Solutions to the world's problems will never be found in textbooks. They reside in the minds of creative, inventive people. So it is important for all students to exercise their creative muscles. People with good practical intelligence are said to have good common sense. They may not make the best grades in traditional school, but they know how to use knowledge, how to adapt it to different situations, and how to get along with others.
Practical thinkers can take knowledge and apply it to real life situations.
Practical thinking involves practicing, demonstrating, using, applying and implementing. For example, in science class, students tell all the ways reptiles are useful to people. In math class, students develop a monthly food budget for a family of four based on actual food costs at the local grocery. In history class, students show how a certain law has made an effect on their lives, and tell how their lives might be different if that law did not exist. In literature class, they tell what general lesson can be learned from Tom Sawyer's way of persuading his friends to whitewash Aunt Polly's fence, and they give examples of how that method is used in today's advertising.