Week 2: What is intelligence and does it matter?

• What you already know about intelligence.
  How do you know if someone is intelligent or not?
• Do you consider yourself to be intelligent?
  Why? What is your evidence for this?

Intelligence is a very subjective concept. Intelligence Quotient, I have long argued, is the measure of how good one is at "intelligence tests". I have studied Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences is in my studies on how to support gifted learners. In NZ there is also the idea of aptitude at things like adaptability and leadership which is are valued in Māori culture. In my dealings with Autism Spectrum, Daniel Goleman's theories of Social Intelligence are often touched upon and contrasted with Intellectual Intelligence.

This suggests to me that these things are in fact aptitudes, and that they are elevated to another form of status by being socially/societally valued, both for their usefulness and their rarity. Carol Dweck in her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success alludes to skills and understandings being things that can be improved with effort and experience. Her claim is that intelligence is not an innate thing, but rather,that intellectual skills can be honed.

I think that some people who are called "genius" or "intelligent" are actually just specialised in their fields. As a child I was labelled "Gifted" when one could have easily identified me as "anxious to know", "hyper focused", "hyper literal", "detail focused" or "unable to filter things out as irrelevant". This meant that as an adult I was easily overwhelmed by complexity, but as a child I was a sponge for information, and because I found relevance in everything, and the more information I retained, and the more relevant new information was, allowing knowledge to snowball.

Personally, my bias is to value logic and rationality, critical analytical thought, spatial awareness, risk assessment, the ability to hold multiple operations in one's head, puzzle solving, artistic creativity, curiosity ... many things. I have little interest in whether or not a person is intelligent if they have aptitude for what they do. I don't try to judge people on their intelligence but rather get a guage of what they are good at judging by what they do. It does frustrates me when I try and discuss things and what makes sense to someone else seems logically inconsistent to me. More often than not, if I am not understood by someone then communicating with them becomes a puzzle that I am compelled to solve and I will try and unpack why they understand things in a different way to me.

I guess I would call myself intelligent because I am capable of understanding complicated abstract thought, I am keen to understand underlying precepts to concepts so that I can thoroughly integrate new things into my understanding and draw new conclusions about them, and when I compare myself to people around me I generally find myself trying to break down complex concepts that I grasp quickly, into component parts so that I can explain them - when the other person is probably writing it off as not that important I am investing energy in compulsively answering my questions and filling in blanks in my knowledge, or correcting previous errors in my understandings.

I think I'm probably one of those really dumb, really smart people.

---

• During your own education, how has your "intelligence" been assessed?
• How has this affected the educational opportunities you have been given? 
• What judgments have people made about you that have been affected by an assessment of your "intelligence"?
• Do you consider yourself to be a "learner"? why?

As a child I was called "Gifted". I had many diagnostic tests (along with the regular class formative and summative assessments) including "reading age" and comprehension tests, and many that were more subjective on the part of my parents and educators. I was asked a lot of questions that were designed to scrutinized my aptitude, and many people nodded their heads meaningfully. I never sat down and sat a standardised IQ test but people kept mentioning the MENSA test and telling me that it was available should I want to sit it. In our student group Hangout this week we discussed how to many "intelligence" was reflective of ability to perform well in areas of core study; the areas of study valued so important by the majority culture that the governing bodies chose to rank them as worth spending resources on. This suggests to me that what I was receiving when I was given the label "intelligent" was not an assessment of my needs as a learner, but more, at least from my personal perspective, the tacit approval of society as a "valid" person.

As a result of my "intelligence" I had many "extension activities". I was placed in an accelerated class for an hour a week one year in my early time at primary school, where I was given the opportunity to investigate an "own-choice" project with a personal tutor. I was one of the few who was allowed to have access to a personal computer that was owned by one of the teachers at the school (partly because my father was a computer hobbyist and so I was one of the only ones in the class who had any understanding of how to use the thing).  I was given access to training for competitive mathematics teams, and was allowed to attend special conferences for gifted young writers where we spoke with mentors who were local writers - we got to meet and talk with our heroes. I was removed from class as people tried to meet my special needs (and stop me being disruptive in class), and figure out why "someone so bright was doing so poorly"... which gave me the opportunity to do a lot of meta-learning about learning. I was taught about Brain Gym, and guided meditation, visual spatial learning, right and left brain theory... as my teachers and parents (my mother was also a teacher) tried to problem-solve my inability to create useful products out of my deep comprehension of subject matter.

