Recently, there has been a lot of attention in the news, in mainstream publishing and in academic journals on the topic of intelligence. A surprising consensus among researchers is that our mental powers are significantly under our own control: we can build intelligence.
In other words, we are not merely born with our brainpower, inheriting some fixed entity through our gene pool, but rather we largely make it out of our experiences, choices and environments. We seem to be moving away from the era of “the gene is king!” and into one where the complex interactions between our biology and our experiences shape our brains, attitudes, talents, interests and health.
The Spring 2012 issue of The Growing Mind explores the question of how we build intelligence. Of course, it is far too complicated a topic to cover completely in a magazine such as this, so a few themes have been highlighted. Articles look at the relationship between nature and learning, the role of exercise in learning, approaches to parenting that develop mental and emotional strength, and the impact that schools and our larger culture have on a child’s development. An interview with Dr. David Walsh pulls together many of these topics into one interesting conversation.
Can we develop the intelligence of our children? The answer, in short, is yes. Their brains, like ours, are highly sensitive and attuned to their environments, and their mental powers, like ours, grow in response to experience. As one eminent researcher says inside this issue, our environment quite likely plays a larger role than our genetic inheritance in shaping our brainpower. The implications of that assertion are profound.
We hope you enjoy the new issue of The Growing Mind!
Karen Sumner
Director of Research and Innovation
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