Multiple Intelligences: New Horizons in Theory and Practice [Paperback]

Gardner is a witty author with strikingly brilliant mind and admirable reverence toward the human divinity. In his book, Gardner manifests the notion of intelligence, as a bio-psychological potential, a computational capacity and a mental chemistry set and subsequently sheds lights on the commonly misconceived concept of intelligence as a one-dimensional human potential, characterized by the g or IQ metrics.

With his eloquent style, Gardner articulates the social, educational and psychological impacts of the multiple-intelligence theory rendering speculation on how intelligence shows its multifaceted attributes in various forms such as Mathematical-Logical, Kinesthetic, Musical, IntEr-personal, IntrA-personal, Linguistic, Spatial, Naturalistic and Existentialist abilities.

Upon reading the book, I found some interesting answers to my life-long inquiries regarding to the intelligence such as;

1. Why individuals with strong abilities in certain areas of mathematics, such as algebra or probability theory do not necessarily indicate strengths in other areas of mathematical sciences such as geometry or topology?

2. How the society can take advantage of the MI theory to bridge between the ethical values and individuals' capacities.

3. How a creative educator can achieve the "understanding" by exercising various avenues, such as foundational, quantitative, aesthetic, logical and existential methods to stir and incite the human intellect.

Gardner makes no effort to back up his hypothesis through psychometric experiments and I believe he has done this deliberately. More specifically, he believes any effort to benchmark the performances of individuals against these metrics would create a new version of human labeling, a concept that he certainly refrains to delve and investigate. Instead of putting effort in benchmarking these abilities in human minds, he believes efforts need to be made to identify, enhance and exercise the abilities that help the individuals to thrive in the areas that they have been blessed with, irrespective of society norms.

Chapter 1 of the book contains the highlights of his theory and covers various forms of intelligence. The introduction of the existential intelligence as a form of computational capacity is rather unpersuasive, knowing the fact that it is defined as an attribute (intelligence of big questions) and not as a mental ability. Favorite quote of this chapter;
"Having strong intelligence does not mean that one necessarily acts intelligently".

Chapter 2 of the book covers the semantics of the intelligence. An interesting topic in this chapter is the profile of the intelligence in which Gardner discusses how the intensity, diversity and locality of these potentials in an individual can result in spot-light or laser characteristics.

Chapter 3 provides a chronologic view of intelligence. Gardner tries to provide a simplified and standardized conception of the intelligence development across the life span of a human being. He also discusses the framework for the analysis and examination of the human intellect. This chapter is quite dry and lacks ardor. In my opinion, putting framework around something that has no boundary is rather counterintuitive.

Chapter 4 is the prelude of the educational impact of the intelligence. The very interesting topic in this section is the subject of "Multiple Representation of the Key Concepts". Resorting to the notion of multiple-intelligences, Gardner believes that there are numerous ways that an educator can approach a topic in pursuit of understanding. This methodology also helps students to think about a problem in a variety of ways, triggering the thought process in the most diverse form.

Chapter 5 is a pool of questions that individuals have asked Gardner regarding to his theories. Of special interest in this section is the topic of memory and its different faculties such as procedural memory, propositional memory, semantic memory, short and long-term memories. I believe this topic deserved more elaboration, or at minimum more references.
Favorite quote from this chapter:
"I often encounter the greatest resistance to this perspective when I speak to mathematicians or logicians. To these individuals, thinking is critical thinking, wherever you encounter it; if one knows how to be logical, one should be able to apply logic everywhere (And if you don't, life is hopeless !)".

Chapters 6 to 10 have heavy weights toward education. Of special interest is the chapter 8 and the topic on multiple entry point toward disciplinary understanding.
Gardner discusses how an informed educator can use various entry points, such as narrational, logical, quantitative, foundational, aesthetic, experimental and collaborative methods in approaching the topic. The examples given in this section are extremely valuable for all educators.

