Theory of Intelligence (R.Sternberg)

Take one example, like of Howard Gardner's, how does he define intelligence?

From Howard Gardner's perspective, intelligence is the ability to solve problems , or to create products, that are within one or more cultural settings. intelligence to his perspective is a behavior that does not arise from a single unitary of the mind. To him, fundamentally, an intelligence refers to a biopsychological potential of our species to process certain kinds of information in certain kinds of way. As such, it clearly involves processes that are carried out by dedicated neural networks. No doubt each of the intelligences has its characteristic neural processes, with most of them quite similar across human beings. Some of the processes might prove to be more customized to an individual. therefore according to Howard Gardner, there are different kinds of intelligence - generated from separate metaphorical pools of mental energy, that enables an individual to solve problems.

How does it differ from the traditional point of view?

If you might ask a typical public school teacher, "What makes a a child or someone smart?" the common answer is "raw intelligence", described as the ability of a person to solve problems, utilize logic and to think critically. A person's intelligence, traditionally speaking, is contained in his or her general intellect - in other words, how each and every one of us comprehend, examine, and respond to outside stimuli, whether it be to solve a math problem correctly or to anticipate an opponent's next move in a game of tennis. Our intelligence, therefore, is our singular, collective ability to act and react in an ever-changing world, as cited above. Very much different from what of Howard Gardner's point of view, whereby from what is told earlier is that he believes is not only within one's intellect. That is the reason why Mr Howard Gardner comes up with his theory of multiple intelligence. because unlike the traditional way of thinking on intelligence, whereby it is put that, intelligency is an inherited single entity. and we human beings can be trained to learn anything, provided that it was presented in an appropriate way. 

Raw intelligence is perceived to be the ability to solve problems, utilize logic and to think critically. Traditionalists think intelligence is contained in the general intellect, and can be easily assessed and measured. This mindset led to the development of the Stanford-Binet IQ test and the development of the SAT tests for college bound students.

The idea was to identify what made a person "smart" and then to devise a curriculum that led to the acquisition of that knowledge. Testing was the means to determine if the child developed"mastery" in an area. But, testing can pigeonhole a student, perhaps incorrectly and unfairly.

But is it sufficient enough to identify real intelligence and academic by IQ and good test scores? It is not, why? Because intelligency differs from one individual with another. That person might not have the logical-mathematical intelligency, he might have, lets say, interpersonal intelligence. 

What if a child merely has a good short term memory and can effectively produce the "correct" answers on a test? Does that mean they can later apply that knowledge in a useful way? Maybe not.

What if a child is highly intelligent, but has test anxiety? Do poor grades indicate a lack of mastery in a core area of learning? Not necessarily.

Comparing this to Howard Gardner's theory on multiple intelligence, assessment of an individual's multiple intelligences can foster learning and problem-solving styles. Short answer tests are not used because they do not measure disciplinary mastery or deep understanding. They only measure rote memorization skills and one's ability to do well on short answer tests. Some states have developed tests that value process over the final answer, such as PAM (Performance Assessment in Math) and PAL (Performance Assessment in Language)

Another few comparisons on traditional ideas to Howard Gardner's theory. Where, traditional ideas on intelligence are that people are born with a fixed amount of intelligence. Whereby, on the Howard Gardner's perspective is that, human beings have all of the intelligences, but each person has a unique combination, or profile.

Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligence are broke down to different components. They are :

Logical - mathematical intelligence. People with these intelligence has the ability to solve mathematical problems. in short they have the ability to solve problems systematically. they are skillful in manipulating numbers and in counting or on how to identify and use abstract patterns.  

Linguictic Intelligence. They have the ability to learn languages and using them to accomplish their goals.

Musical intelligence. These people have the skills in composing, tones, sounds and having the appreciation of musical patterns, and responding to any elements pertaining to feeling. As according to Howard Gardner, musical intelligence runs in an almost structural parallel with linguistic intelligence.

Spatial intelligence. Have the potentiality in recognizing and using wide space areas.

Kinesthetic Intelligence. Using their own body in stating their feeling or solving problems and possessing crafty hands. And using their mental abilities to coordinate bodily movement.

Interpesonal intelligence. These people have the ability to understand other people's intention, motivations and their desires. They are good around people and work effectively with others.

Intrapersonal intelligence. Involves the ability to introspect and self reflect. They have the ability to understand their own intention and goals in life. They have the ability to appreciate their feelings and their own motivation. they are highly developed in self knowledge.

Naturalist intelligence. These people have the ability to see patterns and work in natural environment. They love nature.

Existential Intelligence. These are individuals who like and enjoy pondering, questioning and are curious about life and death and ultimate realities. They have the sensitivity and capacity to tackle deep questions about human existence and other spiritual questions.

With reference to Howard Gardner's idea on intelligence, we take one example of a person, many of us knows him for his philosophical ideas. It is Socrates himself. Socrates belongs to the group Existential Intelligence. Socrates, in his forties, began to think about the world around him, he began to ask and will try answering questions that are difficult to answer. Socrates has the liking that most people around him find annoying. He enjoys exposing conceit, ignorance and hypocrisy that is there amongst his fellow Athenians. He also enjoys conversing ethical issues in logics. His willingness to explore an argument and with conclusions that applies with moral courage, was admired by many philosophers. Socrates hadn't left any writings on his ideas. But, we can read his brilliant thoughts through the writings of Plato - his student. Here I jot down one or two of his brilliant quotes. "Once made equal to man, woman become his superior". "Worthless people live only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live". Ponder that.

Being intelligent is not all this days. It is knowing what kind of intelligency that you have. If we were to imply that in school settings, we will have different sorts of skills that we could 'dug out' from our childrens. Therefore children that does not excel in subject teached in school doesn't mean they are not intelligent, they may be intelligent in other sorts of thing.