I think that the most interesting part of this chapter was the discussion about intelligence and how it is defined, measured, interpreted. While growing up there were always those kids in school my parents would say "Oh, they are really smart" or "Their parents are really smart". When my parents would make those statements it was always their intelligence in math, reading, writing, science etc. Growing up I struggled with reading and still am a very slow reader. Reading out-loud still is a very stressful thing for me. I have always pondered why it was that it was so difficult for my sister and I to learn to read. My sister likes the use the excuse that my mother always was bad a reading out loud and we were not able to enjoy being read to because of that. For me, I am not too sure if that is true.
The book talks about how intelligence is both inherited and environmental. 2 studies from the book stick out for me on intelligence, the twins study and the adoption study. In the twins study they found that identical twins were more likely to have similar IQs. If it was solely genetics then the two identical twins should have the exact same IQs. This was not the case which brings attention to the environmental influences of intelligence. Personally, I believe it was hard for me to learn to read because my parents did not read to us much nor did we have many books in the house. I think that could explain the delayed development of reading skills. What I am curious about not would be why it is still a challenge for me to read. This brings me to Gardner's Theory of multiple Intelligences. I think his theory that intelligence is made up of multiple types of intelligence and someone could be as a whole intelligent but excel at different types of intelligence.
Where I lack in Gardner's linguistic intelligence I seem to excel in logic-mathematical and musical. I would consider myself average for the others. I like the idea that everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. Intelligence isn't just something that can be tested in an IQ test but much more holistic.
I also found how intelligence and the theory of multiple intelligence interesting, I also agree that like almost anything it can not be attributed to genetics alone. I would say that I have almost the opposite strengths that you do. However, my parents did not listen to music at all so I wonder if that is`why I have no natural talent when it comes to music.
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