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Logical/Mathematical Intelligence
On the Math Path
A man wants to buy food dishes for each of his rabbit cages. He can't remember how many rabbits or how many cages he has, but what he knows is that if he puts nine rabbits in each cage, he has one rabbit left over. If he puts 11 in each cage, he has one cage left empty. How many rabbits does he have, and how many food dishes does he need?
Click here for the answer.
Did you get it right? This type of word problem, adapted from Math for Humans by Mark Wahl (Livnlern Press, 1999), makes kids with developing Logical/Mathematical Intelligence hop around with delight.
A child's first steps toward Logical/Mathematical thought begin before she can walk. She handles and explores objects, learns about cause and effect—if you push a ball, it rolls—and concepts like "more" and "less." Eventually, she learns to count objects and to perform "concrete operations," such as subtracting two candies from a pile or adding two blocks to a tower.
According to the theories of developmental psychologist Jean Piaget and Harvard education professor Howard Gardner, higher Logical/Mathematical thought begins when the child can abandon objects and perform operations with numbers and symbols. At this level, the word problem above might be expressed as x + 1= y/9, and x - 1 = y/11. There's no need to imagine rabbits or cages. The mind can rely on mathematical rules to solve the equation. Verbal/logical statements, which also rely on rules, work the same way. Given the statement, "If it is winter, my name is Frederick," and the fact that it is winter, we can deduce the fact that the speaker's name is Frederick. It doesn't matter that the weather and a person's name are not generally related.
"An early sign of Logical/Mathematical thinking," says Wahl, a mathematics learning specialist for more than 20 years, "is that kids about age 6 or 7 begin to be spontaneously entertained by the relationships between numbers. They'll say things like, 'Did you know there are three 7s in 21?' "
Unfortunately, Wahl says, many kids get turned off before this level of thinking is reached. Schools that rely on rote memorization, and begin symbolic work with math before kids are ready, can turn even kids with highly developed Logical/Mathematical Intelligence off because they aren't allowed to investigate numbers in their own way.
To turn your kids on to Logical/Mathematical thinking, says Wahl, "try to intrigue them with puzzling ideas about math—stuff that makes them stop and think." Make a habit of asking your child to help you figure sales tax, estimate how much pasta is in the dinner bowl, or figure out how many carpool drivers are needed to transport the soccer team.
Wahl urges parents to offer estimation, mental calculation and problem-solving challenges to their kids every day. "Kids will grow tremendously when they see that this is important to their parents," he says, "and this will carry over into their math work at school."
Kinds of Multiple Intelligences
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