Intelligence is what school beat into us by putting certain types of
intelligence on a pedestal and ignoring other types. If you are not good at
math or language, you might still be gifted at other things but it was not
called “intelligence”. Why?
In 1983 an American developmental psychologist Howard Gardener
described 9 types of intelligence:
· Naturalist (nature smart)
· Musical (sound smart)
· Logical-mathematical (number/reasoning smart)
· Existential (life smart)
· Interpersonal (people smart)
· Bodily-kinesthetic (body smart)
· Linguistic (word smart)
· Intra-personal (self smart)
· Spatial (picture smart)
What other scientists thought were just soft-skills, such as
interpersonal skills, Gardener realized were types of intelligence. It makes
sense. Just as being a math whiz gives you the ability to understand the world,
so does being “people smart” give you the same ability, just from a different
perspective. Not knowing math you may not calculate the rate at which the
universe is expanding, but you are likely to have the skills to find the right
person who will.