It might seem useless to define such a simple word. After all, we have all heard this word hundreds of times and probably have a general understanding of its meaning. However, the concept of intelligence has been a widely debated topic among members of the psychology community for decades.
Intelligence has been defined in many ways: higher level abilities (such as abstract reasoning, mental representation, problem solving, and decision making), the ability to learn, emotional knowledge, creativity, and adaptation to meet the demands of the environment effectively.
Psychologist Robert Sternberg defined intelligence as "the mental abilities necessary for adaptation to, as well as shaping and selection of, any environmental context."
SO... who is Robert Sternberg?
AND... because of this (see image above) we are supposed to believe that Dr. Sternberg is the be all and end all of intelligence, just because he is a PhD Yale Professor and wrote a book?
BUT... since we do not have anyone else in mind to put forth a contradictory opinion, let's look at what he has to say on INTELLIGENCE.
Intelligence is possessing mental abilities to ADAPT< SHAPE< and SELECT... which could mean that having a college education or having a master's degree or even a PhD does not necessarily make one intelligence unless one can ADAPT, SHAPE, and SELECT any environmental context (whatever that means).
YET OUR SOCIETY measures INTELLIGENCE by the amount of EDUCATION one has received and successfully passed by some generally accepted measurement.
SO... one could attend a college class, memorize what was needed to receive an "A" in the course and follow that same procedure throughout a college career that ended up with a PhD when in reality that person retained very little if any of the knowledge that was presented and would be considered HIGHLY INTELLIGENT.
That just doesn't seem FAIR to me... but what do I know since I am not HIGHLY INTELLIGENT...
No comments:
Post a Comment