Some thoughts on intelligence

Hello everyone,

I had a discussion with a young teenager last week. "I'm Special Fred," she said to me. "What do you mean?" I asked. "I'm in special ed. classes. I'm not smart. You know--Special Ed: Special Fred. It's just a nickname."

"What are you in special ed. for?" I asked her.

"My reading," she said.

"How's your math?" I asked.

She was a year ahead of her gen. ed. peers, but was struggling. (At one year ahead!) Her struggles confirmed in her mind that she wasn't bright, even though she was advanced.

We had a rather lengthy discussion on the difference between intelligence and processing (my explanation of a learning disability--no problem with the cognition; some problem with processing). I don't know if I satisfied her, but I think she enjoyed the intellectual exercise.

I have had this conversation before with special ed. students. In a special day class once, when I was team teaching, the students brought up the inevitable conversation about being in special ed. which, they believed, made them unintelligent.

Actually, the same thing happens in band classes with the poor student who just can't hear that his instrument is out of tune, or in a PE class when the math whiz can't hit a basket, or in dance class when one girl can't put one foot in front of the other, or in social situations when someone always manages to say the wrong thing, or when a cheerleader has anorexia because she's sure she's ugly, or when a gardener can't keep anything but weeds alive.

The difference is that in school we tend to value only two eighths of the identified kinds of intelligence, and we take failures in other intelligences as a matter of course. Students, therefore, who do worse than average in math or language feel stupid, while others can simply avoid the subjects they're poor in.

It was when I was first entering teaching in the early 1980s that Howard Gardner at Harvard identified eight different kinds of human intelligence. I list them below:

Linguistic intelligence ("word smart"):
Logical-mathematical intelligence ("number/reasoning smart")
Spatial intelligence ("picture smart")
Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligence ("body smart")
Musical intelligence ("music smart")
Interpersonal intelligence ("people smart")
Intrapersonal intelligence ("self smart")
Naturalist intelligence ("nature smart")
(from http://www.thomasarmstrong.com/multiple_intelligences.htm)

Understanding the eight intelligences, appreciating their differences, adapting to student variations, and accepting that everyone can be taught in every intelligence, help us as we work with our students. In special ed., sometimes it's just helpful for the kids to know that each of their eight intelligences is equally important, and their difficulty with words or numbers isn't a sign that they lack overall intelligence. In general ed. classes, we sometimes have to understand that the hyperactive child might have high kinesthetic intelligence, and that might be tapped for a variation in learning styles. Or we may acknowledge that it may be a disaster if we ignore interpersonal intelligence when setting up groups in class. (The child with the highest grade doesn't always have the highest interpersonal intelligence. The child with the lowest grade might.)

Different intelligences, along with different communication styles (which we covered in the New Teachers' Seminar), affect the different facets of understanding, and I'll talk about that on Friday.

Jeff Combe