Music Came Way Before Language: The Evidence, The Argument

In a recent article in The Financial Times, Michael Spitzer makes this fascinating claim:  

“I would contend that music is perhaps the most mportant thing we (human beings) ever did, if primarily for the simple reason that music evolved before language—in fact, a million years earlier.”  

To support this claim, Spitzer daws on evidence that human beings moved rhythmically millions of years ago, engaged in rhythmic activities (like carving stone tools, foraging for plants, making tracks) over a million years ago, created a variety of sounds 700,000 years ago, and were creating and playing flutes at least 40,000 years ago.

Of course, it’s intriguing in its own right that the origins of music go so far back in pre-history. But I’m interested in this claim for another reason. One of the main assumptions of the theory of multiple intelligences is that the various intelligences have different evolutionary histories and, accordingly, different cortical representation. If correct, Spitzer’s claim refutes the widespread belief that musical and linguistic capacities are closely allied, or even that human music piggy backs on human language (a claim that would be surprising to song birds!)

The article “The singing ape: how music made us human” is available at: www.ft.com/content/523b245c-d818-4921-b795-2b81f4bd44ba).

Photo by Spencer Imbrockon Unsplash

Good Work, Global Competence, and Multiple Intelligences

Howard Gardner was recently interviewed by Tekman Education in Spain. For our Spanish speakers, the interview appears here in Spanish.

Below is the Q&A in English on which the published interview is based. Gardner answered questions ranging from neuroscience, global competence, and MI Theory, to his work on The GoodProject. For more on The GoodProject, please visit the website here.

Tekman Education Asks Howard Gardner

The neuroeducational perspective calls into question some aspects of multiple intelligences theory. Do you think that the theory is compatible with neuroscience or should it be understood as a didactic strategy? Why do you think it has been so successful in education?

Howard Gardner:

“MI theory” was developed in part on the basis of neurological evidence available in 1980. This was an important empirical basis for the theory; but of course we know much more about the brain now than we did forty years ago. 

The theory now has an independent life, apart from the original research basis. And it has been applied in places—like schools—where it has been useful, even if the supportive research basis today would be more complete—and somewhat different—than it was in 1980.

Which information data collection methods do you recommend for the evaluation of a student's multiple intelligences? How can teachers know if they are doing it right?

Howard Gardner:

Careful observation of the child in diverse settings—especially to be recommended are children’s museums—along with observations from parents, relatives, and others who are close to the child. I value that first-hand evidence more than evidence from paper-and-pencil tests which are not well suited to measure most of the intelligences, (they are essentially language-logic instruments.)

In your view, what does global competence mean and how can teachers develop it in schools? How can we develop it in such a changing social, cultural and economic situation? How do you connect it with multiple intelligences?

Howard Gardner:  

We evolved to live in small communities, largely with kinsmen. But as the pandemic reminds us, we are now interlocked with individuals from all over the world and, of course, transportation, commerce, mass media, and social media underscore that point. Any good education—from preschool to university—needs to be cognizant of this state of affairs and to prepare young people to negotiate life on the planet in the 21st century. This is not a point particularly about “MI” but if good education takes advantages of different cognitive profiles and different ways of teaching, then of course global education and global competence should take advantage of it as well. 

Let’s talk about “Good Work” where you discuss how to get good work done that is both specialized and socially responsible. You recently said: "a bad person never becomes a good professional.” Does that mean that a good person is more likely to succeed? How do you suggest we promote being a good person in such a competitive world?

Howard Gardner:

Being a good person and being a good professional are NOT identical. You can be an excellent doctor or journalist and a lousy parent or spouse. Or you can be an exemplary parent or spouse and a poorly performing physician or reporter. But of course, it’s best if you are BOTH a good person AND a good professional. 

While we don’t have “data” on the correlation, I suspect that if you are a good spouse and parent, you are more likely to be a good physician or journalist; and if you perform poorly in one role, you will probably perform poorly in the other role. But there will be exceptions, and we all know people who are better at one role than they are at the other.

The role of schools is quite clear at all levels in “Good Work.” You even provide an extensive guide “The Good Work Toolkit” for educators on your website. We are aware of the great influence that families have on their children. What then should be the role of parents in the development of this good work? How can they help?

Howard Gardner:

You are right. Parents, older siblings, and close relatives have tremendous influence on the behavior, attitudes, and understandings of children. Optimally, the stances taken by these individuals “near by” will be similar to those provided by teachers, religious leaders, and others in the broader community, not to mention messages on the powerful media!  

