Spatial intelligence includes both skill in navigation and
the ability to visualize an object from various angles.
While today we depend on GPS systems, humanity has
historically navigated land and sea without instruments. For example, Howard
Gardner discusses the seafaring people of the Carolina Islands.
The navigator must memorize a series of star positions as
seen from various islands. During
the trip from island to island he envisions a reference island as it passes under
a particular star, and locates the position of the star overhead. From a mental
navigation system, he calculates the number of segments completed; the
proportion of the trip remaining; and any needed corrections in navigation. The
navigator cannot see the islands as he sails along; instead he maps their
locations in his mental “picture’ of the journey. (Gardner 1983.)
In the article, “Mind: Recognizing Spatial Intelligence,” (Gretory Park, David Lubinski, Camilla Benbow), Scientific American, Nov. 2, 2010), the authors define
spatial ability as “a capacity for mentally generating, rotating, and
transforming visual images,” and assert that it is one of the three specific
cognitive abilities most important for developing expertise in learning and
work settings.
Ninety years
ago, Stanford psychologist Lewis Terman began an ambitious search for the
brightest kids in California, administering IQ tests to several thousand of
children across the state. Those scoring above an IQ of 135 (approximately the
top 1 percent of scores) were tracked for further study. There were two young
boys, Luis Alvarez and William Shockley, who were among the many who took
Terman’s tests but missed the cutoff score. Despite their exclusion from a
study of young “geniuses,” both went on to study physics, earn PhDs, and win
the Nobel prize.
The authors question how these two minds, both with great
potential for scientific innovation, could slip under the radar of IQ tests?
One explanation is that many items on Terman’s Stanford-Binet IQ test, as
with many modern assessments, fail to tap into a cognitive ability known as
spatial ability.
Modern research on cognitive abilities is revealing that
spatial ability, also known as spatial visualization, plays a critical role in
engineering and scientific disciplines. Yet more verbally-loaded IQ tests,
as well as many popular standardized tests used today, do not adequately
measure this trait, especially in those who are most gifted with it.
Recently, public schools in Texas agreed to reinstate a mere
10 minutes of recess a day. As an educator for over 40 years, I have watched
the ever-growing anxiety over ever-narrowing academic goals reach the point of
near hysteria. People, who simply don’t see the brain development that is not
being fostered while children sit in chairs 7 hours a day, are naturally
unconcerned about excluding childhood pursuits out doors, in nature with the imagination
(the inventive, envisioning faculty of the brain) going full tilt,
Does this thin band of focus, to the exclusion of the
all-encompassing experiences of childhood, have costly consequences? Apparently it could. For example a recent
large longitudinal study at Duke University, (Wai, Lubinski, Benbow)
demonstrated that the participants with relatively strong spatial abilities
tended to gravitate towards, and excel in, scientific and technical
fields such as the physical sciences, engineering, mathematics and computer
science.
All teachers with any freedom to really teach have noticed
how most children love activities that invite them to navigate interesting spaces,
design three dimensionally and explore hand-held objects. There are countless
reasons to restore childhood to children.
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