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I’ve always been intrigued by the subject of intelligence. As a child my mother would refer to me as “smart,” but I speedily noticed that all parents refer to their children as smart. In time I would discover that all children are not smart, just as all babies are not cute. If that were the case, we’d have a world full of beautiful, smart people – which we don’t. Some of us are smart; but not as smart as we think, and others are smarter than they seem, which makes me wonder, how do we define smart? What makes one person smarter than another? When do “street smarts” matter more than “book smarts”? Can you be both smart and stupid? Is being smart more of a direct influence of genetics, or one’s environment? Then there are the issues of education, intelligence and wisdom. What does it mean to be highly educated? What’s the divergence amidst being highly educated and highly intelligent? Does being highly educated mechanically make you highly intelligent? Can one be highly intellectual without being highly educated? Do IQs actually mean anything? What makes a person wise? Why is wisdom distinctively related with old age? My desire to seek answers to these questions inspired a lot of hours of intense exploration which included the reading of 6 books, hundreds of exploration documents, and innumerable hours on the Internet; which pales in comparison to the lifetime of studies and exploration that pioneers in the fields of intelligence and education like Howard Gardner, Richard Sternberg, Linda S. Gottfredson, Thomas Sowell, Alfie Kohn, and Diane F. Halpern whose work is cited in this article. My goal was simple: Amass, synthesize, and present data on what it means to be smart, educated and intellectual so that it may be understood and employed by anybody for their benefit. PRENATAL CARE With this in mind, there was not a better (or more appropriate) place to commence than at the very beginning of our existence: as a fetus in the womb. There is mounting proof that the consumption of feed that’s high in iron both before and for the duration of pregnancy is critical to building the prenatal brain. Researchers have found a strong association among low iron levels for the duration of pregnancy and diminished IQ. Foods rich in iron include lima beans, kidney beans, pinto beans, spinach, asparagus, broccoli, seafoods, nuts, dried fruits, oatmeal, and fortified cereals. Children with low iron status in utero (in the uterus) scored lower on each test and had significantly lower language ability, fine-motor skills, and tractability than children with higher prenatal iron levels. In essence, proper prenatal care is critical to the development of cognitive skills. COGNITIVE SKILLS Cognitive accomplishments are the basic mental abilities we use to think, study, and learn. They include a wide assortment of mental processes employed to make an analyzation of sounds and images, recall selective information from memory, make associations amid dissimilar pieces of information, and maintain concentration on queer tasks. They may be on an individual basis identified and measured. Cognitive skill strength and efficacy correlates directly with students’ ease of learning. DRINKING, PREGNANCY, AND ITS INTELLECTUAL IMPACT Drinking while pregnant is not smart. In fact, it’s downright stupid. A study in Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research has found that even light to moderate drinking – particularly for the duration of the second trimester – is related with lower IQs in offspring at 10 years of age. This result was especially pronounced amidst African-American rather than Caucasian offspring. “IQ is a measure of the child’s capacity to learn and to survive in his or her environment. It predicts the potential for success in school and in each and everyday life. Although a little but substantial portion of children are diagnosed with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) each year, a heap of more children are exposed to alcohol for the duration of pregnancy who do not meet criteria for FAS yet experience deficits in growth and cognitive function,” said Jennifer A. Willford, assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Paul D. Connor, clinical conductor of the Fetal Alcohol and Drug Unit and assistant professor in the section of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Washington has this to say regarding the subject: “There are a number of domains of cognitive functioning that may be impaired even in the face of a comparatively normal IQ, including academic accomplishment (especially arithmetic), adaptive functioning, and executive functions (the capacity to problem solve and learn from experiences). Deficits in intellectual, achievement, adaptive, and executive functioning could make it difficult to appropriately manage finances, function independently without assistance, and perceive the aftermaths of – or react appropriately to – mistakes.” This is a key finding which speaks directly to the (psychological) definition of intelligence which is addressed later in this article. ULTRA SOUNDS Studies have shown that the frequent exposure of the humane fetus to ultrasound waves is affiliated with a decrease in newborn body weight, an increase in the