But if the models provided outside the home are different from those provided in the home, then there is a special obligation on the part of the immediate family to indicate what is acceptable behavior and what is not.

Of course, there will be cases where the family itself is pathological or provides bad models. And then we have to depend on the broader society to provide alternative, powerful, and healthier models. The society has to challenge the adage that “the apple does not fall far from the tree.”

Do you think schools must dedicate a specific space and time to teach “good work” with specialized teachers, or should it be integrated in a transversal way in the educational culture of the school? Do you think that teachers are trained enough to do this job? To develop excellent, ethical and committed citizens is a great responsibility. 

Howard Gardner:

Good question. It’s fine to have classes or spaces devoted to “good work.” In fact we have developed curricula devoted to this goal. (You can download them here.)

But far more important are the role models provided every day by the visible models—teachers, supervisors, coaches, and older peers. A teacher who is not a “good worker” will not be able to teach “good work” convincingly. And a teacher who is a “good worker” is teaching students every day, indeed every hour, about good work.

Teachers were once children—as were we all! And whether teachers are themselves good workers depends largely on the influences around them in their own childhood—see my answer above. Of course, it is possible to overcome pathological role models in one’s own life—the Bible and biographies of heroic figures are filled with examples of individuals who “straighten themselves out.” But it’s much easier and better to have a healthy start from early childhood.

Photo by Ben Whiteon Unsplash

UK Government Minister References MI Theory

UK Member of Parliament and Paymaster General, Penny Mordaunt, writes in this article of her recent dyslexia diagnosis. She refers in the article to Gardner’s book, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences.

Howard Gardner first put forward the idea of multiple intelligences in his 1983 book Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. He pointed out that talent is hard to find, but we make it harder still by deciding that it only comes in one form and then by discriminating against those that don’t conform to the model.

Mordaunt describes the difficulties she faced in school and her struggles with reading, experiences which made her feel “stupid” and “lazy.” Her school actively discouraged her from having ambitions. She was ignored, spoken over, and teased. With determination and resilience, however, Moradunt went to university and earned a degree, and has enjoyed a successful and varied career. Mordaunt says her diagnosis of dyslexia at aged 47 is a relief.

Penny Mordaunt’s school clearly failed her. Her story illustrates the need to recognize that people have many different strengths. Teaching in different ways that allow students to make use of their multiple intelligences is key. As Gardner says,

We should spend less time ranking children and more time helping them to identify their natural competencies and gifts and cultivate these. There are hundreds and hundreds of ways to succeed and many, many different abilities that will help you get there.

"What's the story" on story intelligence?

When I initially put forth the theory of multiple intelligences, I had in mind specific criteria for what counts as an intelligence, and what doesn’t. My original list stipulated seven intelligences. I subsequently added an 8th intelligence—the naturalist intelligence—and have tentatively written about a possible existential intelligence and a possible pedagogical intelligence.

Of course, in the last forty years, the use of the descriptor “intelligence” has expanded indefinitely. Daniel Goleman put “emotional intelligence” on the map; and thereafter there has been a cascade of nominated intelligences (from financial to sexual), some more plausible, others more speculative or even ill-considered.

I am comfortable with the informal phrase “story intelligence.” The capacity to make, transmit, and understand stories is an important capacity and characteristic of human beings. And as this article by Flora Rosevsky in The Atlanta Jewish Times (reproduced below) indicates, stories can be put to many uses, including educational ones.

Putting on my hat as a researcher, I would pose a few questions:

1. How broad is the definition of a story? Does it include a joke? A proverb? Do musical compositions convey stories? Is the Bible one story, or countless stories? Is this note a story? What about the article in The Atlanta Jewish Times? What is NOT a story and why?  

2. Do all societies haves stories? What are the constants and what are the different characteristics? For example, are there societies without fiction? Without myths? Or societies when only certain designated individuals can tell or perform stories?

3. Wearing my “MI hat”: Which intelligences are involved in story telling and which not? I could make a case that story telling is primarily a function of linguistic intelligence. Or, in a more generous mood, I could extend “story intelligence” to each of the several intelligences e.g. the story contained in a theme in a musical composition, or the story of a ballerina in a classical dance?

4. Put epigrammatically, “What’s the ‘story’ on story intelligence?”
   The answer might make a good “news story.”

From The Atlanta Jewish Times
Story Intelligence

An emerging concept about the way our brains are wired for story affects how we understand what it means to be human.

By FLORA ROSEFSKY

February 24, 2021

 “Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.” 
— Socrates

From the beginning of time humans have been telling stories. The evidence spans from cave drawings of hunters and animals to oral traditions retelling events transposed onto scrolls or books. In all its expressions, storytelling formed roadmaps for how people thought and behaved.

