HOW are you smart?
YouTube video from Denver Academy, 34 minutes: “How Are You Smart? What Students with Learning Disabilities are Teaching Us”
New Vistas faculty watched this informative video that reframes the question “Are you smart?” to a far wiser query: “HOW are you smart?” We all felt like we saw OUR students on screen as we watched, as well as a powerful endorsement of our NVS academic philosophy.
This pertinent question is in keeping with psychologist Howard Gardner’s long-time research on multiple intelligences.
The question “Are you smart?” implies that some people are, some people aren’t. The question “HOW are you smart?” gets closer to the truth: most people have certain types of intelligence, and they aren’t all in either language or math/science, which have been the exclusive markers of “braininess”/success in traditional schooling in the past.
Gardner posits that there are at least eight measurable types of intelligence:
· InTRApersonal (self smart)
· Linguistic (word smart—that readin’ and writin’ required in school);
· Logical-Mathematical (logic smart)
· Naturalist (nature smart)
· Spatial (picture smart)
· Bodily-Kinesthetic (body smart)
· Musical (music smart)
· InTERpersonal (people smart)
So when an Einstein and an Edison didn’t do well in school, it certainly wasn’t because they weren’t smart; it was because schools weren’t asking the right question AND responding by teaching to strengths and developing essential weaknesses. Mozart and Elvis were brilliant musically, but we wouldn’t want them designing our bridges. Tom Brady is unequivocally “body smart,” so it doesn’t really matter if he’s not “nature smart.” Picasso was “picture smart,” no doubt, but would he have been a great psychologist? Probably not, if his biographies are to be believed.
Of course none of us would rule out “common sense” smart—that important ability to use judgment and learn from mistakes and mature enough to apply growing values to fresh situations and problems. Paired with knowing individual strengths and weaknesses, that’s a winning combo for success.
At NVS we definitely focus on a person’s varied intellectual strengths as we strive to develop those linguistic and logical skills that are essential for adult independence. Educator Rick LaVoie posited that children with learning problems often have hidden “pools of intelligence” that teachers must also identify and stimulate in order to enhance education. We must ask the right questions and teach to individual “smarts” in order to enable our young people to reach full intellectual potential and competence.
Charlotte G. Morgan, MEd, MFA
Head of School, New Vistas School
