The essay “Multiple Intelligences” criticizes traditional ideas about intelligence in favor of a more broad view of intelligence. These days, intelligence is largely quantified by test-taking, however, as Gardner points out, this process hardly captures the breadth of intelligences that we find useful in society. Gardner lists and describes the seven intelligences: musical, bodily-kinesthetic, logical-mathematical, linguistic, spatial, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. Through studies of prodigies and people who have become somehow cut off from particular intelligences, Gardner argues that these intelligences are independent from one another.
I agree with Gardner on the level that understanding the many facets of intelligence should be considered when evaluating someone’s capabilities. At the same time, however, I found the entire essay to be slightly pointless. In the Logical-Mathematical portion, he mentions that for “the gifted individual, the process of problem solving is often remarkably rapid…”(292). This comment made me wonder, aside from mental capacity, did speed matter? Is someone still considered intelligent in a particular category if they’re capable of solving problems but only at an incredibly slow rate? Or if someone is a mediocre but prolific writer or photographer, yet he/she is able to weed through lots of bad writing or bad photography to obtain the good works, don’t we still consider this person intelligent and beneficial to society? In this sense, intelligence seems like a pointless thing to measure anyway, if things like stamina and persistence could be the factors that cause the person to perform well.
No comments:
Post a Comment