I Want My Children To Understand The

While We May Continue To Use The Words Smart And Stupid, And While Iq Tests May Persist For Certain Purposes, The Monopoly Of Those Who Believe In A Single General Intelligence Has Come To An End. Brain Scientists And Geneticists Are Documenting The Incredible Differentiation Of Human Capacities, Computer Programmers Are Creating Systems That Are Intelligent In Different Ways, And Educators Are Freshly Acknowledging That Their Students Have Distinctive Strengths And Weaknesses.

There Are Clear Differences Between Child And Adult Artistic Activity. While The Child May Be Aware That He Is Doing Things Differently From Others, He Does Not Fully Appreciate The Rules And Conventions Of Symbolic Realms; His Adventurousness Holds Little Significance. In Contrast, The Adult Artist Is Fully Cognizant Of The Norms Embraced By Others; His Willingness, His Compulsion, To Reject Convention Is Purchased, At The Very Least, With Full Knowledge Of What He Is Doing And Often At Considerable Psychic Cost To Himself.

We Should Spend Less Time Ranking Children And More Time Helping Them To Identify Their Natural Competencies And Gifts And Cultivate These. There Are Hundreds And Hundreds Of Ways To Succeed And Many, Many Different Abilities That Will Help You Get There.

Kids Go To School And College And Get Through, But They Don't Seem To Really Care About Using Their Minds. School Doesn't Have The Kind Of Long Term Positive Impact That It Should.

When Speaking To Parents, I Encourage Them To Take Their Child(ren) To A Children's Museum And Watch Carefully What The Child Does, How She/she Does It, What He/she Returns To, Where There Is Definite Growth. Teachers Could Do The Same Or Could Set Up 'play Areas' Which Provide 'nutrition' For Different Intelligences... And Watch Carefully What Happens And What Does Not Happen With Each Child.