How You Can Really ‘Get Smart’

Harvard educator Howard Gardner and others have recently suggested that intelligence is more than scholarly or book knowledge. There may be seven kinds of intelligence, Gardner and others believe.

In last week’s column, I summarized what Gardner has dubbed the “multiple intelligences”: linguistic, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, intrapersonal, logical-mathematical, interpersonal and musical.

If you’re weaker than you’d like to be in a category, there is good news: It is never too late to improve in any area. And it’s fairly easy.

Linguistic intelligence, which involves speaking and writing clearly, is an area in which many people would like to improve.

Ways to sharpen linguistic skills include reading a book a week, or at least one a month; joining a book club and going to authors’ readings, which are generally free and often listed in Sunday newspaper arts and entertainment sections.

Browse through bookstores frequently, even if you’re not going to buy, to be aware of current titles and authors. You can get the gist of many books this way and by reading newspaper book review supplements.

If you’re short on time, listen to books on tape when you drive. You’ll find them at most bookstores and public libraries. Keep a “reader’s journal” in which you record passages that delight, incense or otherwise touch you. Try writing letters to characters or authors and rewriting disappointing scenes or endings or other responses to books.

To polish your writing, replace long-distance phone calls with letters. Keep a daily diary or journal. Take a writing course at a community college.

Improving your spatial intelligence, which denotes the ability to perceive and rearrange visual details, drawing or sketching accurately and thinking of new ways to arrange objects, can lead to some great new hobbies.

Some suggestions: Play Pictionary and other visual games, or do jigsaw puzzles. Read about movie-making, then rent some acclaimed films and examine the use of cinematic techniques. Build model cars, ships or airplanes. Take some crafts classes or visit art galleries, exhibits and museums. Try to sketch objects or people as accurately and detailed as possible. It may take several tries.

Read an introductory book about painting, and then analyze work you see in another book or exhibit for color, theme, light, composition, medium and other elements.

A new hobby of mine may also help: Learn about architecture, then name the techniques you see as you drive or walk around.

To improve your bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, those skills involving good physical control, you must become more athletic, coordinated or limber.

Some tips: Learn a new sport, yoga or a martial art. Join a group centered on a sport or activity such as a basketball league. Bodily-kinesthetic skills include hand-eye coordination, so such activities as carpentry, typing and shooting baskets might help too.

Logical-mathematical intelligence is perhaps the category that gives people more trouble than any other because so many falter in math and science. But polishing this area can even be fun: Play chess, dominoes, brainteasers (there are books full of them) and other logic-based games.

Read science magazines such as Omni or Scientific American and watch documentaries such as “Nova” on PBS. Study the scientific forces that affect people nearly every day: oceanography, seismology, ecology, climatology. Write out computations that you now perform with a calculator.

Most people have at least enough musical intelligence to say what kinds of music they like. But a more advanced level means that you can mentally “hear,” recognize and reproduce melodies and rhythms.

A few hints: Play “Name That Tune” with the car radio. Learn a musical instrument. Listen to several different types of music; set your home or car stereo buttons to a variety of stations. Go to concerts.

If you don’t have quite the circle of friends you want, it’s time to work on your interpersonal intelligence--that is, your ability to meet and get along with other people.

Some steps: Set aside some time each week in which you can call or write friends or relatives. Volunteer for a committee or other group project at work or school. Join a club or take a leadership position in one you already belong to. When listening to someone talk, maintain eye contact, listen carefully and don’t interrupt or respond until he or she is finished. (It’s called “active listening,” and is highly endearing.)

Basic to all intelligences, I believe, is intrapersonal intelligence. That means simply knowing yourself (strengths, weaknesses, goals, preferences, dilemmas etc.).

There are several great paths to deeper self-knowledge: Make time each night to ponder the day’s events and conversations. Keep a journal in which you record notable events or sort out problems. Write down and analyze your dreams. Seek counseling for nagging problems that you can’t seem to beat on your own. Write down important goals and the steps needed to reach them.

For more information on the seven types of intelligence and how to improve them, pick up a copy of “7 Kinds of Smart” by Thomas Armstrong. It’s the most concise and practical book I’ve found on Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligence.