ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to unfold a conception of intelligence that meets the criteria, indicating along the way why much of the psychological inquiry into intelligence is not so much mistaken as irrelevant to our concerns, certainly as educators, perhaps more widely. There is a sense of the word 'intelligence' that makes it both something that can be developed and something educationally desirable. The significance of this claim is that many people, no doubt partly result of the dominance of psychological inquiry in education, think of intelligence fixed and given capacity, that cannot be much improved or reduced. The chapter argues that language, thought, and intelligence are very closely related concepts. It provides more reasonable and precise judgements about the educational value of various competing suggestions about pedagogy and the school curriculum. The chapter reviews steps to improve an individual's command of language in a particular identifiable sense to improve the individual's capacity to think well.
