Big Think How should we measure intelligence? | Mary-Helen Immordino Yang
đź“Ź **Do we really need to measure intelligence?**
In today’s culture, there's a constant push to quantify everything — including how "smart" someone is. But are test scores really telling us the full story?
Our current education system defines intelligence as a student’s ability to recall and reproduce information on a standardized test. This narrow approach may reveal how well a child performs *under specific conditions*, but it says little about their **true potential**.
đź“š The real issue?
This system often undermines a child’s sense of agency. It trains them to solve problems crafted by others, within constraints they didn’t create — rather than exploring open-ended, real-world challenges.
🌱 Instead, we should recognize a different kind of intelligence:
**Ecological, adaptive, lived intelligence** — the ability to navigate complexity, think creatively in real time, and make meaning on the fly. This is the kind of thinking our society truly needs, yet we rarely measure or nurture it.
🧠Intelligence isn’t just about getting the “right” answer. It’s about asking new questions, adapting, inventing — and thriving in unpredictable environments.
Maybe it’s time we stopped testing for conformity and started supporting **real-world intelligence**.
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