Ashley Roland
Ferris, Risk, Tacaks
Portfolio 121
October 9, 2006
Successful Intelligence
Everyone is gifted in his or her own areas of life; this is what creates a diverse and successfully intelligent society. Robert Sternberg, the author of “Successful Intelligence,” believes that there are three different aspects that construct a successfully intelligent culture: analytical, practical, and creative intelligence. Although the world may put more emphasis on one type of intelligence, one is not more important than the other and nobody is a better or lesser person because they are strong in a certain type.
Successful intelligence is defined by Sternberg as not only balancing all three types of intelligences, analytical, practical, and creative, but also, “knowing when and how to use these aspects of successful intelligence.”[1] He believes that a well-rounded individual not only demonstrates these three aspects, but also recognizes and incorporates them into their everyday lives. Society labels people based on numerous ideas and concepts of what it means to be successful. Success is measured in careers, beauty, money, political standings, and the list goes on. However, success should not be based on those things, but rather on how you use your intelligences to advance yourself in whatever field you wish to study or career you plan to pursue. Successful intelligence involves using all three types of intelligence’s for problem solving. “In order to solve a problem, you first need to recognize that you have a problem,”[2] Sternberg writes. By combining all three intelligence’s, analytical, practical, and creative, problem solving can be made so much simpler. I strongly agree with Sternberg’s notion that “Some societies don’t value outstanding performance or, at least, performance that stands out.”[3] Living today in a society that encourages conformity it is hard to embrace all three types of intelligences. Public school systems raise robots and promote analytical intelligence, leaving practical and creative intelligences behind. A successfully intelligent person is aware of and practices using and incorporating all three intelligences in his or her life.
Analytical intelligence is the main intelligence that people assume makes one successful. In school students are taught with the main goal of reverberating the information back onto a test, not to actually consume, process, and retain the information. “Schools always give kids problems to solve,”[4] Sternberg points out. Students learn for the grade, not the education. Analytical intelligence promotes this, because of test like SAT’s, ACT’s, and SOL’s. When a student does well on a test like this, a test that requires studying and memorization not analyzing or creativity, they are rewarded. The first rewards are the grades, then later those grades turn into degree’s and finally careers. All of these things are important, but this will not create a successfully intelligent person if it is not balanced with practical and creative intelligence. Sternberg believes, “Analytical thinking is required to solve problems and to judge the quality of ideas.”[5] Analytically intelligent people go from being Valedictorian to big corporate CEO’s with a house in the Hampton’s and ten Gucci bags. But this does not make anyone truly happy because of their lack of balance between analytical, creative, and practical intelligences. Sternberg idealizes that happiness and success will come from being well rounded. In class we learned about analytical intelligence through multiple-choice quizzes and having reading assignments for homework. The reading assignments were ideal for us to be able to take the quizzes, and no practical or creative intelligence was needed. This is not acceptable according to Sternberg. Successful intelligence is like a puzzle and without all the pieces one can never be completely fulfilled.
Practical intelligence is a much more common intelligence although not usually highly rewarded. “Street smarts”, as some refer to it, is something that people do not have to work very hard at and usually take for granted. Knowing how to use a map, read directions, and work well with one’s hands are all very important in the real world, the world outside of the classroom. “Successful practical intelligence enables a person to come up with a kind of strategy for solving real life problems, a strategy that has eluded well-educated observers,”[6] Sternberg suggests. Just because an individual cannot reverberate information onto standardized tests does not mean they cannot be successful in other ways. Success should not be measured and rewarded based on purely academics. Everyone is strong in different areas and practical intelligence is a real-world way of proving that. “All of us know people who succeed in school but fail in their careers, or vice versa. They are a constant reminder that there must be more to success than school smarts,”[7] says Sternberg. If someone goes through school memorizing and learning for tests and grades, but does not retain any of that information, they will not be successful in their career. But someone who has practical intelligence will not waste their time being a robot for society, but instead they will develop their practical skills and make a career out of that intelligence. This, balanced with analytical and creative can produce a very successfully intelligent person. In class we participated in practical intelligence exercises when we watched the movies and listened to each other’s music. We had to use our practical intelligence, our “street smarts”, to determine who chose what music, based on what we knew of each other’s personalities. Practical intelligence is essential for a balanced, successful everyday life.
Creative intelligence is the least encouraged intelligence in my opinion. Creativity is not rewarded enough in our society. No one encourages their children to want to grow up and be a “starving artist”, and in school there is no room for creativity in between the harsh lines of college ruled paper. I am extremely passionate about creative intelligence and wish it were more valued. Sternberg notes and questions “Creative ideas are, by definition, both novel and valuable. Why, then, are they rejected?”[8] Creativity causes people to go against the normal, everyday lifestyle. It bans conformity and encourages difference. Sternberg also suggests “creativity provides a bridge between analytical and practical intelligence.”[9] These three intelligences must balance each other out in order for them to create a healthy, successfully intelligent lifestyle. In class we demonstrated creative intelligence by making nametags the first week of school and more recently by making collages that told something about ourselves. These allowed our creativity to flourish because we were not being graded or judged on these skills but we just got to be ourselves and express ourselves without necessarily using words. Creative intelligence is not as encouraged but just as important as practical and analytical.
The in-class exercises have taught me a lot about myself. At the beginning I thought that I would only be creatively intelligent, but the analytical and practical exercises showed me that I have all three intelligences in my own way. I am definitely stronger with creativity, but I realize that it is important and essential to have a good combination of all three intelligences. Sternberg’s “Successful Intelligence” taught me that it is okay to think outside of the box and that just because the public school system encourages practical intelligence so much, that grades do not have to define who you are. Street smarts are just as important as book smarts, and it takes all kinds of different people with different careers to make a healthy and successful society. Intelligence should not be summed into one category, but accepted throughout society as different in each person. Successful intelligence is possible in everyone, and flourishes when well balanced through practical, analytical, and creative intelligences.
Work Cited
Sternberg, J. Robert. Successful Intelligence. New York: Plume, 1996.