Battle of the Brains

Here’s an interesting video clip about intelligence and IQ tests. Anyone with a right brain, creative, divergent thinker (either themselves or their child!) that has struggled mightily in school will understand why this topic is of high interest to me.

IQ tests are informative if you are testing a left brain, sequential, convergent thinker. Someone who doesn’t freak out in a timed test situation. Someone who sees the word ‘dog’ and only has one word association with it, rather than 3945803458. Someone who learns part-to-whole and thinks linearly.

But there is so much research happening right now that is highlighting the fact that intelligence is so much more than what the IQ test defines it as. Particularly research by Dr. Gardner, (who is shown in the video) who coined the term “multiple intelligence“. Last year I posted my own take on it, and here’s another great quote about it:

Dr. Gardner says that our schools and culture focus most of their attention on linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligence. We esteem the highly articulate or logical people of our culture. However, Dr. Gardner says that we should also place equal attention on individuals 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. Unfortunately, many children who have these gifts don’t receive much reinforcement for them in school. Many of these kids, in fact, end up being labeled “learning disabled,” “ADD (attention deficit disorder,” or simply underachievers, when their unique ways of thinking and learning aren’t addressed by a heavily linguistic or logical-mathematical classroom.

The show in the video clip was first shown on BBC and can now be seen on the Science Channel and/or Discovery Channel…although I haven’t been able to find the broadcast.