Leonardo da Vinci
Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.
—ALBERT EINSTEIN
We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.
—BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Intellect refers to the mind’s ability to come to correct conclusions about what is true or real, and about how to solve problems. It is the capacity for rational or intelligent thought; the capacity for knowledge. Intellect is also the power of knowing as distinguished from the power to feel. Intellect and intelligence are interrelated as intelligence is the mental ability that allows an individual to understand things. A person who uses their intelligence (thought and reason) together with critical or analytical reasoning is often referred to as an intellectual.
Many great men throughout history had intellect, but none had powerful intellect in so many diverse areas as Leonard da Vinci.
Leonardo da Vinci—Renaissance Man
Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) was an accomplished painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer. Da Vinci’s genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, was the archetype of what became known as the “Renaissance man.” He is thought to be perhaps the greatest painter of all time and the most diversely talented person ever to have lived.
An illegitimate son of a notary and a peasant girl, Leonardo (or “Lennie” as we Renaissance guys call him), created the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, two of the most famous paintings of all time. Da Vinci used innovative techniques unique among his contemporaries. His detailed knowledge of anatomy, light, botany, and geology and his interest in physiognomy and the way in which humans register emotion in expression and gesture all contributed to his genius.
While not a prolific painter, da Vinci was a productive draftsman. He kept journals full of small sketches and detailed drawings of his observations. His drawing of the Vitruvian Man (a study of the proportions of the human body) has become a cultural icon, reproduced on items as varied as the euro and T-shirts. As an artist, he was a master of anatomy, drawing many studies of muscles, tendons, and other visible anatomical features. By dissecting corpses, da Vinci developed hundreds of pages of drawings and notes toward a treatise on anatomy, including many studies of the human skeleton as well as muscles and sinews. According to his biography, he studied the mechanical functions of the skeleton and the muscular forces that are applied to it in a manner that prefigured the modern science of biomechanics. He drew the heart and vascular system, the sex organs and other internal organs, making one of the first scientific drawings of a fetus in utero. He studied and drew the anatomy of many animals, dissecting cows, birds, horses, monkeys, bears, and frogs, comparing their anatomical structure with that of humans.
Da Vinci was also a prodigious inventor and was considered a technological genius. He conceptualized or envisioned modern-day devices such as a helicopter, a tank, the bicycle, concentrated solar power, and the calculator. Fascinated with flight, he also invented a hang glider. Relatively few of his designs were constructed or were even feasible during his lifetime, although several have been constructed and tested recently with positive results. He also invented precursors to items such as scissors, a primitive 33-barrel Gatling gun, a parachute, a portable bridge, and scuba gear. He made important discoveries in anatomy, civil engineering, optics, and hydrodynamics.
Leonardo’s studies in science and engineering are as impressive and innovative as his artistic work. He recorded his observations in thirteen thousand pages of notes and drawings. There are compositions for paintings, studies of details and drapery, studies of faces and emotions, of animals, babies, dissections, plants, rock formations, whirlpools, war machines, helicopters, and architecture. In many cases a single topic—for example, the heart or the human fetus—is covered in detail in both words and pictures on a single sheet.
The Codex Leicester is the only major scientific work of Leonardo’s in private hands. It is owned by Bill Gates and is displayed once a year in different cities around the world.
By all accounts, da Vinci was known as a man of high moral character and a sincere believer in Christ and the Scriptures.[78] In his last days, da Vinci sent for a priest to make his confession and to receive the Holy Sacrament. It is rumored that the king of France, Francis I, held his head as he died. Sculptor Benevenuto Cellini was quoted as saying upon da Vinci’s death, “There had never been another man born in the world who knew as much as Leonardo, not so much about painting, sculpture, and architecture, as that he was a very great philosopher.”[79]
Why Intellect Is Important
My blog is hardly filled with words most educated citizens would have trouble understanding. And yet a cable TV–inoculated audience wants everything dumbed down to the Kardashian level. This relentless push for less (less intelligence, less culture, less effort) is one of the boogiemen facing anyone who would mess with the rote rigor of mass schooling.
