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Seven Ways to Be Smart

Posted on December 11, 2021 by Victor Sander

Imagine for a moment that you lived in a world where only people who were very skilled at musical ability were regarded as valuable. And in this world, only those folks who were musically gifted were thought of as intelligent. Everyone who did not have musical ability was thought of as slow-witted and intellectually inferior.

In this imaginary world, just those men and women who were the best singers, composers, and instrumentalists could run for the office of president, or enter the upper levels of any company.

In a world like that, would you be among the men and women who would easily succeed? Or would you get shut from all the best chances?

If you'd grown up in this world, do you consider yourself to be intelligent? Would other folks think you were not very bright as you could not carry a tune?

In case you happened to be very good at reading and math in a world where just musical ability was considered valuable, would you determine that these other skills you possess were not important?

Do you think it would be fair that others decided whether or not you're smart predicated solely on this very narrow definition of intelligence?

Imagine if you lived in a world where just athletic ability counted? Or a world where just artistic ability was respected?

You can readily see by these examples that deciding to appreciate musical capability only, while disregarding other types of intelligence, would be quite unfair and rather unrealistic. And the same would be true if we determined that just artistic ability, or just athletic ability mattered.

Yet in a way, something similar does occur in the world we reside. In our world, and especially in our schools, people tend to appreciate one specific sort of intellect very highly, and they frequently respect other forms of intelligence as less valuable.

If you happen to be talented at reading, logic and math, you probably did very well in college. You were probably be considered very intelligent by your instructors and your peers, and you grew up confident about your intelligence and your ability to be successful.

That's because in our present world, an aptitude for reading, mathematics and logic was defined as synonymous with intelligence. When you choose an IQ (intelligence quotient) test, this narrow selection of abilities is measured, and the rating is reported to be a measure of your intelligence.

So in case you happen to do badly at language and logic because your skills are everywhere, these evaluations and our school systems can label you as somebody who's not very intelligent.

Standard intelligence tests concentrate a lot on measuring and exploring an individual's capacity to understand logic, mathematics and language. But is that really the same as intelligence? Or is intelligence something broader than that?

Can there be more than 1 kind of intelligence? How should we define intelligence? Can we really measure it? What's intelligence, really?

Several experts in the area of intelligence have suggested that we will need to broaden our comprehension of what intelligence actually is, and the role it plays in successful living. If we define intelligence primarily as an aptitude for mathematical and linguistic/logical believing, we might be missing other kinds of intelligence that are also significant.