Multiple Intelligences

I thought that I would share one particular subject with you that really caught my attention during my masters program at Lancaster Bible College (leadership studies). One of my class assignments was to do research on Howard Gardner's, multiple Intelligence theory.

Howard Gardner, amongst other researchers have explored how individual competencies affect the way that one learns. This concept was new to me, so I began to read not only the required books for the course, but I went out and purchased several others to read.

The reason that this topic fascinated me was the fact that I'd struggled so much while I was in school (k-12). Because of my academic struggles, I became the "class clown" and I became pretty good at it too. Looking back on my academic career, ha-ha, I spent more time in the office than in the classroom. 

So, when I found out that there was actually different kinds of "smarts,"  I thought, well maybe, I have one of them. I'll list them for you and see if you can relate, now other researchers may call them by different names, but they are basically all the same. Source of information: ( 7 Kinds of smart, Thomas Armstrong, PH.D).

1. Word Smart: Expressing your verbal intelligences
2. Picture Smart: Thinking with your mind's eye
3. Music Smart: Making the most of your melodic mind
4. Body Smart: Using your kinesthetic intelligence
5. Logic Smart: Calculating your mathematical and scientific abilities
6. People Smart: Connection with your social sense
7. Self Smart: Developing your intrapersonal intellect


Anyway, my assignment was to pick one of the 7 intelligences and do some research and give an oral report to the professor on my findings. I picked number 6, people smart, feeling that I always had the ability to connect with other people. This intelligence also includes the ability to read others-it is having "social awareness," it also includes the ability to see yourself as others see you-in other words, you see yourself in the context of reality.

One thought on the ability to "read others"- Psychologist estimate that nonverbal communication accounts for 60 to 90 percent of all the information transmitted between people. Robert Bolton, teaches that  interpersonal intelligence comes in four basic ways: listening skills, assertion skill, conflict resolution skills, and collaborative problem-solving skills.

Look at this fascinating break down of how people learn, taken from Eight ways of knowing, by David Lazear:

  People learn....
          10% of what they read
          20% of what they hear
          30% of what they see
          50% of what they both see and hear
          70% of what they say as they talk
          90% of what they say as they do a thing 
          95% of what they teach to someone else

Now, how about if I told you I know a person who has all 7 intelligences, and has them at one-hundred percent capacity. A person who knows you so well that it has been said of him that he knows your very thoughts even before you think them. A person who knows all of your joys and equally knows all of your sorrows, I know this man-his name is Jesus, the Mighty God, the Prince of Peace, the Ever-Everlasting God, Savior of the world.