—Seth Godin, Stop Stealing Dreams
Males, especially young males, in our country are failing. They are rapidly falling behind in nearly all measurable educational outcomes and they are facing extreme challenges in the new roles and expectations our culture is trying to determine for them. Males are especially struggling with the core components for improving and displaying their intellect: reading and writing. When young women were behind males academically, we made national efforts to address the issue, yet our boys’ failure has not garnered the same attention.
Among pre-adults, women are clearly the more successful sex academically. They graduate from college in greater numbers. Among Americans ages twenty-five to thirty-four, 34 percent of women now have a bachelor’s degree but just 27 percent of men have one. A recent study at Northeastern University of the Boston Public Schools found that for the graduating class of 2007, “there were 191 black girls for every 100 boys going on to attend a four-year college or university. Among Hispanics, the ratio was 175 girls for every 100 boys; among whites, 153 for every 100.”[80] And women have higher GPAs. As most professors tell it, they also have more confidence and drive. These strengths carry women through their twenties, when they are more likely than men to be in grad school and making strides in the workplace. In a number of cities, they are even outearning their brothers and boyfriends. Noted author and therapist Michael Gurian describes the challenges boys face in schools: “It is worth noting immediately that our therapy profession runs parallel to our school systems. In our schools, most teachers are female, and the majority of successful students in schools are female. Just as with our therapeutic professions, many people, even people inside the profession, do not realize how problematic our schools have become for boys.”[81]
As a whole, boys today are failing miserably in school. Boys have a higher high school dropout rate than girls, are less likely to go to college than girls, and are frequently unemployed or underemployed. Part of the problem is that schools teach toward standardized testing and boys tend not to do well on standardized tests. Research shows us that the way boys learn best is a combination of natural curiosity, critical thinking, and group interaction. Generally being kinesthetic in nature, males process information when moving about (fidgeting, tapping, swinging feet in class). Because large class sizes with only one teacher prevent this kind of learning style, boys tend to “zone out” in the classroom, and when boys zone out, they underachieve. Educator Nick Szymanis says, “For boys in particular, we now recognize the need for patience with their emerging (often lagging) language skills and listening skills, their love of non-fiction and graphic novels, their kinesthetic processes and their need to physically manipulate objects while learning. Perhaps the argument is for single gender schools [as a positive solution].”[82]
Certainly part of the problem is how our culture now views masculinity in the shadow of the perpetual “gender wars” of the past several decades. Perhaps in our rush to empower girls and women we were under the mistaken assumption that we had to tear down masculinity in order to lift up femininity. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is perfectly logical to recognize that we can empower all people without taking from others. Good parents do it all the time—they empower all their children without regard to their gender. This worldview, though, has permeated all of society, including our educational system.
In his brilliant treatise, The Abolition of Man, C. S. Lewis addresses the struggle between a traditional worldview that recognizes the worth of objective values and natural law versus a progressive one and how it is being manifested through the educational system. In it, Lewis speculated upon the different teaching styles from years past and the more “modern” forms of public education when he said, “The difference between the old and new education will be an important one. Where the old initiated, the new merely ‘conditions.’ The old dealt with its pupils as grown birds deal with young birds when they teach them to fly: the new deals with them more as the poultry-keeper deals with young birds—making them thus or thus for purposes of which the birds know nothing. In a word, the old was a kind of propagation—men transmitting manhood to men: the new is merely propaganda.”[83]
In their book The Light and the Glory, Peter Marshall and David Manuel brilliantly describe it like this, “In contrast, all totalitarian governments—whether Nazi, Communist, or Islamic—always attempt to remove the causes of faction by removing liberty and, as much as possible, freedom of thought. And through intensive indoctrination of the young, they also attempt to impose a sameness of opinion.”[84]
That being said, I’m not convinced that there is a conspiracy plot in place to intentionally “dumb down” the children (particularly boys) of this country—although there is some strong evidence that certain progressive worldviews have for decades targeted three areas of the culture in order to transform it to their agenda: the media, the educational system (especially upper academia), and the suppression of religious freedom. But I do know that uneducated people (especially males) without critical thinking skills are easier to control than those who are capable of thinking for themselves. Our culture has already “dumbed” down everything to sound bites and YouTube clips. We are becoming an ignorant society.
