Why Teachers Should Embrace Multiple Intelligences

In a recent Huffington Post article, founding editor of Future Kerala Dipin Damodharan made the case for teachers to utilize Multiple Intelligences in the classroom. In "alternative" education, educators believe that the goals of education should be knowledge and growth. This view of education is in conflict with the idea that education is simply a means to land lucrative careers. As Mr. Damodharan states, MI can be used in "alternative" education settings as a tool to encourage students to gain a deeper understanding of the curriculum they're being taught and to become global citizens. By utilizing two key components from MI theory, individuation and pluralization, teachers can tailor make their modules to play to their students' strengths, improve upon their weaknesses, and keep their minds engaged.

Read the blog in its entirety here. 

Multiple Intelligences Featured in Japanese Textbook

Tokyo Shoseki recently published an English textbook for 10th graders, Prominence: Communication English. Lesson three is entitled, "You are Smarter than You Think", and covers Howard Gardner and the theory of Multiple Intelligences. With MI theory featured in a prominent English text book, MI will be able to reach a wider audience and a new generation of students in Japan.

"The Man Who Wasn't There"

Notes by Howard Gardner

I recently read the Science Magazine discussion of Anil Ananthaswamy's "The Man Who Wasn't There". This spurred me to write the following response. The original article can be found here. 

Of the various intelligences, intrapersonal intelligence—understanding of self—has always been the most difficult to describe, conceptualize, and measure.  After all, who is qualified to judge how well a person  understands himself or herself?  I often quip that only Person X’s therapist can assess how well Person X understands Person X.  But of course that assumes that the therapist has good INTER-personal intelligence. Anyway, this book is one of the first attempts of which I’m aware that  provides neurological and psychological insights into the understanding of self.  It does not answer any questions, but it raises some of the right ones.

Howard Gardner Speaks at ASU

In early May, Howard Gardner was invited to speak at ASU as part of ASU's Frank Rhodes Lecture Series on the Creation of the Future. In his talk, titled "Beyond Wit and Grit", Dr. Gardner discusses MI, individualized education, and the importance of "good" grit. View the talk here.:

SPARK Memories Radio and its Implications for MI

Notes by Howard Gardner

Most psychological theories posit a general capacity like ‘memory'. Were that conception correct, then loss of memory for one type of information would correlate highly with loss of memory for all other kinds of memory.

Ever since the famous patient H.M. was studied, we know that this account of ‘general memory’ is false. Because of extensive surgery done on his temporal lobes, H.M. showed no memory of recent experiences.  And yet, when tested on games that he had mastered, he continue to perform well even though he had no linguistic memory of the game.

One of the defining characteristics of an intelligence is that it has its own form of memory.  In this article we learn that  patients with Alzheimer’s disease, who have little spared spatial memory or linguistic memory, continue to remember and to enjoy music.  Neurological researcher Rudolph Tanzi explains, “The pathology that goes all around the music memories areas, but doesn’t touch them…The best way to activate music memory is with the music you love the most”.

And so, drawing on this scientific finding, Tanzi and colleagues have created an app, which plays music that patients of a certain age and experience are likely to have known at one time. And sure enough, this simple device produces both recognition and pleasure in a range of patients whose lives are otherwise greatly impoverished.