The Theory of Multiple Intelligence

As for someone who is extensively involved in non-formal and informal education, for me this was revolutionary. For the very first time about this theory, I have found out 2 years ago while participating in one Training course about Coaching.

So, according to an American developmental psychologist (THE smart guy) Howard Gardener, certain types of intelligence that school tries to frame us into are pretty narrow. If you are not good at Math or Languages you might still be gifted and talented (and not only "might", but most probably "you are"). He has distinguished quite a few types of intelligence that I, the way I understand myself, want to briefly share with you all.

1. NATURALIST (a.k.a nature-smart)

That person has the ability to differentiate between animals, plants and also shines with sensitivity for nature and its wonders (rocks, dunes, clouds).

1. EXISTENTIAL (a.k.a life-smart)

That person has the ability to tackle "deep" questions about our existence, the meaning of life and our purpose here.

1. INTERPERSONAL (a.k.a people-smart)

That person has the ability to comprehend and fundamentally mingle with the others. He/she differs with appropriate verbal and nonverbal communication skills, stands out in the crowd with sensitivity to the people, their characters, moods and capacity to nourish and foster multiple perspectives.

1. BODILY-KINESTHETIC (a.k.a body-smart)

That person has the capacity to use the variety of physical skills. This also includes the perfect sense of time-management and being capable of perfecting something using your mind as a powerful tool. This intelligence is very vivid in craftspeople, surgeons and athletes.

1. INTRA-PERSONAL (a.k.a self-smart)

That kind of a person understands oneself, his/her thoughts, feelings, needs and uses it to plan and direction his/her own life. It is not only related to self-appreciation, self-motivation, but also to the human condition in general.

1. SPATIAL (a.k.a picture smart)

That person is like your personal 3-D glasses, he/she has great graphics and artistic skills, vivid imagination, dimensional reasoning and manipulation.

1. LOGICAL-MATHEMATICAL (a.k.a number/reasoning-smart)

That person has the ability to calculate, quantify, consider propositions and hypotheses (and prove them right or wrong). They are great at coherence, especially when it comes to reasoning; distinguishing patterns and categorizing, inductive and deductive thinking and giving to everything or almost everything symbolic values.

1. MUSICAL (a.k.a sound-smart)

That kind of a person is able to discern pitch, tone and rhythm. They can recognize, remember, create, reproduce, and reflect on music, and sounds in general.

1. LINGUISTIC (a.k.a word smart)

This kind of a person has the perfect ability to find the right words to express their feelings, emotions, ideas and plans and to use language in order to communicate with people coming from various backgrounds.

This theory came out more than 20 years ago, but still, there is a great discussion happening about whether talents other than Language and Math are types of intelligence or just skills.

What do you think?