Seth Godin describes it like this, “Even though just about everyone in the West has been through years of compulsory schooling, we see ever more belief in unfounded theories, bad financial decisions, and poor community and family planning. People’s connection with science and the arts is tenuous at best, and the financial acumen of the typical consumer is pitiful. If the goal was to raise the standards for rational thought, skeptical investigation, and useful decision making, we’ve failed for most of our citizens.”[85]
To compound that, we have become a society ruled by its emotions. The press reports misinformation about a crime and people are immediately taking to the streets in protest, rather than waiting for the criminal justice system to go through its process and find out the facts of the case. Politicians and activists then throw fuel on the fire by issuing irresponsible statements that push people’s emotional hot buttons, creating even more fervor. In reality, the people (the citizens of our country) are being controlled through their emotions. They are being herded like cattle, with this strategy often being used to take the spotlight off larger, more important issues that are taking place at the same time.
Teach your sons the value of making decisions based on principles and not emotions. Our schools are not teaching children to develop critical thinking skills to determine the truth. Instead, a one-sided agenda is usually presented.
If those challenges weren’t enough, we are seeing a much higher incidence in young males of brain-related problems. Although the causes of these disorders are not currently known, some research indicates that the significant increase during the past several decades of autism spectrum, ADHD, and other brain disorders in males appears to be related to the number of and types of toxins taken in by the mother during pregnancy. There may also be other factors included in this increase, including a variety of genetic factors, hormone levels and brain structure, and possibly even vaccinations. (My point is not what the causes of these problems are but the fact that we are seeing more and more of them in young males.)
How to Teach Your Son to Have Intellect
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.
—Hosea 4:6 NKJV
So do all these challenges mean boys are stupid or somehow inferior? Absolutely not! It just means we need to learn more about how males process and internalize information.
It’s important as we work with our sons that we understand and recognize how they best learn. Again, because males are generally wired to be visual it is paramount to recognize how that affects your son’s ability to learn. One quick tip to remember is that because boys do not see as well as females, they tend to need more and brighter light in order to function and process information better. Dim lighting and candles (like in a massage therapy room) tend to put me to sleep right away.
When I teach workshops for males I try to use a brightly lit room with a lot of visuals such as pictures, video clips, and hands-on items. I take a lot of breaks (about every fifty minutes) and let them move around at will if they need to while I speak. I also use object lessons to illustrate my points as often as possible. For instance, I drop a track baton on the floor to illustrate what happens when a father fails to pass along his knowledge and experience to his son. What happens when the hand-off of the baton between two members of the relay race team fails? It causes them to lose the race or be at a huge disadvantage. The same thing happens when a father drops the baton—his son either loses or has a distinct disadvantage. Only the stakes are higher—for this is the race of life. I also try to encourage verbal interaction, as this engages men more than we would anticipate. (As a side note, I have to discourage verbal interaction with female audiences, as we might have trouble getting through all of the material if I allowed them to talk at will.) Even though common knowledge says that men do not like to talk and share, I find that once you break through their initial wariness, males enjoy getting into small groups to discuss an issue or topic. Many men at retreats and conferences rate the small group interaction as their favorite part of the event.
Intelligence consists of a number of factors, including sound judgment, practical common sense, intuition, adaptability, rational thought, and analytic and cognitive abilities. Likely, the desire to continue to learn and improve oneself is an important factor in being intelligent.
