7 Kinds of Intelligence

In Thomas Armstrong's "Seven Kinds of Smart", he proposes that there are actually seven (with variants, nine) kinds of intelligence that are created in our human minds & bodies: Word smart (Linguistics), Picture smart (art & spatial), Music smart, Body smart (athletic & dance), Logic smart (math and logic), People smart (Interpersonal people skills), and Self smart (inner sight, self-knowledge, self-awareness and seeking).

The idea has critical validity, especially when educating our youth. It astounds me that the usual training and certification for out teachers doesn't include this sort of distinction and knowledge. Well, hopefully, in the 21st Century, it does.

Then there is Daniel Goleman's "Emotional Intelligence", which is about understanding, observing, and growing with human emotions. Another fine work, and should be required reading for every family, pre-teen, and teenager.

This morning, my co-star sends me a link to Independant Means, Inc., a company with the purpose of providing young women (well, anyone, actually, "family-centered" as the site says) with modern education (information, tools, and role models) in the domain of finances.

This is a great thing, and is much needed. It also points out how irrelavant our schools have become. (NOTE: I'm pretty down on our public schools system these days. My public school education was pretty poor, and my current teacher friends keep me updated on the status quo - which seems to continue to be poor, despite the good intentions and efforts of many teachers.) Our schools don't really teach much that is relevant to modern living. In fact, to me it appears that our schools don't even teach kids how to learn. There is value in the social tribal, hardening-via-peers and dealing-with-dunderheads that one does learn in the public school system, but it really adds up to less than 20% of what you need to lead a great life and create thriving community.

I have an adorable nephew who is almost three years old, and he has me thinking about ways I can suppliment his public education with the skills, tools, and knowledge (STK) that he'll really need. Spinning from the two books mentioned above, I see a few critical areas of STK. I think if you weave STK together with practice, you get domain 'intelligence'. So, I'm going to call these areas of intelligence.

Financial Intelligence - how to manage your personal money, and how the world's money tools and trade work. Beyond how to balance your checkbook, this would include financial instruments, real estate, banking, the time-value of money and compound interest. Compound interest is a thinly-understood concept these days. Did you know that many, many years ago, we had a different sort of consumer protection? Loans beyond seven years were simply not considered valid. There was also a cap on the maximum interest that could be charged. This is because our forefathers knew the compounding power of money. We understand it today as run-away credit debt and a world-record high rate of bankruptcies, causing distress and broken integrity throughout our society and economic system.

Social & Civic Intelligence - how to behave and interact with groups of people to create thriving trust, trade, and a great place to live.

Emotional & Relationship Intelligence - from friends to lovers to oneself: how to understand feelings, what they mean, how to manage them, and how to effectively communicate, demonstrate, and participate in relationships.

Business Intelligence - how to participate in and create win-win trades and exchanges, as well as how to track your dealings, plan and negotiate, and how to learn/find what you need to know legally and locally to operate a business.

Health Intelligence - skip the guidelines of the food pyramid; having health intelligence means being able to generate your own food pyramid. Being in tune with your body, your health lifestyle, nutrition, cooking, and understanding through experience the flexibility, plasticity, adaptation, healing, growth & care of your own body. This may also extend to health concepts for groups of people, from weekend camping to cities and nations.

Spritual Intelligence - this isn't about any particular religion, rather, it is about learning how to ask questions that led oneself to answers, and how to evaluate those answers for validity and truth in ones own life. This is about the skills, tools, and knowledge to be able to competently spiritually quest for ones entire life.

Systems Intelligence - observing and understanding the interaction and interdependance of components in a system and their effects. Concepts like emergent behaviour, synergy, and system evolution. This is critical for understanding the (huge) problems of modern society as well as understanding the frustrations of your own town.

Hopefully, I'll be able to provide some way for my nephew to first know that these domains of skills, tools, and knowledge exist, and then provide ways for him to gain access to them. And practice them.