[MUSIC] Following on from last week in the theme of learning, this week we're turning our attention to the issue of intelligence. Asking the question, what is intelligence and does it matter? I've got joining me this week, Professor Gordon Stobart, another colleague of mine here at the Institute of Education. And he's just recently published a book, called the expert learner. So, Gordon, start us off and tell me, is there such a thing as intelligence? >> If you're talking about a thing, as if it's an entity or something you can find somewhere in your head, I'd probably say no. But I also realize that we would, we would say that this is intelligent behavior so there's something behind it. But I'm I'm very reluctant to say there's a, it, there's something hardwired into us that we call intelligence. And one of our problems with this, is how do you define intelligence? Because what happens is as soon as you start to look for definitions, you'll find there's all sorts out there. So different people. Have very different views of what intelligence is, and that doesn't help much either. So, you, you would start with the going back historically, the idea that there's a, just a common g, a general intelligence where others come along and say no, there aren't there are seven forms of intelligence. And then Howard Gardner comes and says there's eight and a half forms of multiple intelligence. And then, I think the the top score it was Gilford who found a 120 different forms of intelligence. So, when somebody said it was back in the 1930's, intelligence is what intelligence test measure, I would say that was a bit superficial. But actually its quite deep, because what they're saying is, your view of intelligence, shapes how you develop intelligent tests and so you, if you like, you prove, what you want through asking the questions, you, you want. So, probably why intelligence is focused so much on things like verbal reasoning spatial reasoning, number reasoning, that kind of thing, because that's what that was the predominant view of what intelligence produces. Then others come along and say practically in terms it creative intelligence. Kinesthetic intelligence and all. So we need to probably try and pin down, what, what we mean by that and when were talking about it. >> So, in education quite often there's a lot of words, that people use like ability or somebody is a quick learner, or, or slow learner,. >> Mm-hm,. >> We, why, why those sorts of terms being used? I have I have strong views on this. I bet, I better not get over excited at this point. Then I subtitled the book Challenging the Myth of Ability because I think what's happened is we, we don't use IQ or intelligence very much in our language in schools. But we do use ability. And I think, it's actually a cover for intelligence. And IQ IQ scores and things sort of got a bad press with good reason. But ability seems to be a neutral term. And you go into schools and you hear low ability, high ability, no ability. which, which certainly worries, worries me because I think the way it's being used, is not so much that they haven't developed ability, but they haven't got, they've got a lot of or not much underlying ability that causes learning, and my argument would be actually ability we develop ability, so it's a measure of learning, not the cause of learning. But that gets confused in schools, when you hear people talking. >> So would you say then that we're all sort of born with the same ability that we then develop as we go through schooling? >> No no, I wouldn't say we're, it's, that was the radical behavior is a bit about blank slates and it's just what the environment does. I mean, my point would be it's it's an interaction. We're born with certain capacities, but how these develop, really comes down very much to the environment, the stimulation, and what else. I, I'd use the, the parallel of language. We all have a capacity for language, but the language we speak, whether we speak at all. If you think of wolf children, children brought up with outside society cannot speak. So there's, there's, there's a capacity that has to be developed, there has to be experiences that bring it along. So I'd say we have. There may be ranges of capacity, but the key thing is the the way it interacts with the environment. So if you have a really deprived environment it's going to be very difficult to come out with high ability, because you've not had the stimulation, you've not had the structures and the like. >> So, when I think back to when I was a teacher, and I remember my classes and, and, and the groups of students that I worked with. >> Mm,. >> And I would know, with a particular class that some students would, would grasp an idea. >> Mm, yeah. >> Or grasp the content of the lesson much quicker than others. And it's quite common in those sorts of environments to refer to those students as being high ability >> High ability. Yeah. >> Or, or quicker learners. >> Yeah. >> Or, or some other kind of euphemism. And so are you suggesting then that that's because they've actually learnt to be better learners. Along the way by the, by the time they come into my classroom. >> I think that will account for a large amount of it. That's why we have such pronounced differences often between kids who come from very disadvantaged backgrounds and kids who come from privileged backgrounds. You've only to look at language and the range of vocabulary that a privileged child has heard and can use, and the way it can be conceptual. And if you come from a very deprived, there's some good studies that show this, come from a very deprived background, you'll have a very limited vocabulary. That makes it harder to work with new concepts and the like. So, I would put. Quite a lot of this down to the kind of stimulation, the kind of environment that, that kids have had. And the danger is, we stick a label on it and say, low ability. And from then onwards, we treat them as limited capacities for doing things. So, we can easier work and everything else. And they will not catch up as a result. So this, there's language, the same is true of reading if, your exposure to books, exposure to stories and things like that, again privileged kids would have a lot more of these and as a result, the cadbury, the ability to use reading to learn, rather than to just struggle to learn to read,. Begins to make a difference. The way I would put this, I put in the book, is the idea that there are these small multipliers, where we have a small advantage and that, then multiplies and makes a bigger advantage. I use sports examples, you know that you’re slightly better at kicking a football and you're probably slightly older and slightly bigger, so people, say he got talent there, put him in the training group. You know, put him in the team so they get practice. They get better. They go onto more competitive games. You get better coaching and very soon people are saying, he's a natural, this footballer, just a natural. And that's how I use the story of David Beckham, you know. Was kicking the ball around when he was three years old, and his dad was coaching him and everything. And the people just kept saying, this is amazing, this little kid can boot the ball so far. And, and can bend free kicks. But he was practicing those, nearly everyday, when he was six years old so it's that how kids with small advantages, it, it accrues, and accrues, and accrues. And I think that's often family background, does just that. And other kids can't make the same progress because they're not getting the same stimulation. >> So, does that mean that some people are then born with an affinity. To, to, you know, Beckham was born with an affinity to be a great footballer, for instance. >> No, I don't, I don't think he was. And you read Alex Ferguson says, you know, what made him different was the, the I call it deliberate practice that he put himself through. And he just pushed himself and pushed himself and certainly I do a lot of work with, with sport. And I'd say that's a characteristic that there's a kind of, if there is a characteristic you're born with, It's to do with, I think more to do with resilience and being able to push yourself and, and, and keep going. Rather than you're actually born with a particular hard wired skill. I often ask what what does it mean to be born tennis player? Do you come out of the womb waving your arms in a certain way or what? I think you become a tennis player. I think the same is true for chess it always gets tricky with teachers when you start they, they would agree with that, if I say oh, he is a born camel racer. People go are born used car salesmen. We all go, what? But if I say he's a born artist, or a born musician, we suddenly think no yeah, there may be something in this. So I would want to question how much is hard wired at birth. I don't think very much is in terms of specific skills like that. I think it's to do with opportunities we get and that kind of resilient dedication to practice. Is what, what, what takes us on and the kind of social of social multipliers
