"Imagination is more important than knowledge." - Albert Einstein
"When he moved from Germany to Switzerland at the age of sixteen, Einstein spent a year at a school that emphasized independent thought, free action and personal responsibility. He thrived in a learning environment without rote drills, memorization and force-fed facts.
Based on the philosophy of a Swiss educator named Pestalozzi, the school helped students move through a series of steps from hands-on observations to intuition, conceptualization, imagination and visual imagery.
“Visual understanding is the essential and only true means of teaching how to judge things correctly,” wrote Pestaslozzi, and “the learning of numbers and language must be definitely subordinated"
...It was at this school that Einstein, age sixteen, started picturing what it would be like to ride along a beam of light.”
One problem is not everyone has imagination--just like there are some photo-memory people there are those with no capability of 'picturing' anything in their mind.
Another is that people's mental imagery is probably very different, how can you teach it directly? If the school is good at getting people to discover that mental imagery on their own it will probably work out, but it's hard to teach it to someone who doesn't share it. (I'd love to see some other psychology studies on this, I think I first ran across the view from a Feynman video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj4y0EUlU-Y&feature=BFa&#... )
Who is we? At best you can say that the school system and large bureaucracies don't value these skills. Certainly Apple and the British empire value Ive's contribution to design immensely.
The Tony Starks of the world are not meant to be low level grunts, keep in mind that the school system is designed to produce interchangeable parts to work in large manufacturing and bureaucratic organizations such as fortune 100s, the government and the military. The levels of leaders who self select out is acceptable and therefore the system will not be changed.
The school system is not for the betterment of the people who go through it; it is for the benefit of the owners. It's not a bug that our school system produces learned helplessness it's a feature.
Spatial intelligence is not always related to design things. I'm way more at ease with spatial concept, and in direct way with structure, than with word and number. But I can translate all my mental image into words and numbers, albeit not perfectly — this give me the ability to program, learn new things pretty fast, manipulate mathematics... the hard part is going back to the world of symbol.
Wouldn't a better way to make a gifted kid learn the value of hard work be to put it in an environment where the work is challenging enough that it is required?
I think spatial intelligence can help with programming, I'm not real up on all the different categories of intelligence, but I think I tend to be more of a spatial thinker which could be part of why I have more and more come to like designing complex applications with different, smaller components because when I visualize the entire application in my mind I see it in basically a 3D space as far as how the components interact
Absolutely, visualization is commonly done, everything from ER diagrams to object models to flow charts to the little blocks and arrows drawings we made to understand pointers and data structures.
And they certainly don’t design these devices by writing an essay on the topic or even by solving a mathematical equation. Rather, they imagine it in their minds eye, and then they draw it or construct it.
Remind me not to drive on that person's bridge. Sorry but if you can't hack the math to make sure your invention isn't going to explode and kill people then perhaps you should put down the power tools. Almost every modern invention is heavily math driven, because you have to know it will work not just be able to visualize and assemble it. Love that red herring about the nobel laureates, after all it has been shown that after a certain point drive is much more important than intelligence when determining outcomes.
I knew a fellow at college who was awesome at setting up experiments and having them work. He worked with some incredibly bright post-grads and post-docs who couldn't scramble an egg. Sometimes you get these two "intelligences" in the same person. Usually you don't. We're better when we recognize different talents and work together.
I had a friend at school who had phenomenal spatial awareness, but was dyslexic and had trouble with maths, while I find the maths relatively easy but only have good spatial awareness. Together, we could design and build things neither of us would be able to make work on our own -- with my friend being the driving force, as he only needed help in getting his ideas to work, while I had more trouble getting the ideas in the first place.
"Almost every modern invention is heavily math driven" - citation?
Anyway, no one is advocating the building of bridges by school kids who can build things without math. The article advocates giving school kids who have great spacial skills, but not apparently great math or written skills, a chance to participate in technical greatness.
In this article, "value" means "perform standardized testing for". In that sense, we don't value much at all, because even the things we test for ("verbal", "math") we reduce to some inane blather for the purposes of testing.
From a larger viewpoint, what does this author think we do for football players? Do we not "value" them? In large part, what the players do is the "spatial intelligence" of the article. Do we not "value" airplane pilots? Same thing there.
This article misses the entire point of school. It isn't to challenge kids. It's to teach them. If there were something to teach there, they'd have classes and tests on it. Grades aren't for bragging rights.