frequency of left-handedness, and delayed speech. Because ultrasound energy is a high-frequency mechanical vibration, researchers hypothesized that it might influence the migration of neurons in a fabricating fetus. Neurons in mammals multiply early in fetal development and then migrate to their final destinations. Any interference or disruption in the procedure could result in unnatural brain function. Commercial companies (which do ultrasounds for “keepsake” purposes) are now creating more powerful ultrasound machines capable of supplying standard 3D and 4D images. The procedure, however, lasts longer as they try to make 30-minute videos of the fetus in the uterus. The main stream magazine New Scientist reported the following: Ultrasound scans may stop cells from dividing and make them commit suicide. Routine scans, which have let doctors peek at fetuses and internal organs for the past 40 years, affect the normal cell cycle. On the FDA website this info is posted in regards to ultrasounds: While ultrasound has been around for a heap of years, expectant women and their families need to know that the long-term effects of repeated ultrasound exposures on the fetus are not to a complete degree known. In light of all that remains unknown, having a prenatal ultrasound for non-medical reasons is not a good idea. NATURE VERSUS NURTURE…THE DEBATE CONTINUES Now that you are conscious of numerous of the known elements which determine, improve, and affect the intellectual development of a fetus, it’s time for conception. Once that baby is born, which will be more crucial in the development of it is intellect: nature (genetics) or nurture (the environment)? Apparently for centuries, scientists and psychologists have gone back and forth on this. I read a good deal of comprehensive studies and reports on this subject for the duration of the exploration phase of this article, and I believe that it’s time to put this debate to rest. Both nature and nurture are evenly as indispensable and must be completely observed in the intellectual development of all children. This shouldn’t be an either/or proposition. A recent study shows that early intervention in the home and in the classroom may make a big divergence for a child born into extreme poverty, according to Eric Turkheimer, a psychologist at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. The study concludes that while genetic makeup explains most of the divergences in IQ for children in wealthier families, environment – and not genes – makes a more spectacular divergence for minority children in low-income homes. Specifically, what researchers call “heritability”- the degree to which genes influence IQ – was significantly lower for poor families. “Once you’re put into an adequate environment, your genes get started to take over,” Mr. Turkheimer said, “but in poor environments genes don’t have that ability.” But there are reports that contradict these findings…sort of. Linda S. Gottfredson, a professor of instructional studies at the University of Delaware, wrote in her article, The General Intelligence Factor that environments shared by siblings have little to do with IQ. Many persons still mistakenly believe that social, psychological and economic divergences amid families manufacture lasting and marked deviations in IQ. She found that behavioral geneticists refer to such environmental effects as “shared” because they are mutual to siblings who grow up together. Her reports states that the heritability of IQ rises with age; that is to say, the extent to which genetics accounts for divergences in IQ among humans increments as people get older. In her article she likewise refers to studies comparing identical and fraternal twins, published in the past decade by a group led by Thomas J. Bouchard, Jr., of the University of Minnesota and other scholars, show that in regards to 40 percent of IQ divergences amidst preschoolers stems from genetic differences, but that heritability rises to 60 percent by adolescence and to 80 percent by late adulthood. And this is perhaps the most interesting bit of information, and applicable to this section of my article: With age, divergences among persons in their invented intelligence come to mirror more almost their genetic differences. It appears that the effects of surroundings on intelligence fade rather than grow with time. Bouchard concludes that young children have the circumstances of their lives imposed on them by parents, schools and other agents of society, but as people get older they become more independent and tend to seek out the life niches that are most congenial to their genetic proclivities. BREAST-FEEDING INCREASES INTELLIGENCE Researchers from Christchurch School of Medicine in New Zealand studied over 1,000 children born among April and August 1977. During the amount of time from birth to one year, they assembled info on how these children were fed. The infants were then followed to age 18. Over the years, the researchers assembled a range of cognitive and academic selective information on the children, including IQ, teacher ratings of school performance in reading and math, and results of standardized tests of reading comprehension, mathematics, and scholastic ability. The researchers likewise looked at the number of passing