What is Intelligence?

Stanford University School of Medicine researcher Gerald Crabtree published two articles recently in “Trends in Genetics” proposing that our intelligence is actually declining. Crabtree believes it peaked between 2,000 and 6,000 years ago. He suggests that intelligence is more fragile than it seems.

He argues that, “intelligence isn’t as evolutionarily important to humans today as it was when the species was hunter-gatherers. Thousands of years ago, failing to grasp the aerodynamics of throwing a spear when a lion was coming at you meant you were toast—no more passing along your genes to offspring. Modern society rarely faces such life-or-death tests of wits."

The questions is “what is intelligence?”

Many of us know students who did well in exams and even went on to study at university. However, there is a growing proportion of these young people who then find it difficult to maintain a place in the workforce. I would argue that intelligence is more than just intellectual. We need to foster more than just academics and track more than just an I.Q. score, to develop more than just academic intelligence.

There are at least four ways we could be developing the intelligence in our young people so they have the ability to succeed as a valued member of our community. These are:

I.Q. – Intelligence Quotient

Cognitive intelligence is how we traditionally measure “how smart someone is”. We have been using it since the late 19^th century. It is one-dimensional. It is important, but is incomplete as there are other areas that are just as important.

E.Q. – Emotional Quotient

Emotional intelligence has been recognised as important in the last 20 years. It measures our self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management. These attributes are important to foster and develop for well rounded “intelligence”.

M.Q. – Moral Quotient

This is our moral intelligence, identified by Doug Lennick and Fred Kiel: the capacity to understand right from wrong and to behave based on values believed to be right. If a young person does not have a well-founded sense of right and wrong and an understanding of how to measure this and hold it important they find themselves easily led “astray”. By ensuring that we have a strong Biblical World View that we place our moral compass on gives us a strong common set of values and beliefs.

L.Q. – Leadership Quotient

This is all about leadership intelligence. It is a difference maker in those who score high in perspective, responsibility, courage and initiative. Those who have a well-developed sense of responsibility, courage and can see the “big picture” in things are the ones who go on to lead, discover, challenge our society to grow.

Some of the most challenging, courageous and influential people throughout history were not necessarily the ones with the highest I.Q.s. Rather, it was those who were effective in relationships and could see a clear path to a goal. They had the courage to act in the face of tough odds. It involved their mind, will, emotions and spirit. It was not merely about brains. Intelligence was a larger issue.

This is one of the major challenges that we face as a society. As family groups become diluted, role models become sport orientated and students get their influence more from social media than their family and immediate peer groups it becomes harder to develop these other intelligences.

The bad news is, our I.Q. does not change drastically over a lifetime. The good news is, the other three intelligences can grow and develop. We can cultivate robust morals and ethics, strong emotional and social skills, and effective leadership qualities in our children.

This is one of our challenges as a College and as families. How do we develop the “whole child”? In the Senior Learning Community, we have taken the first step to addressing this in the creation of Life Groups. These small groups meet four times a week and spend time addressing some of these intelligences to challenge our students about who they want to be and where they seek their role models. If you want to engage in this discussion, ask your son or daughter occasionally what has been the “hot topic” in Life Group recently.

This is not a quick fix, but part of the role of parents to nurture and grow our children to develop all four of their intelligences as they develop their individual personality and essence of who they are.