In 1983, psychologist Howard Gardner developed his theory of multiple intelligences, which maintains there are many different types of “intelligences” ascribed to human beings. His original list consisted of these seven types:
Naturalist—involving sensitivity to nature—was added later and typically found in farmers, gardeners, naturalists, and conservationists. Since then a number of other intelligences have been suggested but excluded, including spiritual, existential, and moral intelligences.
When we see that there are different forms of intelligence, we realize that people can be gifted in one area and not another. For instance, someone like Albert Einstein, who was brilliant in Logical-Mathematical intelligence, may not have been able to speak well or relate to others successfully. We know, however, that he was anything but unintelligent.
One of the great disservices we do to males is to not encourage them to keep learning throughout their lives. Many men finish school and never pick up another book their entire lives. Most men don’t attend seminars or workshops that teach them new things—especially if the workshops involve relationship skills.
With that in mind, remember that males are very spatial-visual, so when teaching and working with your son you can utilize many of the expressive arts to help him learn. For example, your teenage son may love music. Music (especially in adolescents) causes the secretion of dopamine and other chemicals in the nucleus accumbus (pleasure center) of the brain, which creates a “high.”[86] That reaction fades as we age, but it’s one of the reasons we so fondly remember those songs of our youth as we get older (we recollect that good feeling from our pleasure center). Musical composition is closely affiliated with mathematics. Using music to help your son understand mathematical equations can be fun and memorable.
I learned about fractions, percentages, and algebra through baseball. I loved baseball as a boy and followed my favorite professional players closely throughout the summer. I began to understand fractions by learning how to compute the batting averages, slugging percentages, and on-base percentages of the big league players I followed. Once I recognized (by chance) that a batter going two for three in a game was the same as two-thirds or .667 percent, algebra came into focus so much more clearly than the rote lessons on the chalkboard.
Visual graphics are also important to boys. It’s why (depending on their age) they have posters of dinosaurs, sports stars, Star Wars figures, or bathing beauties on their bedroom walls. Graphics and photographs cause them to use both sides of their brains. In fact, the less sensitive your son is the more graphic stimulants he might need in order to access his emotional life. As Michael Gurian says, “His self-assessment abilities may very well hinge on the pictures he sees in his head more than the words he can use to understand himself.”[87] Sometimes by seeing things in movies, photos, or video clips, a boy can understand himself and what he is feeling better than if he tried to sit down and parse it out by himself. Since introspection is often the key to intellectual development, it is important that your son learn as much as possible about himself.
We have to teach our sons to read more and write better. One out of four people did not read a book in 2007, with the typical person only reading four books a year.[88] Reading leads to more reading and better writing. It opens doors and grows intelligence.
Every year I help out at the local high school by evaluating senior papers. The differences between the writing skills of the females versus the skills of the males are like night and day. The females’ papers, almost to a person, were exceptionally better than the males’ attempts.
Want your son to read more? Try letting him read comics or graphic novels. Reading is reading—it doesn’t matter if it’s War and Peace or Batman and Superman (well, it probably does but not until later). Because boys are often later readers than girls, they tend to fall behind in school. This, of course, discourages them (not to mention humiliates them) and causes many males to quit trying and/or dislike reading altogether. Often boys just need extra help with reading in order to gradually catch up. They need to be encouraged in ways they enjoy, and not forced to read “what’s best for them.” As a boy, I used to read comics and the sports page of the newspaper “religiously” (stuff my mom referred to as “junk”). As I got into junior high, I started venturing into the library to read biographies and autobiographies on famous sports figures and adventurers. By high school I was ready to understand more complex classics such as George Orwell’s 1984, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, and J. D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye. I’m pretty sure my parents and teachers never thought I would be a writer for a living but in retrospect it was very good training for this kind of career. It instilled in me a love of reading that has served me well throughout life. Had I been forced to suffer through Plato’s dialogues as a twelve-year-old, I’m almost positive I would not be a reader today.