As you progress toward the end chapters, the modality of manuscript transitions toward ethics. To some extent, the progression of the thought process in this book is analogous to Gardner's perspective toward the subject; in his early life his motivation toward intelligence was mainly driven and influenced by cognitive sciences and psychometric studies, whereas his recent research and interest have roots in social impacts, ethics and humanity.

In summary, this book is an instant classic on the topic of multiple-intelligences, a must have book for the fireside at home.

While Howard Gardner has a wonderful theory with multiple intelligences (MI) that makes more sense than anything we've ever been taught about education, the reading is really dry. That being said, he does say that he is first and foremost a psychologist, and his writings are written for fellow psychologists. The theory is good as long as you can get through the monotone in which he writes. A much better choice would be Ken Robinson's "The Element." He expands upon the MI theory in much easier to understand terms.

It was in 1983 that Howard Gardner first decided to challenge the established view of a monolithic intelligence with the book Frames of Mind. In that book, Gardner posited that there are (at least) seven relatively seperate and autonomous intelligences. And 25 years later, this theory is still setting the education world ablaze.

The discipline of psychology, however, has been a bit less enthusiastic. They, much more than educators, demand hard evidence in order for a theory claiming to be scientific is accepted as such. Is Garnder's theory testable? If so, has it undergone such testing? Can these intelligences (including 'musical' and 'naturalistic') be measured by objective standards? If not, is it an adequate substitute to the reigning model of 'general intelligence' which, with all its flaws, IS measurable in such a way?

In this book, Gardner sets out to expand upon his 25 year old theory and, in so doing, answer some of the preceeding questions. Some will be disappointed and some will be encouraged by his answers.

The first section of the book devotes itself largely to questions of MI Theory's methodological standing.

Several chapters - particularly towards the beginning of the book - seek to answer objections to MI theory. As to the question of whether the theory can be called scientific, Gardner reluctantly answers a "no." He writes MI theory "intermediary status" between a philosophy and a predictive science. He suggests, though, that it can be put in a similar category with plate tectonics and evolution, in the sense that neither theory is a predictive sceince in a falsifiable sense (which is mistaken, as both are tested by retrodictions and, in evolution's case, also by predictions). Further, Gardner admits that designing assessments for these intelligences has proved to be more than challenging and that he has given up the search for ways to assess them.

There is, though, a chapter devoted to detailing a promising new study put together by Project Spectrum, to test elementary schoolers on these seperate intelligences. They were tested (a) to see if the intelligences are interrelated or autonomous by investigating whether high scores in any one area correlate with high scores in any other. The reports are that the intelligences are, by in large, seperate - as Gardner predicted they would be. They also tested to see whether the student's strengths on the tests were echoed by parent and teacher reports gotten independently. (There was correlation, but not so much as to be conclusive).

The section that will be most useful to my fellow educators, however, will be the second section. For roughly 80 pages, Gardner expounds on his theory and its possible uses in the field of education.

Gardner is quite famous for his 'value free' stance here. He suggests that there are many, many uses for MI theory in education. He tries both in this book and elsewuere to refrain from too much prescription, acknowledging that educators probably know better than he how to apply the work of a cognitive psychologist to schools.

However, he is passionate about two things educationally in this book. First, he is very displeased at the 'high stakes testing' mentality that has been developed of late. Like the concept of 'general intelligence,' Gardner sees this as being a very 'one-size-fits-all' way of assessing, and probably mis-assessing, knowledge.

Gardner is also very passionate about making sure that we see the 'ends' of schooling as pluralistic. Consistent with the idea of Multiple Intelligences, we must strike a balance between making sure that everyone recieve a common education and making sure that everyone is able to pursue their own strengths, interests, and proclivities to the extent possible.

It is hard to disagree with much that Gardner says, particularly in this and the next section (where he takes a look at MI theory's applicability betyond education). Even as one who is a bit skeptical of whether MI theory can ever be a scientific one (and whether there might be bettter models of Intelligence, like that of Robert Sternberg), it is difficult not to come away with much admiration for Gardner. He obviously cares about education and comes to his conclusions out of balanced and rigorous thought.

This should be read by educators and those interested in the psychology of intelligence alike.