grades achieved in national School Certificate examinations taken at the end of the third year of high school. The results indicated that the longer children had been breast-fed, the higher they scored on such tests. TALKING TO YOUR CHILDREN MAKES A DIFFERENCE Thomas Sowell, author of Race, IQ, Black Crime, and facts Liberals Ignore uncovered some arousing and attention holding selective information that each parent will have to take note of. He writes: There is a strong case that black Americans suffer from a series of disadvantageous environments. Studies show time and again that before they go to school, black children are on intermediate exposed to a littler vocabulary than white children, in share due to socioeconomic factors. While children from professional households distinctively exposed to a total of 2,150 dissimilar words each day, children from working class households are exposed to 1,250, and children from households on welfare a mere 620. Yes, smart sounding children tend to come from educated, professional, two-parent environments where they pick-up worthful language attainments and vocabulary from it is smart sounding inhabitants. Mr. Sowell continues: Black children are plainly not to blame for their poor socioeconomic status, but something beyond economic status is at work in black homes. Black humans have not signed up for the “great mission” of the white middle class – the uninterrupted quest to stimulate intellectual growth and get their child into Harvard or Oxbridge. Elsie Moore of Arizona State University, Phoenix, studied black children adopted by either black or white parents, all of whom were middle-class professionals. By the age of 7.5 years, those in black homes were 13 IQ points behind those being raised in the white homes. ACCUMULATED ADVANTAGES At this juncture in my exploration it dawned on me, and will have to be reasonably evident to you, that a great deal of children are disposed to being smart, educated, and intelligent, plainly by their exposure to the influential elements which determine them long before they begin school. An informed mother, proper prenatal care, educated, communicative parents, and a fostering surroundings in which to live, all add up to collected vantages that invent intellectual abilities. As you may see, a lot of children have unfair vantages from the very beginning. Malcolm Gladwell, author of top-selling book Outliers, wrote that “accumulated advantages” are made possible by arbitrary rules…and such unfair vantages are everywhere. “It is those who are successful who are most likely to be given the kinds of social probabilities that lead to further success,” he writes. “It’s the rich who get the biggest tax breaks. It’s the best students who get the best instructing and most attention.” With that in mind, we turn our attention to education and intelligence. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE WELL EDUCATED? Alfie Kohn, author of the book What Does It Mean To Be Well Educated? poses the question, does the phrase well educated refer to a quality of schooling you received, or something regarding you? Does it denote what you were taught? Or what you remember? I contend that to be well educated is all in the application; the application and use of information. Information has to be employed in order to become knowledge, and as we all have heard, cognition is power. Most people are conscious of the floundering state of education in this country on galore level. We tell our children that nothing is more necessary than getting a “good” education, and each year, due to government budget shortfalls, teachers are laid off, classes are condensed, schools are closed, and galore instructional programs – specially those which support the underprivileged – are cut. The reality is, we don’t genuinely value education. We value it as a business, an industry, political ammunition, and as an accepted form of discrimination, but not for what it was intended: a means of improving one’s reputation and life through learning. What we value as a society, are athletes and the amusement they offer. The fact that a professional athlete makes more cash in one season, than most teachers in any region will make in their careers, is abominable. There’s always cash to build new sports stadiums, but not sufficient to give teachers a decent (and well-deserved) raise. Ironically, the best teachers don’t go into the profession for money. They instruct because it’s a calling. Most of them were influenced by a actually good teacher as a student. With the mass exodus of teachers, some students are not capable to cultivate the mentoring relationships that they once were capable to because so a great deal of are leaving the profession – voluntarily and involuntarily – within an intermediate of three years. At the high school level, where I got my start, the special and significant stress is not on how to educate the students to prepare them for life, or even college (all high schools must be college-prep schools, right?), it was regarding preparing them to excel on their standardized tests. Then the disputable “exit” exams were enforced and literally, a lot of high schools were transformed into testing centers. Learning has closely become secondary. This mentality carries over into