Practice Does Not Make Perfect

Notes by Howard Gardner

A study published in the journal Psychological Science claims to show that music practice does not have an effect on music ability after researchers observed 10,500 Swedish twins and found no evidence that practice produced better music skills, suggesting that "genetic variation among individuals affects both ability and inclination to practice."

I am often asked how much of each intelligence in MI theory is based on nature (genetics) and how much on nurture/culture (child-rearing, formal education, practice, etc.). I have been deliberately agnostic on this question because it can only be answered convincingly by the use of behavioral genetics methods, of the sort used by behavioral genetics (as exemplified in the aforementioned article).

That said, both my wife Ellen Winner (author of the well-known book Gifted Children: Myths and Realities) and I have been extremely skeptical of the claims, made chiefly in the scholarly literature by K. Anders Ericsson and colleagues and in the popular press by Malcolm Gladwell) that talent is essentially due to practice. No one doubts that practice is necessary, but we (and others) have doubted that anyone can become an expert, and that there is no such thing as talent. As I’ve put it most dramatically, if you were in the same cello class as Yo-Yo Ma, you’d soon see the difference in performance from one week to the next. The same goes for other domains—as, for example, being in the same math class as a young person who goes on to win the Putnam competition.

This article is one of the first to actually tease out the effects of heritability on musical ability. Contrary to the Ericsson-Gladwell hypothesis, the association between music practice and music ability turns out to be largely genetic; moreover, differences in the environments of subjects did not contribute materially to differences in the capacity to discriminate rhythms, melodies, and pitches.

In a similar study, also in Psychological Science, researchers studied the effects of deliberate practice on performance in several domains, including music, games, sports, education, and professions, finding that practice was a poor measure of explaining variance in performance in each case (from explaining 26% of the variance for games, down to less than 1% for professions).

While a single study or pair of studies should not be over-interpreted, such findings should give pause to those who believe that practice alone determines how well one will perform and at what rate expertise will be achieved.

Chilean Magazine Spotlights MI Theory

From 2011-2012, the Chilean publication Calpe&Abyla, a periodical dedicated to education and neurosciences, published a series of magazines on Multiple Intelligences theory. The editors assembled a unique collection of high-quality materials with a focus on the connection between MI and neuroscience. These texts are a useful resource for Spanish-speaking educators, researchers, and individuals who would simply like to know more about MI theory.

For more information about the magazines and for details on how to access them via subscription, please visit http://www.calpeyabyla.com/suscripciones. Free previews of each edition are available at http://www.calpeyabyla.com/page/ingreso-a-la-revista.

Howard Gardner and Project Zero would like to thank Terry Orrego for bringing these magazines to their attention during the Project Zero Classroom Institute in July 2014. Special thanks is also given to the editor of Calpe&Abyla, Amanda Cespedes.

         

U.S. Innovations that U.S. Education Reformers Ignore

In a Washington Post blog by Finnish scholar Pasi Sahlberg, five educational innovations developed in the United States, but which are in large part ignored by American schools and reformers, are outlined. Sahlberg counts among these innovations Howard Gardner's theory of Multiple Intelligences. He provides strong examples of how work that is done by US researchers so often benefits other countries who are willing to implement changes in their education systems and how these same ideas end up going to waste in America as a whole.

Sahlberg's blog can be read in it's entirety via the Washington Post here.

In response to this piece, Gardner responded with his own thoughts about the argument Sahlberg has made. Below are Gardner's comments to Sahlberg:

You have written a thought-provoking piece, noting that the United States may produce promising ideas in education but lags in the implementation of those ideas—except perhaps the proliferation of standardized, high stake testing.

A few comments:

1. In the US, experimentation has too often occurred in so-called “junk works,” which are separate from the funding source. The most dramatic example is Xerox PARC—a research setting that developed many important ideas and practices in the digital world, only to have them scooped up by rival Apple.

2. The ideas you mentioned can all be found somewhere in the U.S. but our public system is so scattered that it’s hard to make changes that have wider impact. Independent schools and charter schools have more space to experiment, but again, the changes do not spread easily—the ‘lone cowboy’ phenomenon.

3. An even more dramatic example of the phenomenon that you describe is chronicled in Loren Graham’s recent book LONELY IDEAS: CAN RUSSIA COMPETE? Graham chronicles how so many wonderful ideas emerged in Russia in the last century or two, but they were almost all monetized elsewhere… except the Kalashnikov rifle!

4. Thanks for the mention of multiple intelligences (MI) theory. You might find of interest a just published book, FROM THE IVORY TOWER TO THE SCHOOLHOUSE. Jack Schneider traces four ideas that became well known by American educators, including MI theory, and compares those ideas to others that superficially seem similar—in the MI case, Robert Sternberg’s ‘triarchic theory of intelligence.’ The other ideas are Bloom’s taxonomy, the project method, and direct instruction.

5. Finally, I would add that while ideas like the ones that you mentioned may have come from American scholars, none of us worked in a vacuum. (I was greatly influenced by Piaget, Levi-Strauss, Vygotsky, Luria, and many others.) Both the amount of money available for research (from both public and private sources) and the freedom for research at the major colleges and universities enabled the emergence of interesting ideas in the social sciences, with implications for education. I worry that period is over—accordingly my current research is designed to help invigorate 'liberal arts and sciences in the 21st century.'

These comments are also visible on Pasi Sahlberg's website.

From the Ivory Tower to the Schoolhouse

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Jack Schneider’s 2014 book From the Ivory Tower to the Schoolhouse: How Scholarship Becomes Common Knowledge in Education devotes an entire chapter to Howard Gardner’s theory of Multiple Intelligences. Detailing the reasons why MI became a significant educational force, the text is a useful tool for anyone seeking insight into the process by which ideas are adopted (or not adopted) by a wide public audience. An excerpt from the relevant chapter is below:

Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences has been a blockbuster in American education – what one set of backers called “contemporary education’s most popular idea.” A search of the federal government’s Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), for instance, returns over twelve hundred articles on “multiple intelligences” – twice as many results as a search for “Bloom’s taxonomy,” and a few hundred more than a search for “progressive education,” though not nearly as many as for “state standards.” It is extensively, and positively, covered in textbooks for aspiring teachers. Those curious about multiple intelligences conduct hundreds of thousands of Internet searches for it each year. And there are at least six schools in the United States named for Howard Gardner. Despite its critics, the idea has taken hold in schools large and small, public and private, across disciplines, and at all grade levels.”

For further information, and to purchase a copy of the book, please visit Amazon by clicking here.

Beware of Bogus Claims on Educational Products

The English edition of the Korean media outlet The Hankyoreh has published an exchange between Howard Gardner and the civic group “World Without Worries About Private Education” in which Gardner cautions consumers not to trust in products that claim to incorporate his theory of Multiple Intelligences and/or develop specific intelligences in users.

Visit The Hankyoreh to read the article in it’s entirety.