ABSTRACT

Recently, while working as a supply teacher in a failing London secondary school under special measures, I was required to attend a series of in-service training seminars run by the Assistant Director of Education on the subject of promoting intelligent behaviour in our pupils. This, rightly or wrongly, was, for him, the ultimate aim of education. At these seminars it became apparent to me that many experienced teachers held quite clear and fixed ideas about what they considered constituted intelligent behaviour in their specific subject area, particularly when this subject dealt almost exclusively with more propositional and cognitive forms of knowledge (i.e. facts). It also became clear that many senior teachers and educational administrators still hold fast to traditional conceptions of intelligence that really only represent half the story in terms of psychological debate.