All the time I was asking why (and people considered the question worth answering). I felt I had a right to ask the questions, after all school was for learning things.. and I was continually learning more about their teaching processes. I felt unable to comply with a request unless I understood the point. Some teachers threw the idea of assessing me on paper out the window entirely and would resort to allowing me to speak in front of a class of my peers while they asked questions of my near encyclopaedic knowledge on new subject material. If I didn't know an answer I could normally speculate a rational and credible guess, or know where to find the information for later. Teachers would attempt to accommodate my eccentricities.

As was mentioned in the course videos of Clare's interviews with Professor Stobart, as a learner who had been deemed worthy, I was given more experiences to interact with, and more coaching and opportunity to use deliberate practice to increase my skills. The assessment of my guides and mentors, that I was a willing and receptive learner, was self fulfilling, because as I learned more I found learning easier and more relevant, and I saw myself as a more capable learner.

Teachers had always expected that because I was "intelligent" I should be able to perform the feats they associated with intellect, such as completing written work, handing things in on time, turning up on time to classes or writing an essay in an allotted time. Over time many of them learned that these things I did not fail at because I was not motivated enough for, but because I did not have the ability to do them. It baffled them as much as it baffled me, that I could not do basic things but that complex thought was easy. It was only as an adult that I came to identify that I dealt with everything in my life as a complicated thought and that even the most mundane of tasks I could get bogged down in the details of.

I am a learner. I am a prober and an asker-whyer :) which leads me to deeper and deeper understandings on subjects. I see myself as capable and not knowing things causes me disquiet. In most cases the fact that I don't know something is enough to send me for answers, but as I have grown I am now more willing to try and learn more skills as well as just interrelating information. As my attitudes have been informed by my readings, so I am more prepared to take risk, and try new things, exposing myself to experiences that I cannot predict the outcomes of. I am more prepared to use up resources when I don't know if I am making something useful or appropriate. I will cook with new ingredients and risk that a meal is inedible, and I will use up wool attempting new techniques or creating garments without a pattern. As I have grown I have learned that others have valuable insights, and I am learning to listen better, and see things as others may. As I have grown, so I have learned how to learn better. I intend to continue and expect that I will.

---

Something that came up in the Google Hangout our study group had for this week was the idea that Intelligence is the deliberate act of seeking information and experience. This reinforced and clarified the Constructivist notion I already had about being "active meaning makers", and tied in with Professor Stobart's description of "Deliberate Practise". Good learners are not just reactive to stimulus, but take part in seeking out new parts to their puzzles, and new experiences to broaden their understanding. This also means that good learners have to embrace risk and persevere in the face of failures.

My feeling is that competitive classrooms and grading systems that favour perfection above all else, fail to encourage learners to take risks, think creatively, and deliberately analyse their processes, embracing error and finding ways to improve on previous efforts.

Week 1: How do we learn?

Think about one particularly successful and one unsuccessful learning experience. Consider what were the conditions that made this experience successful or unsuccessful for you and what this tells you about your own preferred ways to learn.

I have been learning how to knit. I have used a combination of YouTube videos, asking questions of peers and more experienced knitters in a supportive group on Facebook, and experimentation. Part of the thing that works for me is feeling like I am in control. If I don't have that it makes me anxious and I clam up. Another thing is freedom from scrutiny; when I have nobody to lose face in front of I am more prepared to take risks. Another thing is that I get the chance to hash out ideas and feel a social bond with other people who share my passion. It is very difficult to have passion for something when the people around you don't value your efforts, so online learning contexts allow me to be "virtually" close to people who share my interests. I like being in my own space, rather than being required to turn up to classes.