college, which of course there’s a test one must take in order to enroll (the SAT or ACT). This explains why so a heap of college students are more concerned with completing a course, than learning from it. They are focalized on getting “A’s” and degrees, rather of getting degreed thinkers. The latter of which are in dandier demand by employers and incorporate the bulk of the self-employed. The “get-the-good-grade” mindset is directly attributable to the relentless and often times unnecessary testing that our students are subjected to in schools. Alfie Kohn advocates the “exhibition” of learning, in which students disclose their understanding by means of in-depth projects, portfolios of assignments, and other demonstrations. He cites a model initiated by Ted Sizer and Deborah Meier. Meier has emphasized the importance of students having five “habits of mind,” which are: the value of raising questions in regards to evidence (“How do we know what we know?”), point of view, (“Whose perspective does this represent?”), connections (“How is this related to that?”), supposition (“How might things have been otherwise?”), and relevance (“Why is this important?”). Kohn writes: It’s only the capacity to raise and answer those questions that matters, though, but also the disposition to do so. For that matter, any set of intellectual objectives, any description of what it means to think deeply and critically, ought to be accompanied by a reference to one’s interest or intrinsic motivation to do such thinking…to be well-educated then, is to have the desire as well as the means to make sure that learning never ends… HISTORY AND PURPOSE OF IQ We’ve always wanted to measure intelligence. Ironically, when you look at a lot of the firstborn methods employed to evaluate it in the 1800s, they were not, well, very intelligent. Tactics such as subjecting humans to respective forms of torture to see what their threshold for pain was (the longer you could withstand wincing, the more intellectual you were believed to be), or testing your capacity to detect a high pitch sound that others could not hear. Things have changed…or have they? No discussion of intelligence or IQ may be finish without mention of Alfred Binet, a French psychologist who was responsible for laying the groundwork for IQ testing in 1904. His introductory intention was to devise a test that would diagnose learning handicaps of students in France. The test results were then employed to prepare special programs to help students win a victory over their instructional difficulties. It was never intended to be employed as an absolute measure of one’s intellectual capabilities. According to Binet, intelligence could not be described as a single score. He said that the use of the Intelligence Quotient (IQ) as a definitive statement of a child’s intellectual capability would be a severe mistake. In addition, Binet dire that IQ measurement would be employed to condemn a child to a permanent “condition” of stupidity, thereby negatively affecting his or her education and livelihood. The initial interest was in the assessment of ‘mental age’ — the intermediate level of intelligence for a person of a given age. His creation, the Binet-Simon test (originally called a “scale”), formed the archetype for future tests of intelligence. H. H. Goddard, conductor of exploration at Vineland Training School in New Jersey, translated Binet’s work into English and advocated a more usual application of the Simon-Binet test. Unlike Binet, Goddard considered intelligence a solitary, fixed and inborn entity that could be measured. With support of Lewis Terman of Stanford University, his final product, published in 1916 as the Stanford Revision of the Binet-Simon Scale of Intelligence (also known as the Stanford-Binet), became the standard intelligence test in the United States. It’s important to note that the fallacy in regards to IQ is that it is fixed and may not be changed. The fact is that IQ scores are known to fluctuate – both up and down for the duration of the course of one’s lifetime. It does not mean that you become more, or less intelligent, it plainly means that you tested better on one day than another. One more thing to recognise when it comes to IQ tests: They have been used for racist intents since their importation into the U.S. Many of those who were involved in the importation and refinement of these tests believed that IQ was hereditary and are responsible for feeding the fallacy that it is a “fixed” trait. Many immigrants were tested in the 1920s and failed these IQ tests miserably. As a result, a great deal of of them were refused entry into the U.S., or were forced to undergo sterilization for fear of populating America with “dumb” and “inferior” babies. If you recall, the tests were designed for white, middle class Americans. Who do you think would have the most difficultness passing them? Lewis Terman devised the basi notion of IQ and proposed this scale for classifying IQ scores: 000 – 070: Definite feeble-mindedness *Genius IQ is in general considered to commence around 140 to 145, representing only 25% of the population (1 in 400). DEFINING INTELLIGENCE Diane F. Halpern, a psychologist and past-president of the American Psychological Association (APA), wrote in her essay contribution