Practical Intelligence

We can't basically just get the Practical Intelligence Quotient of a person basing it on a computer game(kidding aside).

Robert J. Sternberg proposes three intelligences in human cognition.

• Analytical intelligence is the ability to analyze and evaluate ideas, solve problems and make decisions.
• Creative intelligence involves going beyond what is given to generate novel and interesting ideas.
• Practical intelligence is the ability that individuals use to find the best fit between themselves and the demands of the environment.

This blog focuses on the Practical Intelligence which I think will be the road to be taken of most schools in the years to come.
Schools are so impractical that graduates not only don't get hired or make an opportunity or livelihood of their but also they lose their self-identity.

To measure practical intelligence, Sternberg relies on a concept called tacit knowledge (Sternberg et al., 2000). As the name implies, tacit knowledge is knowledge that is hard to express in words. Sternberg posits three characteristics of tacit knowledge.

• It is procedural rather than factual, which means it is knowledge about how to do something rather than knowledge about something.
• It is usually learned without the help of others or explicit instruction.
• It is knowledge about things that personally important to the learner.

Sternberg has developed domain-specific tests of tacit knowledge that are based on situations that an individual might face in the real world. Those who answer more like experts and leaders in their fields are judged to have acquired more tacit knowledge in that domain. Sternberg has argued that tacit knowledge tests are better predictors of career success than measures of g or at least the best secondary predictors of career success after taking g into account. People who are more skilled at acquiring tacit knowledge, he asserts, do better in a variety of fields including sales, business management, academic psychology, and military leadership.
Criticisms and theoretical challenges to the construct of practical intelligence come from several sources.

• Sternberg himself has been vague in his explication of the terms and somewhat loose in his usage.
• Sternberg also acknowledges that further theoretical work is required to answer such basic questions as how tacit knowledge is acquired, whether the ability that leads to its acquisition can be taught, or if practical intelligence is a general ability that one brings to different contexts or is determined completely in terms of the specific domains in which a person acquires tacit knowledge (Sternberg et al., 2000; Torff & Sternberg, 1998; Wagner & Sternberg, 1986).
• Critics argue that his tests of tacit knowledge do not demonstrate the strong empirical support he claims (Gottfredson, 2001). At least one research group sympathetic to the theory has concluded that the test is reliable but not a valid measure of success (Taub, Hayes, Cunningham, & Sivo, 2001).
• g-theorists have argued that practical intelligence is little more than job knowledge and can be explained better by traditional definitions of intelligence (Jensen, 1993; Ree & Earles, 1993; Schmidt & Hunter, 1993).
• Situated cognition theorists have used some of the same research as Sternberg to argue that intelligence is not a characteristic of people, but rather a potential for intelligence performance that is embedded in specific situations (Barab & Plucker, 2002).

Reference: http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/practicalintelligence.shtml

The Need for School of Practical Intelligence

Since young, I've always been fascinated of going to school of waking up early, standing in lines, listening to teachers, taking tests and so forth and so on. Now that I got a chance to get involved into the education system, it frustrated me to find out that this cycle of schooling might be soon obsolete.
It frustrated me that students study for more or less twenty years; but after College, the graduates lack competence. Concerns like difficulty in finding job after College is still a big problem.
Debates on who and what's to blame in the decline of Philippine education system. Some say it's because of the system in general--that it must get reformed as soon as possible. Some say it's the schools' curriculum. Some say it's the teachers' competence. For some, the students get what they deserve.
Problems such as corruption in Philippine education system, classroom itself and management, student-teacher ration, etc. It's frustrating to enumerate all the problems of Philippine education since at this point it must be reformed and get a lot more funds from the Philippine government.

 Here are published articles regarding problems on Philippine education.

1. http://www.fnf.org.ph/liberalopinion/crisis-public-education-philippines.htm
2. http://filipinianastuff.blogspot.com/2008/02/current-problems-in-philippine.html

 Here are some of the many concerns about problems on Philippine education.
1. http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20100120-248349/UN-RP-trails-Tanzania-Zambia-in-education
2. http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20080117-113132/Real-challenge-in-Philippine-education

Problems are rooted from the heads of the Philippine education down to the parents and students. Each area of a problem is still rooted and webbed to another and more.

These problems won't get solved unless the government and the heads of the Philippine Education system to be more practical.