Fast forward to the 21st century. Films, photography, TED Talks, YouTube videos, art projects, memoir writing and fictional books are all manifestations of contemporary storytelling. But storytelling is not just about entertainment. Telling our stories and listening to others’ points of view enriches the meaning of our lives. 

Using his experience as a writer, artist and storyteller, Richard Stone of Atlanta, along with Scott Livengood of North Carolina, former CEO of Krispy Kreme, developed an emerging concept called story intelligence to explain the multiple ways storytelling impacts our lives. Having met while serving on the board of the Tennessee-based International Storytelling Center, they recently co-authored a new book, “Story Intelligence: Master Story, Master Life,” coming out next month.

The AJT asked those familiar with the concept to explain how stories can reinforce or change one’s beliefs and thinking, as well as how they impact education and business.

 “One of the keys to facilitating learning rests in story’s power to evoke new perspectives and insight,” Stone writes in his new book.

Stone, who earned a master of science degree in clinical psychology from Peabody College at Vanderbilt University, further observed that most instructional settings have moved away from narrative approaches to teaching. “Instead, classrooms have become places to train minds and exact conformity and understanding. If we want to fix education, we must return to using storytelling as an integral ingredient in learning environments,” he said.

“This is true because storytelling plays such an integral role in language acquisition and human development. Telling or reading stories to young children such as ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ or ‘The Giving Tree’ enables children’s brains to make important connections.” More importantly, Stone said, children learn their actions have consequences, just as a book’s characters had to make the right decisions to get good outcomes. By seeing how a character in a story postpones gratification, children in turn can learn how to develop impulse-control, he said.

Marshall P. Duke, a professor of psychology at Emory University, referred to story intelligence “as an emerging concept, which may parallel creative and speculative concepts like emotional intelligence or personal intelligence in the spirit of Howard Gardner’s theories about multiple intelligences.” Gardner is a Harvard University psychologist.

In an email to the AJT, Duke emphasized the important role that story intelligence can play in education and how the more that children know about their family stories, the more resilient they appear to be.

 “If this finding is corroborated and extended to people of all ages and across different cultures AND if knowledge of family stories can be reframed as story intelligence, then SI will rise to a much higher level of interest and impact,” he stated.

Duke suggested that psychologists take story intelligence seriously, just as other concepts that start out with a proposition such as Stone’s. Self-esteem started out this way and became a major force. Even the term intelligence itself was once just a proposed idea in the early 20th century, he wrote.

Seth Kahan owns a business strategy company, Visionary Leadership, in Bethesda, Md. He worked with Stone in the 1990s to bring business leaders together to learn how to use the “power of story” in organizations.

Kahan emphasized that storytelling is more than a children’s activity. He was introduced to storytelling in the 1980s and has found that teachers, thought leaders and politicians have been using story intelligence for centuries.

“Stories are a primary tool to satisfy our desire to grasp meaning or create it, and to collectively understand our world,” Kahan said. “It’s about time we started using storytelling intentionally and teaching it as an effective communication tool.”

Stone hopes his upcoming book will initiate a conversation around the concept of story intelligence to engage more research and theoretical development around the idea.

Photo by Catherine Hammondon Unsplash

Are Writing Skills Still Important?

In a recent article on The Good Men Project, author Warren Blumenfeld asked:

Do people today need a high level of writing skills to succeed in our ever-changing world?

Blumenfeld brings up multiple intelligences theory and notes that assessment on standardized tests is focused on logical mathematical intelligence and linguistic intelligence. He acknowledges that students suffer when other intelligences are not recognized. However, he also laments that writing skills are increasingly undervalued by educators with some allowing their students to write in bullet points rather than full sentences, and even to use texting contractions and emojis in their papers. He suggests it is time for educators to go back to basics to develop their students’ linguistic intelligence.

with the virtual explosion of media platforms, which has exponentially expanded printed materials and forums for expression, users’ writing skills seem to have degraded to shorthand code that none but other users can comprehend. Are these users the new privileged elite, or, rather, are they the new masses being left behind by the truly skilled writers?

I still believe that my responsibility is to prepare the best educated, aware, and articulate critical thinkers that I possibly can. And I still believe that writing skills are one component – a very important component – in this responsibility

If educators can find a multimodal approach using oral, auditory, and kinesthetic forms of teaching and expression to develop their students’ multiple intelligences at the same, so much the better.

Read the full article here https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/writing-on-writing/.

Photo by Santi Vedríon Unsplash