Stephanie had received above the average score

Stephanie had received above the average score

Stephanie Kilhullen ENG101 The Theory of Multiple Intelligences On Howard Gardner and Multiple Intelligences The beginning of the school year is possibly one of the most stressful experiences for a student to endure due to mandatory placement testing—ultimately deciding where and what level a student belongs to based upon their test scores. However, what if a student does not do well on the placement testing because the subjects that the educational system deem ‘intelligent’ are not the student’s strongest attribute?Based upon the low score, the educational system would declare that student to be unintelligent. But is that student really unintelligent? Or are we “brain-washed to restrict the notion of intelligence to the capacities used in solving logical and linguistic problems”(Gardner), thus believing in being unintelligent? Doctor Howard Gardner, who published his opinion on intelligence in Frames of Mind during the nineteen-eighties, theorized that the intelligence of a human being is not defined by one particular capability, but is defined by multiple capabilities.Although many criticize that there is little evidence to prove that Doctor Howard Gardner’s theory is true, I cannot help but find the points that  Gardner argues in his publication to be very plausible and relatable to my own personal experiences. Before Gardner declares his thesis on intelligence, he writes a scenario using the model of intelligence that society accepts: intelligence quotient tests. In the scenario there are two children of the same grade level taking the exact same test, but it is revealed that one student received a score above the average level of intelligence, while the other student received a moderately normal score.Later on in life, Gardner explains, the student who had gotten moderate scores became successful in mechanical engineering, while the student who was supposedly far more ‘intelligent’ had little success after graduating school.

While reading Gardner’s scenario, I had immediately assumed that the student who had received above the average score would have been exceedingly successful. However, by finding out the outcome of the hypothetical students, Gardner’s scenario increases the reader’s curiosity as to why and how the ‘moderately intelligent’ student became so successful later on in life.For Howard Gardner, using scenarios and hypothetical events to make the reader think in a different perspective is his strongest technique to prove his point about multiple intelligences.

It is with the beginning scenario that Gardner introduces the theory that intelligence is defined by at least several different capabilities of a human being. In Doctor Howard Gardner’s model of intelligences, he describes that intelligence can be defined with the following categories: linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, spatial-visual, interpersonal, and intrapersonal intelligence.The definition of intelligence, according to society, is narrowed down to only consider the capabilities of a human being that can be numerically measured with academic testing. However, Gardner asks the reader to, at least for a moment, forget the definition that society constitutes as intelligence and “let your thoughts run freely over the capabilities of humans—perhaps those that would be picked out by the proverbial Martian visitor. In this exercise, you are drawn to the brilliant chess player, the world-class violinist, and the champion athlete; such outstanding performers deserve special consideration.Under this experiment, a quite different view of intelligence emerges.

Are the chess player, violinist, and athlete “intelligent” in these pursuits? If they are not “intelligent,” what allows them to achieve such astounding feats? In general, why does the contemporary construct “intelligence” fail to explain large areas of human endeavor? ”(Gardner) Out of my own experience, I attempted to think of myself as being one of those hypothetical “unintelligent to society” people. According to society, math and logic are what defines ultimate intelligence.However, in school mathematics was my weakest subject on tests. So am I considered unintelligent to society? Or is my intelligence, according to Gardner, based upon my dominance of visual creativity—which has been my strongest subject in school, but was never measured with academic testing? In a way, I understand what Gardner is trying to prove to society, as society only defines intelligence by how well a human does academically. However, Gardner proves his point through his scenarios that intelligences are based upon talents, skills, and other capabilities that encompass our ntire life, while society restricts our definition of intelligence to be only the academic portion of a human life.

And because humans have believed in society’s definition of “intelligence” for so long, people began to define their life capabilities as a different word: talent. But, in actuality, there is no difference between “talent” and “intelligence. ” It is just the narrowness of society’s definition of intelligence that makes people believe that “talent” and “intelligence” are separate.