Drawing is an effective tool for teaching some boys. Many boys or men are intimidated by writing words on paper, possibly having had bad experiences in school. Drawing also helps males use both sides of their brain. You’ll notice many boys draw in their notebooks at school. They draw warrior figures, cars, horses, and a plethora of other things. One form of therapy successfully uses drawing to help males express their internal language and emotions that they might not otherwise be able to speak. You might learn some interesting things about your son by encouraging him to draw.
Video games are popular with most boys today. Due to the visual nature of the games, boys derive a great deal of satisfaction from the visual-graphic-spatial aspect involved with playing them. All too often they can become addicting if not played responsibly. Boys receive a “wash” of dopamine and great psychological rewards from playing these games. Much like with gambling or even drug use, the effects can be addicting.
Help your son to recognize his learning style or conscious thought language (modality). Many boys are kinesthetic learners (like muscle memory) and require bodily experiences to process information. I need to physically walk through and experience something before I can truly understand it. Many athletes I have worked with require walking through a play instead of just having it drawn on a clipboard before they understand what is expected of them.
Other people are auditory learners. They learn best by hearing another’s words or music. Many others are visual learners. They need to see something in their minds in order to process it. Finally some people learn best by verbal thought. They have an inner speech that helps them learn best. I try to incorporate all of these learning styles in each of the seminars or workshops I deliver. This not only reaches people at all learning levels and styles, but each style helps to reinforce the point I am trying to teach.
Perhaps one of the most important skills a person (especially a leader) can develop is the ability to think through an issue and discern the important aspects of that issue while not being distracted by the parts that are of no consequence. Your son needs to learn to distinguish between fact and opinion. He needs to understand how to compare and contrast information. Too often important issues are clouded by emotions or hyperbole. In addition, with today’s technology it is easy to establish something on the internet that quickly becomes assumed as fact. As an example, books, magazines, or newspapers printing “facts” that are not backed up by well-rounded research with cited sources are really just printing their opinion. Television news programs are notorious for this today.
If you want your son to be someone who is not easily swayed by political agendas, misinformation, or opinions, he needs to develop good critical thinking skills.
How do you help a boy develop critical thinking skills that are crucial for him to learn in order to develop into a good problem solver? There are some basic ways to develop critical thinking skills—but I encourage you to be creative and intentional in your approach. First, as difficult as it may be, allow your son to argue or debate issues that do not relate to emergency circumstances. He is developing the process of understanding how to look at an issue critically from different sides. You’ll notice that sometimes, if you agree with him, he may even switch his opinion in the middle of an argument and argue the other side. Also, while it may be annoying, allow him to ask a lot of questions. That shows he has an active mind and is searching for information and knowledge. (Or else he’s just being a pain, but you can hope for the former.)
Encourage him to think logically. Use concrete examples whenever possible that lead to logical conclusions. For instance, someone might try to argue against the validity of gravity, but they will still hit the ground if they jump off a building. Logic takes the emotion out of an argument. Also, allow him to think through an issue or problem—do not rush in and give him the answer right away. It takes the male brain longer than the female brain to process information.[89] Answer all of his “why” questions, even if they become annoying. Teach him how to find knowledge and to seek information.
Think out loud in front of him—that way he can see and hear how you puzzle through the process of solving a problem. Finally, challenge him to look at both sides of an issue. If you only get one opinion on a subject, you cannot truly understand it. One of the great lessons I have learned in life is that you cannot understand another’s pain if you have not walked in their shoes. This will serve him well later in life when he has a wife and children and issues are seldom simply black and white but are complicated shades of gray.
Teach your son how to learn, not how to memorize facts. Teach him to be curious and excited about learning new things. Encourage him to dream and then seek out information about his dreams from all different sources. Motivate and push him. Teach him that information and education are power.
Last, teach your son that it is manly to be intelligent.