Week 12 Lab: Creative Life

Brain from the Twemoji Project. Web source: Wikimedia Commons. 

A New Theory of Human Intelligence

This video was a TED Talk by Scott Barry Kaufman. He began his talk by challenging the audience to think more broadly about intelligence, in a way that accounts for a person's full being. Kaufman showed examples of two school children and their behavior and success, as defined by the adults in their lives (parents, teachers, etc.). What was surprising about this demonstration was that he actually talking about the same child even though the characteristics of each student were drastically different. One was described as overactive and attention deficit while the other was described as engaged and successful in a school setting. This plays into the idea of what Kaufman explains as the "Twice-Exceptional Child," which is a child who has various strengths, but also struggles with other things that might hold them back.

Kaufman spoke a lot about schools making sure that kids in educational systems do not fall through the cracks, which I think is very important. This video really reminded me of the growth mindset we have been learning with is this class all semester. It reminds me that there are other ways to measure a student's success that are not directly correlated with academic performance, which was one of the ideas that Kaufman discussed.

When students are only measure by grades and test scores, we are ignoring all of their other interests, hobbies, and talents. By not fostering these other talents, I think that we are doing a majoring disservice to students who learn in different ways, or want to learn about different things.

This idea of measuring intelligence by traditional academics is something that I have personally struggled with throughout my educational career. By holding myself up to often times unattainable academic standards, I have often disappointed myself. Instead, I wish I had focused more on the ways that I grew and the things that I learned along the way, not on the grade that I had received. I think that Kaufman did great job of building on the idea of growth mindset is this discussion about intelligence.