I remember trying to learn to breastfeed. It was very stressful because there was so much on the line. Not only did I consider myself responsible for the wellbeing of my child, but my ability to feed my child was tied to one of my precepts of what it was to identify as a "good mother". The anxiety affected my ability to focus on what I was doing and left me feeling frazzled.  Not only was I physically unwell, but the assistance I received from experts was not in depth enough. It seems that I learn best when I see diagrams, see something done, hear and converse about it, read written material, and get a chance to experience and "learn through doing". The experts I was learning from didn't have the time to invest in me having a thorough understanding which left me feeling anxious and out of control. They did things FOR me, rather than walking/talking me through things so that I could do them myself which impacted upon my self image as a capable participant in the process.

---

Based on your experience as a learner, what do you think you will be able to get out of this course? And what ideas do you already have about the future of education?

I have completed a year of teacher training. I know lots of jargon, and the names of educational theorists, and psychologists. I have learned that I am a capable learner, even if I can be slow, and bogged down in detail. I used to have a huge fear of failure and be quite risk averse, but now I welcome challenging ideas, and expect errors and hurdles as part of my learning voyage.

I am often skeptical when I sign up for "learning" about areas that interest me. I'm nerdy. As I am already interested, I am motivated to learn, but often find I am swamped in wading through material that is not new to me. My hope for this course is that I will be exposed to new ideas and ways of thinking from other people who are also passionate about empowering others and facilitating learning, and that I may also provide unique perspective for others.

My time at school was marred by some foolish concepts about education; not only mine, but those of educators, and society in general. I was continually praised for being "brainy" or "gifted" (it was the 80s, so praise was very much en vogue) and people were so focused on my ability to retain, recall, interrelate and manipulate arbitrary factoids, that my deficits in understanding myself and others, and my inability to prioritise or critically assess my actions, had crippled me and left me ill-equipped to deal with life. My son takes after me and I feel like home educating my children will fit their needs better than mainstream schooling.

My own ideas about the future of education, are formed by my precepts about it. I would like to see a shift away from "teaching to tests" so that learners develop working understandings that help them meet their own goals, a focus away from competitive education, and a move toward critical thinking and information literacy. I would love to see a place where diversity is accepted and encouraged (and resourced). In an ideal world I would love to see a move away from mass schooling and back into mentorship, where the world (and work) of adults is less divorced from the learning of children. I wonder if our society could accommodate children (and adults) learning the skills they need to be healthy and successful adults from healthy successful adults, or to improve their skills from those who are experienced their fields rather than "teaching professionals". I love the idea of community based education, but I fear it would do away with the illusion that social class and income brackets are mobile.

---

Watching the interview section ("Clare discussing different approaches to learning with Dr Fiona Rodger") of this week's resources, a lot of the material sounded very familiar. I was already used to assessing learning styles, and that in the course of "learning to learn" we normally find the ways that we are comfortable with and tend to favour them. I was reminded again about the trial it is to create a learning environment that juggles the needs and learning habits of groups of people, and also to make learning visible enough to assess so that teachers/learning facilitators are able to plan, and account for progress made by learners.

It was good to revisit the idea that different people have different concepts of what constitutes learning. I have only ever considered “deep learning” to be relevant and of importance to me.. thus the concept of “banking” being treated by people as a valid learning style feels foreign.

I refreshed myself about a few different models of learning by reading through some of the supplementary material. Most of these were very familiar and I felt that, integrated, they gave a fine overview of how learning functions. I had never understood the term Gestalt until now.

The idea of focusing on adult learning as a discipline removed from child learning was a new one to me. I have taught adult learners graphic design, and I had always considered learning to be learning, and have been fairly egalitarian/democratic in my dealings with children. I found the presupposition (in Knowles' Andragogy) that stress caused by lack of self-determination is unique to adult learners, woefully flawed... (so much so that I was moved to write an email to contribute my ideas on it to the website owner, which in turn became an interesting discussion on self-determination and the traditional cultural expectations that a child's will must first be broken so that you can tell them what to do for their own good - and the idea that social change is happening at such a rate that the "wisdom" of previous generations may be inadequate for our children's needs.