Based on chapter
7, The Intelligent Quotient (IQ) test is a test to “measure” the amount of
Intelligence of a person by logical thinking tests. But how far or how true is
that ? What is the meaning of intelligence ? Even after 100 years, the word has
no specific definition (Győri & Fülöp,
2010). So fair to call a person who scored better academically as “An
Intelligent person” ? I reckon not, because intelligence has many factors or
scopes. Social intelligence ? speech intelligence ? academic intelligence ? Spatial
intelligence ? Naturalistic intelligence ? and the list goes on.
If
you call a person who has a higher education degrees, masters, PhD as
intelligent then hat about the people who did not have the chance to pursue
their studies ? Let me put it this way, to my personal experience is that the
“Academically intelligent” beings are mostly intelligent on papers. Yes,
they’ll take time to practice and make their thoeoritical education as
practical but the working peoples who use their knowledge practically knows
much more ! Their intelligence are for real life situations. For survival
skills. Like our grandmothers, they can wipe up a meal ! So exquisite, better
than the hotel chefs without “formal Chef school education”
Different
people have different capability and we all know it. And if we look at the
scope of “Theory of Multiple Intelligence” by Howard Gardner (1983), we are all
intelligent in different scope ! And as discussed that intelligence depends on
many factors like cultural issues that different country comprises different
values of education and if you can’t score well in another countries’ exam.
Fret not, you’re not “not intelligent”, you’re just not use to their cultural
issues.
The
home environment that contributes to intelligence is the fact of family sculpture.
How parents and other family members injects education and general knowledge to
their child. How they develop their children’s logistic thinking. The parents
pay a very high contribution in their child’s IQ because they are the earliest
input the child has before formal education. But as the child’s age increases
and they started getting formal education, the genetic background can be
mediator between family’s intellectual influences (Mackintosh, 1998) but IQ
also decreases without education (Mackintosh, 1998).
What
I can grasp from the lesson of intelligence that it can be influenced by
environment but intelligence is a something very broad and subjective. It has
no specific meaning to the term, and it is not fair to label somebody as
“intelligent” just because they know more in one scope because human beings
have their special abilities and their own capability to think. And what I can
conclude that, whatever figure that is shown in the IQ test does not give a
significant meaning to anyone’s lives.
-Wily-
I agree with Wily “it is not fair to label somebody as “intelligent” just because they know more in one scope”. As we know that everyone is different, how can we judge the people that not doing well in academic as “not intelligent”? May be that people not good in academic but he/she may be good in others field that we do not know. Everyone has different thinking and capacity so we cannot label him/her as “intelligent” or “not intelligent” and yet I do not think that we have the right to label or judge them. For me, IQ test is just a test for you to know where your level is but not judge you whether “intelligent” or “not intelligent”. As I know, nowadays parents will use IQ test to justify and also compare their children with others. To me, this will make the children feel uncomfortable and may be they will feel stress when they know they are not as “intelligent” as others.
ReplyDelete-Jelly-
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI agree , Jelly !
ReplyDeleteSee how 'academic results' are given too much significance ? Because children have more to offer than academic results ! Haih, change is a must !
-Wily