meaning of
intelligence

For one year, I built boats in Maine in a beautiful spot way out in the country. This was before I started library school and after I had finished college and worked in the non-profit sector for a few years... mostly working at a desk in an office. It was work that required lots of thought and planning on my part, but not much hands on work. I chose to build boats because I wanted to work with my hands and see what that was like. I loved it in so many ways, but the great pleasure was in learning the skills of applying tools to physical materials at the same time that I learned to apply my intelligence to understand a boat design and planning the construction of the boat.
A couple of weeks ago on Speaking of Faith, Krista Tippett talked to Mike Rose about his study of work, intelligence, education, and civic life. Mostly, they focused on his book The Mind at Work which I have never read but which has captured my imagination. Rose focuses on our tendency to categorize work as either work of the mind or work of the hands... manual labor or intelligent labor. Not surprisingly, this topic begs many questions about class divisions and education, themes that Tippett and Rose explore in their rich conversation.
It was wonderful food for thought and brought back memories of building boats on the coast of Maine.

The boat I built!
This is the boat I built.