Quote:
In his landmark book Frames of Mind: The Theory Of Multiple Intelligences, published in 1983, Harvard University education professor Howard Gardner unveiled a theory of multiple intelligences that famously rejected the traditional and long-held view that aptitude consists solely of the ability to reason and understand complex ideas.
Instead, he identified seven separate human capacities: musical, verbal, physical, interpersonal, visual, logical, and intrapersonal. And not all of them, including the category he added years later -- naturalistic -- could be easily evaluated by the standard measuring stick of the time: the IQ test.
Psychologists, unimpressed with Gardner's mold breaking, mostly looked the other way. Teachers, on the other hand, were electrified. The book supported what educators had known for a long time: Kids in their classrooms possess natural aptitudes for music, sports, emotional understanding -- strengths that cannot be identified in traditional tests. Gardner had given voice, as well as a scholarly support, to their experience. Boston University education professor Scott Seider describes the reaction as a "grassroots uprising" of educators at all levels who embraced multiple intelligences (MI) theory "with a genuine passion." http://www.edutopia.org/multiple-int...s-introduction
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Mr. Gardner gave an interview in 1997 that you may listen to here:
http://www.edutopia.org/multiple-int...-gardner-video
Gardner was interviewed again in 2011:
More to this story.
These links also have related articles. If it is your fancy, you can take a quiz to find out your learning style.
http://www.edutopia.org/mi-quiz
As an undergrad, I participated in a study that required taking five different IQ tests. The various tests were written differently than those I previously had taken.
The purpose of the study was to help develop a less biased and more comprehensive test. Although I do not recall the specifics, I do remember being surprised and rather nonplussed about the relatively high degree of variance in the scores I received.
Apparently, interest in Dr. Gardner's work is experiencing a resurgence. I wonder how different education in the U.S. would now be viewed if Gardner's work had been implemented?