I'm saying this as one of those kids that wished school taught me more. I was bored constantly. And I still wish that schools would teach kids at the level they need to be engaged and want to learn.
But tests for spacial intelligence, just to have tested it? Why would we pay tax dollars for that? If the kid is gifted, they'll know it and automatically move into a field that uses it. (Or not, as they wish.) There's nothing to teach.
But the point of test (exams) is simply to separate people and decide which candidates are best suited for further development. Tests should absolutely try to cover as many of the essential skills necessary for the various careers open to pupils, regardless of how easily those skills can actually be taught by schools.
It would probably result in identifying pupils with potential that previously would have been ignored in favour of pupils who were only superficially superior. It would also encourage pupils who possess more ability in that area to put more effort into their academic careers in general. And would help pupils with other academic strengths to identify fields which will be more difficult for them (there was a former maths teacher on my IT postgraduate conversion course who was really surprised that she struggled with programming, since she thought her maths ability would have made it a shoe-in).
And, to say spatial intelligence cannot be taught seems to be jumping the gun a bit. Have we really even tried to teach it?
John Hopkin's Center for Talented Youth summer camps (aka nerd camp) have been offering the Spatial Test Battery as a qualification method since I was in middle school (~10 years ago). See http://cty.jhu.edu/ts/stb.html and for a sample subsection see http://cty.jhu.edu/ts/stbsampSD.html. I never took it (you could also take the SATs as well) but as a heavily technical person my brain does backflips of excitement solving the sample problems.
CTY was the first thing that came to my mind when I saw this article submission. I took the spatial test back in middle school and it was fairly difficult, but that's what's to love about CTY - they make everything challenging to get a true understanding of your strengths and weaknesses. K-12 and higher education could do worse than to mirror some of the aspects of CTY.
I hope this doesn't come out ignorant, but how often does someone possess a phenomenal level of spatial intelligence, yet very little verbal/mathematical intelligence?
I'm not arguing that there isn't something wrong with current education, but I feel the point here may be misrepresented.
Maybe not "very little" but I would claim to fit this mold. I think it's made me an excellent programmer.
I'm... competent (at best) at math. I'm below-average as a writer. However, mechanically I do very well. I can visualize and understand how things fit together very easily. I have a sort of inherent sense of order.
That comes in really handy when working on complex systems. In computer science efficiency is often found in organizing systems, not necessarily in pure calculation (map-reduce would fall under that for instance, even if there is a strong mathematical basis).
Spatial reasoning is actually one of the biggest things I look for in hiring.
Your question might need to be constructed more carefully in order to cleanly disentangle spatial visualization from math ability. I have noticed that I seem to be best at math that I can somehow analogize to geometry or to tangible physics. Introspectively this feels rather like using what the article calls "spatial intuition" to solve math problems. I don't know how much to trust my introspection, but if it's correct, then given the way you constructed your question, the two kinds of abilities end up mixed. Perhaps you could somehow narrow "mathematical intelligence" to something specific to fields of math (such as number theory, graph theory, combinatorics, and abstract algebra, in my experience) where geometrical and physical analogies are seldom helpful.
how often does someone possess a phenomenal level of spatial intelligence, yet very little verbal/mathematical intelligence?
I know an example among my close relatives. The person in question is probably in poor shape as to verbal and mathematical achievement/intelligence much more from having lousy instruction in elementary school than from having a bad family background (considering what other people in the same birth family with different teachers in school were able to do, and what neighbors who had the same teachers were NOT able to do), but the effect in adult life is the same--lacking reading and math skills holds many people back, even if they have very strong spatial abilities.
More broadly, for any set of subsets of mental abilities, some people will be lucky and have above-average levels in all of them, and some other people will have wide "scatter" in their abilities. This is rediscovered every time a new brand of IQ test is normed.
From my point of view there are three basic mathematical skills, logical reasoning, spatial reasoning and visualization, and calculation ability which is related to memory.
I agree that to excel in sciences you will need more than spatial reasoning alone.
Also, spatial intelligence has many dimensions. For instance, I cannot visualalize something complex like a human face but have little problem rotating simple shapes or moving chess pieces in my head, which makes me think my spatial reasoning is stronger than my spatial memory or pure visualization ability.
I definitely remember standardized test questions such as identifying what the shadow of an object should look like, what rotations of various shapes would look like, etc. But there were usually only a few of these. I don't specifically recall if any were on the SAT but definitely were on some of the tests I took in middle and high school.
