Intelligence

Intelligence is a respectable psychological construct that can be described more clearly and measured more reliably than many other constructs such as motivation, personality or learning style. It is also a construct that has, at times, been misinterpreted. A small group of psychologists have described it as a fixed attribute, and one that is mostly inherited: as a result, intelligence has sometimes had a bad press. For this reason, some educators have become reluctant to accept the concept and are wary of even using the word. It is quite right that this view of intelligence should have fallen into disrepute, but to throw out the whole idea just because it has been misused by a few is counterproductive. This chapter begins by describing some of the key features of intelligence; it then goes on to describe the development of children’s thinking, and how this can be maximised.

Features of intelligence

Two of the most important features of intelligence are that it can be applied across all areas of academic learning (in this sense it may be described as ‘general thinking’ ability) and that it can be developed over time (and is therefore ‘educable’). These two features are described below. Both lie at the heart of most cognitive acceleration programmes.

General thinking ability

People with a well-developed ‘general thinking’ ability are particularly good at making mental connections. Although they may have a specific talent in one particular area (for example, number, language or music), an underlying ‘general’ intelligence factor is present.
In day-to-day life, strong general thinking abilities are often indicated by the capacity to:

• see things from a different perspective (for example, a pupil with strong general thinking abilities will sometimes ask questions that take the teacher by surprise);
• recognise patterns in data;
• transfer knowledge from one context to another;
• go beyond the ‘given’;
• anticipate where an argument is going;
• be creative.

‘Educability’

General thinking ability is not a fixed capacity that can be described once and for all by an intelligence quotient (10′) score, but one that is educable: it can be developed through education. Indeed, one of the main functions of schooling is to do just that: to maximise the intellectual capacity of every child.
At this point it is useful to consider the way in which children’s thinking abilities develop and how these abilities might best be nurtured.