A Lack of Respect for Intelligence

My kids take pleasure in quizzing my wife—their mom—on math problems and watching her squirm under the pressure of having to come up with the correct answer. It's the real-life version of "Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?" Let's just say that math is not my wife's strength. In contrast, our children come to me with their math problems only when they don't know the answer and desperately need one. This makes sense given that I have a Ph.D. in engineering. What doesn't make sense, however, is that our children interpret our contrasting math abilities to mean that Daddy is smarter than Mommy. Unfortunately, our children's education has already taught them that intelligence is measured by one's mathematical and language arts aptitude, the type of intelligence measured by the SAT, ACT, and many IQ tests. But this is such a limited view of intelligence.

In reading books like "The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything" by Ken Robinson and Lou Aronica, I have come to agree with Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences. Garder posits that there are eight types of intelligence that everyone possesses in varying degrees. The eight identified intelligences are: logical-mathematical, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic, bodily-kinesthetic, visual-spatial, and verbal-linguistic. I have also come to realize that while my wife may not be gifted at math, she is undoubtedly an interpersonal genius.

Individuals with great interpersonal intelligence are naturally empathetic, are energized by social interaction, and enjoy meeting and talking to others. That describes my wife. Unlike me, my wife has numerous close friends; not in the Facebook sense of the word friend, but in the "who do I call when I really need to talk to someone" sense of the word. And there is something unique about her that attracts people regardless of race, ethnicity, or age.

I recall an Asian woman at our children's Montessori school who had a limited knowledge of English. She seemed almost shy and never spoke to any of the other parents, but would always engage in animated conversations with my wife. Then there is my sibling who is almost twelve years my junior. While she seldom calls me to speak on the phone, she talks to my wife very often. And I think my wife must speak to my mother at least once a week; I'm trying to improve to one phone call per month. Moreover, my wife is a natural counselor (and admittedly I don't take personal advantage of this trait as much as I should). Recently, one of her newer friends called her to talk about something that was going on in her life. This friend summed up the conversation with the words, "talking to you just makes me feel better."

So I repeat: My wife is an interpersonal genius. Her brilliance causes my relative social ineptitude to cast a long shadow. Now, if only we can get our children to see this truth and to respect intelligence in all of its forms we will have taught them an important lesson that they will probably never receive in their formal education. And speaking of formal education, there's a funny thing about those math questions that my wife fields from our children with obvious trepidation: nine times out of ten, she actually gets them right.