The article doesn't explain what 'spatial intelligence' actually is. There's a link to a paper that goes on and on about 'spatial ability', but never defines it.
As if 'IQ' wasn't useless enough, they had to come up with with 'EQ' and now everyone and their brother tacks 'intelligence' after a phrase they think should be desirable.
Not to mention the fact that every test I've ever taken did include a section testing this 'spatial ability' (the paper contains examples, so I can infer what it means).
Anyone interested in this should probably read Seymour Papert's _Mindstorms_: there are multiple routes to mathematical ability. (As well as, of course, other abilities). Mentions the story of a child he observed who he believed was turned mathophobic by school — ironically due to his high verbal ability. The school actively penalized a verbal route to math which likely would've served him best.
The problem is that it is currently easier to measure math and language skills. It would also be difficult to teach because it is less mechanical. But I believe advances in CAD's and user interfaces would eventually help in creating a curriculum for developing spatial intelligence.
I can relate to this, my maths is pretty decent, english language something I always struggled with but I always excelled at visual spacial 'tests', case in point being the 7 rounds tests I had to take for UK Air Traffic Control, they certainly value visual spacial skills!.
The obvious answer is that verbal intelligence is what's largely used in negotiation, recognition, and diffusing of ideas to non-visual people... see, ie, Jobs getting a lion's share of credit for his various teams' work.
Mind you, I think Jobs deserves most of that credit. Great verbal ability captivates damn near everyone, and pulls the world forwards, whereas great visual/spatial requires someone equally skilled to truly appreciate.
Anyways. I think things are going to get better, sharing credit and humanitarian ethics, along with transparency rising will help a lot. But to answer the question, "Why Don’t We Value Spatial Intelligence?" I think Occam's answer would be, "Because Spatially Intelligent People Don't Always Verbally Promote Themselves Well."
If there would have been spatial tests in school, I might have thought of it as work. And if I had thought so I might not have played with my mechanic Lego's all afternoons.
But it would bee good to test spatial ability when applying to university level mechanics..
Strange that the author doesn't mention Howard Gardner [1], who pioneered the theory of multiple intelligences [2] which lists spatial intelligence as one of the intelligence form.
[+] [-] brandall10|14 years ago|reply
"When he moved from Germany to Switzerland at the age of sixteen, Einstein spent a year at a school that emphasized independent thought, free action and personal responsibility. He thrived in a learning environment without rote drills, memorization and force-fed facts.
Based on the philosophy of a Swiss educator named Pestalozzi, the school helped students move through a series of steps from hands-on observations to intuition, conceptualization, imagination and visual imagery.
“Visual understanding is the essential and only true means of teaching how to judge things correctly,” wrote Pestaslozzi, and “the learning of numbers and language must be definitely subordinated"
...It was at this school that Einstein, age sixteen, started picturing what it would be like to ride along a beam of light.”
http://sparkmygenius.com/2007/07/myth-busted-einstein-on-edu...
[+] [-] Jach|14 years ago|reply
Another is that people's mental imagery is probably very different, how can you teach it directly? If the school is good at getting people to discover that mental imagery on their own it will probably work out, but it's hard to teach it to someone who doesn't share it. (I'd love to see some other psychology studies on this, I think I first ran across the view from a Feynman video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj4y0EUlU-Y&feature=BFa&#... )
[+] [-] fleitz|14 years ago|reply
The Tony Starks of the world are not meant to be low level grunts, keep in mind that the school system is designed to produce interchangeable parts to work in large manufacturing and bureaucratic organizations such as fortune 100s, the government and the military. The levels of leaders who self select out is acceptable and therefore the system will not be changed.
The school system is not for the betterment of the people who go through it; it is for the benefit of the owners. It's not a bug that our school system produces learned helplessness it's a feature.
[+] [-] Arcanum-XIII|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jacobolus|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _Y_|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] im3w1l|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] devs1010|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ams6110|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stonemetal|14 years ago|reply
Remind me not to drive on that person's bridge. Sorry but if you can't hack the math to make sure your invention isn't going to explode and kill people then perhaps you should put down the power tools. Almost every modern invention is heavily math driven, because you have to know it will work not just be able to visualize and assemble it. Love that red herring about the nobel laureates, after all it has been shown that after a certain point drive is much more important than intelligence when determining outcomes.
