Boi An Truong
Seminar- Intelligence
Intelligence, as definition, determinates the ability to respond to certain situation with the
most efficient outcome. As in the article “What is Intelligence, Anyway?” by Isaac Asimov, his
main point was about inaccurate assessment as in the function of society about intelligence. First
of all, he received the fuss of being outstanding then he being fooled by the auto-repair man. He
found out he was shock after being caught with the joke “uneasy feeling he had something there”
because the misleading of the aptitude test’s score he had. This consequence directly pointed out
the evaluation of society for the intelligent which based on the ideas of majority how to rate the
level of intelligent, basically come from the reality: distributions of resource; more than the
talent you have as the base for intelligent, is fail. Same kind of material for rating social status,
racial, gender behavior, etc. as mentioned in the article “Who you are”, Bartholomae.
Anyway, this pointed out the necessary of understanding the theory of Multiple
Intelligences. In this modern world, acknowledging the categories will let us know our strength.
And then we can maximize the benefit we can have from it. Overestimated ourselves only leave
with us the stressful and disappointed which should not be existed in the first place. In addition,
noticing where we belong can also let us change and improve the weakness or the shortage we
have. Therefore, in order to provide the reliable theory - Theory of Multiple Intelligences,
Gardner’s research must work with vary types of person from autism to genius for the specific
observation. He then concluded “In as much as nearly every cultural role requires several
intelligences; it becomes important to consider individuals as a collection of aptitudes rather than
as having a singular problem-solving faculty that can be measured directly through pencil-andpaper tests.” (p391)
I totally agreed with his ideas about classifying the intelligence in form of categories.
There are two main elements I would consider as nature born with as the normal person without
any brain damaged- either interpersonal intelligence or intrapersonal intelligence. These are also
the most important keys to determine what you should be focusing the training on. In other
words, we don’t need a test to see how good a person is. This seems bond with their
characteristic. They always tend to be one side, in between. The reason I want to press on these
keys is because acknowledging the intelligence will directly give you the shortest way to achieve
your goal and evaluate your sight. The other kinds are musical intelligence, bodily-kinesthetic
intelligence, logical-mathematical intelligence, linguistic intelligence and spatial intelligence.
These are addition elements to strength up the ability of responding in the practical situation. It’s
better to image heptagon with each side represents one kind of intelligence. A person represents
a point in the circle. Of course, the point in the center presents the super normal person which
does not really exist. The point starts to move away the circle. The shortest distant to each edge
means the ability in that field increase. This is just an abstract example to let us see how the
combinations really help out each other. Anyway, different combination of intelligence will
definitely have different possible outcome as mentioned in page 390.
The reason why we need to know about intelligence is more important, my own opinion,
because if you are NOT going to take benefit from them then it is like nothing. Just as the
reading “What is Intelligence, Anyway?” the next day he back to work as normal. And there is
one more thing I need to press as well. We can sharp up the ability of respond with more
interaction and experience with the particular situation. Your weakness can be covered with the
effort you put in. I really do believe the quote from my country “your success 99% comes from
hard work and 1% actually from intelligence.” Hard work means improving and updating
yourself in the way to make it better with what original you have, basically is intelligence.
In the conclusion, what and how you are going to have the combination are totally
dependent on how you want yourself to be. For me, my intelligence tends to be intrapersonal and
spatial and logical-mathematic. Somehow, the fact I don’t know how to express myself in form
of linguistic and lack of confident. I would easily find that my appearance is strange and
abnormal with everyone. I am going to improve it by knowing the fact what the potential I do
have. I notice that intelligence appears as the form of practice in particular situation. Somehow I
think, if I don’t have to skill to express myself quickly, I will cover up by preparing and
calculating the situation before heading the actual one. When I get used to the environment, I
will then have the confident. In other words, the point I used as example above will move around
to let problem solve. And of course the requirements for that are time and effort. There is nothing
should be shamed when you make mistake but others do not. Respecting, sharing and
sympathizing are the skills you should learn, accept and understand. Competition is the key to
improve ourselves but comparing each other from single field has their side effect such as
overwork, disappointed, etc. as I pointed out at the beginning. In addition, “intelligence” can
only appear abstractly, anything can be possible, known as exception, even they are out of field.
Our emotion, feeling and background can also be the positive fact that affects the sequence in the
end. Therefore, we can also say that intelligence can be the determinant fact for the question
“Who you are” as well.