What is Intelligence? - How the Education System Might be Changing Our Definition

To begin this I would like to preface why I chose this particular topic. I will also be using two articles one on the theory of intelligence and the other on how we might change our perspective about intelligence. This topic is important to me because I think that intelligence spans a far greater scale than the percentage at the top of students' paper. This issue has plagued me most of my school life because I was never considered "intelligent" enough. I was average because my score did not say a number above my peers. I think the message the education sometimes sends to young students about defining their intelligence is something that does not encompass the many possibilities and capabilities the student might posses. The "Theories of Intelligence" article shows the many kinds of intelligence humans may posses. Among the "Book Smart" many people think of; Intelligence is more than one person's ability to solve an equation or write a paper. Below is one theory of intelligence and how it might span more than the average school setting; according to Robert Stenberg Intelligence is, "

1. Practical intelligence--the ability to do well in informal and formal educational settings; adapting to and shaping one's environment; street smarts.
2. Experiential intelligence--the ability to deal with novel situations; the ability to effectively automate ways of dealing with novel situations so they are easily handled in the future; the ability to think in novel ways.
3. Componential intelligence--the ability to process information effectively. This includes metacognitive, executive, performance, and knowledge-acquisition components that help to steer cognitive processes. " 

These categories that are listed can obviously be stretched farther than math class. I think that is where schools could improve. This also ties into the persuasion of social media, but that is a different topic in its entirety. The next article is how we could change our perspective on intelligence. I think this really hits home to me for personal and political reasons. Growing up I could never tell someone the expansion of the universe or how to do math, or what chemical make-up is in the composition of the human body. We think of smart people as prodigal children who DO know those things. People's talents were made for much more than the classroom and while reading these articles I saw how intelligence can mean many different things. The second article "Changing Perspectives About Intelligence" is also very important to my point. The author states how in order for any change to be made society has to break the habit of assimilating intelligence with aptitude based quantities and numbers and instead teach intelligence as a progressive growth of conceptual thinking and process with a basis of knowledge structures. I think this is a very valuable topic that could change the way we view the rest of society when given the word "intelligent" to describe it. 

 Theories of Intelligence 

http://otec.uoregon.edu/intelligence.htm 

Changing Perspective About Intelligence 

http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/108008/chapters/Changing-Perspectives-About-Intelligence.aspx