Theory of Multiple Intelligences

Texto em Português

Have you ever wondered how intelligence works? I mean, have you ever been in doubt if you are intelligent or not? Or if the things you are good at no one notices that? Or that everybody seems more intelligent than you are (something like "the neighbors' grass looks always greener than mine...")? We can also think that intelligence follows this concept, "the ability to learn, understand and make judments based on reason". Would it be only that? I don't think so...

One of the most interesting theories on the subject was made by Howard Gardner: his Theory of Multiple Intelligences. With his theory, the author shows us that the concept of intelligence can be much broader than we thought it could be. Therefore, the theory helps us to give all the complexity that involves our thinking and engagement with the world.

Gardner

In general, Gardner indicates that there are the following intelligences: 

1. linguistic: ability to learn languages ​​and to use speech and writing to achieve goals,
2. musical: fitness to play, enjoy and compose musical patterns, 
3. logical/mathematical: ability to perform numerical operations and make deductions, 
4. visual/spatial:  willingness to recognize and handle situations involving visual seizures, 
5. bodily/kinesthetic: the potential to use the body in order to solve problems or make products, 
6. interpersonal/intrapersonal: ability to understand the intentions and desires of others and thus to get along in society, and also the inclination to know and use the understanding of yourself to achieve certain ends, 
7. naturalist: ability to recognize and classify species of nature, 
8. and existentialist: ability to reflect on fundamental questions of human life. 

Some names seem quite complicated, but they are related to the skills that we all have to use in our daily lives (one can have them more or less developed, or some of them stand out).

There is another thing that is very interesting in this theory. It expands our understanding of ourselves and it does not keep us stuck to the narrowing approach that have, for example, IQ tests, which take into account further verbal intelligence and logical / mathematical than the others cited by Gardner, which are far more subtle and extremely important as well.

Moreover, IQ tests are still very popular and blur somehow the idea that people may have about intelligence and it can prevent them from perceiving the other intelligences that are extremely important helping us live (or survive) in this world increasingly individualistic and increasingly distant...