to Why Smart People Can Be So Stupid that in general, we recognize persons as intellectual if they have a lot of combining of these accomplishments (1) good grades in school; (2) a high level of education; (3) a responsible, complex job; (4) a lot of other acknowledgement of being intelligent, such as winning esteemed awards or earning a huge salary; (5) the capacity to read complex text with good comprehension; (6) solve difficult and novel problems. Throughout my exploration and in the early phases of this article, I came throughout some definitions of the word intelligence. Some were long, a lot of were short. Some I couldn’t even understand. The definition that is most prevalent is the one developed by the APA which is: the capacity to adjust to one’s environment, and learn from one’s mistakes. How in regards to that? There’s the word surroundings again. We just can’t seem to escape it. This adds deeper meaning to the saying, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” It means recognizing what’s going on in your environment, and having the intelligence adjust to it – and the people who occupy it – in order to survive and succeed within it. There are also a lot of dissimilar forms of intelligence. Most notably those developed by Dr. Howard Gardner, professor of education at Harvard University. Dr. Gardner believes (and I agree) that our schools and culture focus most of their attention on linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligence. We respect the highly articulate or logical humans of our culture. However, Dr. Gardner says that we must likewise place equivalent attention on persons who show gifts in the other intelligences: the artists, architects, musicians, naturalists, designers, dancers, therapists, entrepreneurs, and others who enrich the world in which we live. He felt that the traditionalisti notion of intelligence, based on IQ testing, was far too fixed and produced the Theories Of Multiple Intelligences in 1983 to account for a broader range of humane potential in children and adults. These intelligences are: Linguistic intelligence (“word smart”) Not affiliated with Dr. Gardner, but evenly valued are: FLUID & CRYSTALLIZED INTELLIGENCE According to About.com, Psychologist Raymond Cattell original proposed the conceptions of liquid and crystallized intelligence and further invented the theory with John Horn. The Cattell-Horn theory of liquid and crystallized intelligence proposes that intelligence is composed of a number of dissimilar abilities that interact and work together to create overall person intelligence. Cattell specified liquid intelligence as “…the capacity to understand relationships independent of former specific exercise or instruction concerning those relationships.” Fluid intelligence is the capacity to think and reason abstractly and solve problems. This capacity is considered independent of learning, experience, and education. Examples of the use of liquid intelligence include solving puzzles and coming up with problem solving strategies. Crystallized intelligence is learning from past experiences and learning. Situations that require crystallized intelligence include reading comprehension and vocabulary exams. This type of intelligence is based upon facts and rooted in experiences. This type of intelligence becomes more inviolable as we age and cumulate new cognition and understanding. Both types of intelligence increase all around childhood and adolescence. Fluid intelligence peaks in adolescence and begins to decline more and more beginning around age 30 or 40. Crystallized intelligence proceeds to grow all around adulthood. SUCCESSFUL INTELLIGENCE Then there’s Successful Intelligence, which is authored by intelligence psychologist and Yale professor, Robert J. Sternberg, who believes that the whole conception of relating IQ to life accomplishment is misguided, because he believes that IQ is a pretty miserable predictor of life achievement. His Successful Intelligence theory focuses on 3 types of intelligence which are combined to bestow to one’s overall success: Analytical Intelligence; mental steps or parts employed to solve problems; Creative Intelligence: the use of experience in ways that foster clear or deep perception (creativity/divergent thinking); and Practical Intelligence: the capacity to read and adjust to the contexts of each day life. With regard to environment, Mr. Sternberg writes in his book Successful Intelligence: Successfully intellectual humans realize that the environs in which they find themselves may or may not be competent to make the most of their talents. They actively seek an environs where they may not only do successful work, but make a difference. They manufacture chances rather than let probabilities be fixed by circumstances in which they take place to find themselves. As an educator, I subscribe to Mr. Sternberg’s Successful Intelligence approach to teaching. It has proven to be a highly effective tool and mindset for my college students. Using Successful Intelligence as the central cohesive source of support and stability of my context-driven curriculum genuinely inspires students to see how education makes their life goals more attainable, and motivates them to further invent their expertise. Mr. Sternberg believes that the