[+] [-] buff-a|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andrewaylett|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kvnn|14 years ago|reply
Anyway, no one is advocating the building of bridges by school kids who can build things without math. The article advocates giving school kids who have great spacial skills, but not apparently great math or written skills, a chance to participate in technical greatness.
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] bediger|14 years ago|reply
From a larger viewpoint, what does this author think we do for football players? Do we not "value" them? In large part, what the players do is the "spatial intelligence" of the article. Do we not "value" airplane pilots? Same thing there.
[+] [-] jaggederest|14 years ago|reply
I'd say if you look at peak salaries, some of the most valued professions are spatial.
[+] [-] ndefinite|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wccrawford|14 years ago|reply
I'm saying this as one of those kids that wished school taught me more. I was bored constantly. And I still wish that schools would teach kids at the level they need to be engaged and want to learn.
But tests for spacial intelligence, just to have tested it? Why would we pay tax dollars for that? If the kid is gifted, they'll know it and automatically move into a field that uses it. (Or not, as they wish.) There's nothing to teach.
[+] [-] Tycho|14 years ago|reply
It would probably result in identifying pupils with potential that previously would have been ignored in favour of pupils who were only superficially superior. It would also encourage pupils who possess more ability in that area to put more effort into their academic careers in general. And would help pupils with other academic strengths to identify fields which will be more difficult for them (there was a former maths teacher on my IT postgraduate conversion course who was really surprised that she struggled with programming, since she thought her maths ability would have made it a shoe-in).
And, to say spatial intelligence cannot be taught seems to be jumping the gun a bit. Have we really even tried to teach it?
[+] [-] newhouseb|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mattquinn|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aspensmonster|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Shenglong|14 years ago|reply
I'm not arguing that there isn't something wrong with current education, but I feel the point here may be misrepresented.
[+] [-] enjo|14 years ago|reply
I'm... competent (at best) at math. I'm below-average as a writer. However, mechanically I do very well. I can visualize and understand how things fit together very easily. I have a sort of inherent sense of order.
That comes in really handy when working on complex systems. In computer science efficiency is often found in organizing systems, not necessarily in pure calculation (map-reduce would fall under that for instance, even if there is a strong mathematical basis).
Spatial reasoning is actually one of the biggest things I look for in hiring.
[+] [-] wnewman|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tokenadult|14 years ago|reply
I know an example among my close relatives. The person in question is probably in poor shape as to verbal and mathematical achievement/intelligence much more from having lousy instruction in elementary school than from having a bad family background (considering what other people in the same birth family with different teachers in school were able to do, and what neighbors who had the same teachers were NOT able to do), but the effect in adult life is the same--lacking reading and math skills holds many people back, even if they have very strong spatial abilities.
More broadly, for any set of subsets of mental abilities, some people will be lucky and have above-average levels in all of them, and some other people will have wide "scatter" in their abilities. This is rediscovered every time a new brand of IQ test is normed.
[+] [-] physicslover|14 years ago|reply
I agree that to excel in sciences you will need more than spatial reasoning alone.
Also, spatial intelligence has many dimensions. For instance, I cannot visualalize something complex like a human face but have little problem rotating simple shapes or moving chess pieces in my head, which makes me think my spatial reasoning is stronger than my spatial memory or pure visualization ability.
[+] [-] kvnn|14 years ago|reply
If you feel the point is misrepresented, I suppose you should be more specific.
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ams6110|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Confusion|14 years ago|reply
As if 'IQ' wasn't useless enough, they had to come up with with 'EQ' and now everyone and their brother tacks 'intelligence' after a phrase they think should be desirable.
Not to mention the fact that every test I've ever taken did include a section testing this 'spatial ability' (the paper contains examples, so I can infer what it means).
[+] [-] calibraxis|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] EREFUNDO|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ww520|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mcdowall|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lionhearted|14 years ago|reply
Mind you, I think Jobs deserves most of that credit. Great verbal ability captivates damn near everyone, and pulls the world forwards, whereas great visual/spatial requires someone equally skilled to truly appreciate.
Anyways. I think things are going to get better, sharing credit and humanitarian ethics, along with transparency rising will help a lot. But to answer the question, "Why Don’t We Value Spatial Intelligence?" I think Occam's answer would be, "Because Spatially Intelligent People Don't Always Verbally Promote Themselves Well."
[+] [-] nosse|14 years ago|reply
But it would bee good to test spatial ability when applying to university level mechanics..
[+] [-] sharmajai|14 years ago|reply
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Gardner
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligence...
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
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