Success and Intelligence at Home: Part Two

Special Topic Update from Head of School Chris Ongaro: Success and Intelligence at Home Part Two

Recently we touched on the ideas of success and intelligence. I briefly commented on Gardner’s multiple intelligences as encouragement to seek strengths.  Now, I am following up on Sternberg’s successful intelligence.

For Sternberg, successful intelligence is “one’s ability to set and accomplish personally meaningful goals in one’s life, given one’s cultural context.”  As I mentioned in Part 1, intelligence meant many, many things across history (by the way, consensus still doesn’t exist), but successful intelligence stands out as a particularly important concept at Stevenson.  Successful intelligence helps us look at means of success through analytical, creative, practical, and wisdom-based skills.  

The general idea that an understanding of one’s own skills could help pursue goals is important.  It ties together personal goals with both self-awareness and context.  Whether setting goals in Advising or discussing goals as they emerge across our academic and clinical program at Stevenson, students are challenged to identify goals and develop steps to achieve them.  Going further, Stevenson’s program inherently values a networked or social approach to success, encouraging students to effectively seek others for support as they pursue goals.  Clearly, when students briefly step out of class to meet with clinical staff, they are using the network of support that surrounds them in order to then return to class and better succeed as learners.  This immersion in context-supported success aligns the pursuit of goals at Stevenson with successful intelligence.  Awareness and management of self with an appreciation for support from others is part of the formula for success that Stevenson students develop and take with them after graduation. 

While there may not be consensus on intelligence’s meaning, we can find complementary wisdom across concepts, and I will highlight one big takeaway for us.  All learners will benefit from this dual consideration: know yourself and know your network.  Part of the experience for all young learners is to explore and refine their interests and sense of strengths.  As they then open up to knowing their network of support, they will be positioned to pursue those interests and leverage those strengths.  In other words, we are encouraged to expand what we value as goals for learners, and learners are encouraged to step away from a go-it-alone approach.  As an environment of supports, Stevenson is designed to instigate the intentional pursuit of goals for each learner.  At home, the same type of encouragement can occur based in a series of prompts: What do you want to achieve?  In what ways might you do so?  What would help make it happen?

Be well,
Chris Ongaro