major factor in achieving skillfulness is purposeful engagement. EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE In his best-selling 1995 book, Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman reported that exploration shows that conventional measures of intelligence – IQ – only account for 20% of a person’s success in life. For example, exploration on IQ and education shows that high IQ predicts 10 to 25% of grades in college. The portion will vary depending on how we define success. Nonetheless, Goleman’s assertion begs the question: What accounts for the other 80%? You guessed it…Emotional Intelligence. What incisively is aroused intelligence? Emotional intelligence (also called EQ or EI) refers to the capacity to perceive, control, and valuate emotions. Many corporations now have mandatory EQ training for their managing directors in an effort to improve employee TACIT KNOWLEDGE aka “STREET SMARTS” You’ve heard the phrase, “Experience is the greatest teacher…” In psychology circles noesis gained from each day experience is called tacit knowledge. The conversational term is “street smarts,” which implies that formal, classroom instruction (aka “book smarts”) has not one thing to do with it. The person is not directly instructed as to what he or she ought to learn, but rather must extract the essential lesson from the experience even when learning is not the necessary objective. Tacit cognition is almost related to mutual sense, which is sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the circumstance or facts. As you know, mutual sense is not all that common. Tacit knowledge, or the lessons received from it, seems to “stick” both rapidly and without delay and better when the lessons have direct relevance to the individual’s goals. Knowledge that is based on one’s own practical experience will likely be more instrumental to achieving one’s goals than will be cognition that is based on somebody else’s experience, or that is overly generic and abstract. BEING BOTH SMART AND STUPID Yes, it’s possible to be both smart and stupid. I’m sure someone you recognise comes to mind at this precise moment. But the goal here is not to ridicule, but to perceive how numerous seemingly highly intelligent, or highly educated persons may be so smart in one way, and fantastically stupid in others. The woman who is a respected, well paid, dynamic executive who systematically chooses men who don’t appear to be worthy of her, or the man who appears to be a pillar of the community, with a loving wife and happy kids, ends up being arrested on rape charges. It happens, but why? I found the answer in Why Smart People Can Be So Stupid. Essentially, intellect is domain specific. In other words, being smart (knowledgeable) in one area of your life, and stupid (ignorant) in another is natural. Turning off one’s brain is rather mutual especially when it comes to what we desire. A shared characteristic amongst those who are smart and stupid, is the difficultness in delaying gratification. Olem Ayduk & Walter Mischel who wrote the chapter summarized: Sometimes stupid conduct in smart persons may arise from wrong expectations, erroneous beliefs, or plainly a lack of motivation to enact control systems even when one has them. But now and again it is an disability to regulate one’s affective states and the behavioral tendencies affiliated with them that leads to stupid and self-defeating behavior. The central reputation in this book who a good deal of of these lessons when it comes to being smart and stupid revolve around is Bill Clinton and his affair with Monica Lewinksky. WISDOM & CONCLUSION My outstanding grandmother, Leola Cecil, possibly had an 8th grade education at the most. By no stretch of the imagination was she highly educated, but she had what seemed like infinite wisdom. She was very observant and could “read” persons with startling accuracy. Till the very end of her life she shared her “crystallized intelligence” with whomever was receptive to it. She passed from physical life at the age of 94. I often use a great deal of of her sayings as a public speaker, but most importantly, I use her philosophies to make sure that I’m being guided spiritually and not just intellectually. Many of us who are lucky sufficient to have a outstanding grandparent may testify that there is something particular regarding their knowledge. They seem to have life figured out, and a knack for helping those of us who are smart, educated and intellectual see things more without doubt or question when we are too busy thinking. What they have is what we will have to all aspire to end up with if we are lucky: wisdom. Wisdom is the capacity to look through a person, when others may only look at them. Wisdom slows down the thinking procedure and makes it more organic; synchronizing it with intuition. Wisdom helps you make better judgments when it comes to decisions, and makes you less judgmental. Wisdom is understanding without knowing, and accepting without understanding. Wisdom is recognizing what’s important to other people, and knowing that other persons are of the utmost importance to you. Wisdom is both a starting point, and a final conclusion. |
An worthful reference book for little businessesTags: Educated, education, Intelligence, Smart, Students