The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us. Bill Watterson
Some of my readers, considering this week’s title, may assume that there was a grammatical error made by the writer. Did he mean to write, “How smart are you?” While the strange sounding title does seem to invite question, it was expressed as desired.
The confusion actually alludes to the point of the piece itself. Most of us, when considering intelligence (I.e. how smart are we?), see it by what is known as the “single factor theory.” The term indicates that intelligence is a single commodity: a given quantity of brainpower. An image of this concept might involve a container like a milk bottle. Geniuses would have a full bottle of intelligence. Average people would have a partially filled vessel. Low functioning individuals would have a little wet spot on the bottom of their container. You get it.
But Howard Gardner is generally credited with a more complex and definitely more accurately descriptive image of intellectual functioning and operation. He refers to his concept as “multiple intelligences” and describes 8 different forms of brain-related skills that allow us to function in a complicated and demanding culture. The 8 types of intelligence are as follows: linguistic, logic-mathematical, musical, body/kinesthetic, spatial, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic.
Certainly, Gardner’s theory is worthy of more discussion, but for today’s purposes, it is sufficient that we are considering that there is another, less conventional way to consider our own abilities and capacities than simply defining ourselves very smart, somewhat smart, or not so smart.
Using the single factor theory as a measure of someone’s intelligence often leads us into some puzzling conundrums. For example, I recall a casual conversation with a friend that led to a rather spirited debate. My friend reported that her former college roommate had trouble maintaining a career, had several failed marriages and relationships, and struggled with a drinking problem. But my friend reported, “But she was brilliant.” The debate began when I asked, “By what possible definition is she brilliant? She sounds like a train wreck!” As the dialogue continued, my friend’s sole defense seemed to be that her old roommate had a high enough GPA and SAT score to be admitted to a prestigious university.
Sadly, much of secondary education “worships at the altar” of math and language because those are the two forms of intelligence used as admission criteria. High schools base student GPA on subjects drawing on those two forms of intelligence, but ignore music, physical education, and industrial education classes that depend on spatial ability. And nowhere do we attempt to measure or value a given student’s depth of self-understanding or their ability to get along with others. In this world, bookworms, nerds, and PC geeks head to the Ivy League while future salespersons, mechanics, and masseurs are on their way to work or the local community college. Academia doesn’t seem to value the latter group.
But the world does. Picture an imaginary Uncle Wally. He graduated from high school with a 2.4 GPA. He never attended college. But he’s been selling cars at the same dealership for twenty years. Loyal repeat customers patiently wait to see him at the showroom while other sales staff chew gum and read the newspaper. Wally is happily married to his high school sweetheart and is coaching his daughter’s soccer team. His neighbors love him. And yet we might be tempted to describe Wally as “not the brightest guy in the world. But he sells a bunch of cars and is great family man.”
So who is the “brighter” one: my friend’s old roommate or Uncle Wally?
Homework: Re-consider how you evaluate others or yourself, perhaps. Or, maybe how we see our kids. And catch yourself in the act of describing someone as “smart” or “bright” because they possess one of Gardner’s intelligences while sorely lacking in many others, especially relationship and self-examination skills. Even worse, avoid a tendency to discount the “Uncle “Wallies” of the world by describing them as “not very bright,” despite their high level of personal success and functionality in some non-technical or scientific field. They are “smart” in ways that we often overlook. Respect and acknowledge their accomplishments, not their ACT score.
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits. Albert Einstein