THERE ARE AT LEAST SIX KINDS OF “SMART”

Enter Harvard Professor Howard Gardner.With Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences, theory may have caught up with common sense. Beginning in about 1980, Gardner had become interested in some fundamental questions arising from psychological testing: Why do some people with very high IQ scores fail miserably in their personal lives? Do tests of mental competence miss certain obvious aspects of human ability, such as artistic, musical, athletic, literary, and social competence? Gardner came to the inevitable conclusion: the outdated concept of “intelligence” as a singular measure of competence has to go. He posited that human beings have a whole range of primary competencies—intelligences—and they exist in various proportions in various persons. His provocative book Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, published in 1983, dealt a body-blow to the established notion that IQ defines or controls the ability to think, and set in motion a new way of looking at human competence.1 Placing practical intelligence (“PI”) within Gardner’s “MI” framework requires a bit of conceptual acrobatics, inasmuch as Gardner himself—at least at the time of this writing continues to evolve his categories and definitions. The bulk of his early work involved a set of some seven independent intelligences. He has also posited the existence of an eighth dimension, less clearly defined. Some other researchers have diced up the macro-intelligences into other categories. Consequently, for our exploration, we’ll need to settle on some working definition of these multiple intelligences, in order to place PI clearly into that perspective. While Gardner uses rather scientific sounding labels for his categories verbal-logical, mathematical-symbolic, spatial, kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal and musical—we probably do little harm by re-coding them into street language and simplifying them conceptually.With appropriate respect for Professor Gardner and his theory, I’ve found it helpful to rearrange these “multiple smarts” into six primary categories: Others might argue for a somewhat different set of subdivisions, but these six categories work fairly well, and they have the modest extra advantage of spelling out a memorable acronym:ASPEAK. Presumably the “Renaissance human,” the success model most of us admire,would have a strong and well-integrated combination of all key intelligences. Gardner’s notion of multiple intelligences seems to fit with our common experience. Consider the disparity between abstract intelligence—the IQ kind—and social intelligence. I’ve met many members of Mensa, the international society of people with high IQs—the only requirement for membership. I’ve often marveled at the number of them who, despite their impressive cognitive credentials, seemed incapable of connecting with other people and, in some cases, incapable of maintaining a reasonable degree of emotional resilience. IQ intelligence doesn’t necessarily translate to the ability to raise children, plan a wedding, run a business, manage people, or compose a The Possible Human 31 song. Nor, to be fair, does the ability to fly a jet fighter kinesthetic intelligence—necessarily translate to the ability to solve differential equations. Presumably, we can approach each of these six key dimensions as a learning adventure in and of itself. The evidence from developmental research suggests that the basis for each of the six intelligences takes shape early in life. We know less—actually, very little—about the extent to which adults can make significant gains in all of these dimensions. Certainly the hope for that possibility appeals to many of us.