In middle school she remembers taking an intelligence test and received a score of 98. Her classmates received scores over 120. She remembers how embarrassed she was, but strange as it seems she was the best student in the class.... She later received consolation hearing the words of an authority in the field who said that the environment in which a test is taken makes a difference; that day everybody in the school was in the large auditorium of the school for the exam.
Up until a few years ago a person with a high IQ was considered to have a bright future. However, today we have many other facets of intelligence that have entered the picture. We have the emotional, spiritual, social, cultural and many other different elements that are as important as the IQ.
She mentions that we have three main ways of discovering a person's level of intelligence: measuring a person's mental ability, secondly a person's emotional level and thirdly she mentions Howard Gardner's 8 aspects of intelligence: visual/spatial, verbal/linguistic, logical/mathematical, bodily/kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalist.
She laments that in Korea student's marks in school are all that many parents consider important. Obviously the reason is because of the parent's desire to have them go on to a good college and little concern to find the student's aptitude and temperament and work to develop this.
Parents should not be limited to the classical studies in most of our high schools. There are other possibilities in alternative schools and colleges with special studies in areas that students show an aptitude. Parents spend a great deal of money to send their children to academies to prepare them to get into a good college when in many cases they will be at the bottom of the class. Much better to prepare them for studies that they want and will do well.
Gardner added a 9th to his list which he called the Existential Intelligence. This is also called the spiritual quotient. What is the meaning of life? What is death? What is the meaning of volition? What is happiness? Persons with this capacity are deeply philosophical. They are emotionally stable, understand others, are interested in social justice. They aim after high ideals and values and inspire others to do the same and seek to instruct others of these values.
She concludes her article with the hope that parents will understand that a successful life is one where a person is using their gifts and enjoying what they are doing. Help your children to walk in this way. Parents work is not to earn the money for academies but to know their child and their talents and to help them on the road to their development.
