Frequently
Asked Questions (FAQ) About Smarter
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Author Index and Subject IndexQ. What does the word Smarter mean?
A. Smarter is an acronym that I developed some years ago. The acronym stands for successful minds are really the end result. For years, Smarter has helped me deal with those who perceive the world differently. For example, in 1966, as a beginning (state-funded) public school classroom teacher, I used Smarter to aid me as I assessed and instructed elementary and secondary school regular and special students. I found its value extremely meaningful during one-on-one counseling sessions with integrated special education pupils, their various classroom teachers, and especially during interviews with their naturalized parents. Often, conventional instruction and mainstream assessment procedures were unsuccessful when dealing with this exceptional school population.
In 1969, as an elementary school principal, I used the same concept to help me steer students and school staff towards a better understanding of themselves and their cerebral capacities. Then, in 1975, when I began teaching secondary school students, I again realized that Smarter well displayed the positive side of numerous problem learners, especially early- and mid-adolescents involved in serious social situations. I was often able to use Smarter to convince certain girls and boys that life was indeed worth living, that success could indeed be attainable. And in 1985, when I began attending graduate school, Smarter seemed to best represent my way to measure the intellectual performances of others. To this day (2012), I continue to utilize Smarter to change doom and gloom perceptions of reality towards a boom and zoom quest for living.
Q. How did the Smarter model of the human mind evolve?
A. During the middle 1950's and early 1960's, I was conditioned, like most others in our culture, to believe that the conventional ways of teaching and administering to a singular subject's intelligences was the end result. In other words, I was convinced by mainstream university professors to believe that everyone was either quite smart, average or extremely stupid, nothing more ... nothing less! Or to coin terminology from the conservative school of assessing cognitive capabilities, the intelligence quotient (IQ) test was the best way (supposedly) to calculate such smarts. Successful musical stars of the day (Elvis Presley and The Beatles, to cite just two) and today (50Cent and U2) were not intelligent but merely quite talented in the domain-specific content arena called music.
Over time, I gradually came to view this "eye-cure" or negative conception of our minds, as invalid, impractical and irrelevant for overall everyday learning. To comprehend better the viewpoint that the human mind was not a static state but an ongoing dynamic module consisting of "many kinds of minds", I enrolled in graduate school. There, I began to read and write about various mental models and, more specifically, the different interpretations of the psychological construct termed 'human intelligence.' I read the writings of various educators, philosophers and psychologists, finally settling on the multiple intelligences (MI) model as theorized by the Harvard University cognitive developmental psychologist, Howard Gardner. To this day, I continue to use this model ... a model of the human mind too good to drop!
Q. What does the expression Thinking and Working Smarter and Harder mean?
A. The expression Thinking and Working Smarter and Harder suggests that it takes no additional effort, or no more thinking, for anyone to solve a problem from a many intelligences (MI) perspective than it does to solve the same problem from a narrow intelligence quotient (IQ) stance. All one must do is to perceive her / himself as a 'container' of many forms of human intelligences, not just two (2) forms (linguistic-verbal and logical-mathematical). In fact, it's actually easier to look at ourselves as more or less dominant in a wider range of cognitive capacities because now we have a 'many intelligences perspective' from which to select our daily cerebral competences.
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Author Index and Subject IndexRevised on Sunday, 29 April, 2012