Howard Gardner and Multiple Intelligences - Research Paper Example

HOWARD GARDNER AND MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES Introduction Howard Gardner postulates that each society has its own concept of individuality or that of the ideal person. The ancient Greeks described the ideal person as the agile type with rational judgment and good behaviour while the Romans were more of a manly courage. The members of Islam admire the holy soldier as the Chinese praise the person who is poetic and skilled in music, calligraphy, archery, and drawing. Western societies in the present century value the intelligent person. There are several concepts on the intelligent person. Traditionally, the intelligent person is skilled in classical languages and mathematics. But when it comes to business, the intelligent person can easily detect commercial opportunities, or is good in mastering or avoiding business risks and keep the books balanced. At the advent of the twenty-first century, there is a new intellectual virtuoso: the symbol analyst or the master of change. This is the one who can read numbers and words in the computer screen and make reliable and useful projects. Through the information from the computer, the analyst can solve problems, communicate to other people and adjust easily to the changing times. Background Francis Galton, one of the founders of the modern psychological measurement in the late nineteenth century, believed that intelligence is hereditary, and so searched for offspring of the leaders of British society. But Galton also believed that intelligence is not confined to hereditary lineages. He devised means to test intelligence. The first intelligence measurements tested the person’s sensory acuity, i.e. an intelligent person can easily distinguish sounds of different loudness, or the brightness of lightness, and objects of different weights. (Gardner, 1999, p. 2) Gardner (1999) presented evidence that individuals have a range of capacities and potentials, and he called this phenomenon multiple intelligences. Individuals can use these intelligences in the different roles in society. An individual with multiple intelligences can perform multiple tasks. Gardner said that it is not only important to hone our various intelligences but it is also important that intelligence and morality can work together to create a better world. Gardner presented his argument on the question scholars and students of intelligence have been arguing about: Is intelligence singular? Or, is there such a thing as multiple intelligences? There is also another question Gardner would like to address: Is intelligence predominantly inherited? Darwin wrote in his time that men did not differ much in intelligence except in their efforts and hard work. The Western notion remains that intelligence is innate in a person. (Armstrong, 2009, p. 17) Gardner also tried to answer the question: Are intelligence tests biased? Gardner said that if you ask a question whether someone would turn over money he/she found in the street, the answer would vary if you ask it to a middle-class respondent or to a destitute one. Psychometricians should ask only the unbiased questions in a test. Gardner studied neuropsychology and made personal observations and studies on stroke victims to investigate how brain operates on normal people and how it is impaired and sometimes retrained following injury to the nervous system. He also worked with ordinary and gifted children for the purpose of understanding the development of human cognitive capacities. He focused on the artistic capacities of children, like storetelling, drawing, or being sensitive to artistic style. (Gardner, 1999, p. 31) Gardner realized that people have multiple talents, or a wide range of capacities. One can have an expert knowledge on one are but he can also have other capacities. There are children who are good at many things. But talents or capacities are spread in a skewed fashion. For example, a person can be good at languages yet not good in music. In Gardner’s studies of the human brain, of different people with various talents or capacities, he was into a conclusion that ‘the human mind is better thought of as a series of relatively separate faculties, with only loose and nonpredictable relations with one another, than as a single, all-purpose machine that performs steadily at a certain horsepower, independent of content and context’ (Gardner, 1999, p. 32). Gardner had the view that over thousands of years, the human mind or the human brain evolved ‘a number of separate organs or information-processing devices’. Gardner had the notion of different kinds of minds provided by nature, which are first given in children but decompose during brain injury. The Way to Multiple Intelligences In his concept on the different kinds of minds, Gardner discovered many things about human intelligence, but he used the terms writers and scientists were used to write about, such as human faculties, skills or capacities, gifts, talents or abilities. Gardner also realized that each of these words had their pitfalls, and so he used the word intelligence, which he defined as ‘the ability to solve problems or to create products that are valued within one or more cultural settings’ (Gardner, 1999, p. 33). This definition was used in another book by Gardner, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. After further years of study, Gardner redefined intelligence as ‘a biopsychological potential to process information that can be activated in a cultural setting to solve problems or create products that are of value in a culture’ (Gardner, 1999, p. 34). The new definition emphasizes that intelligences are not tangible (can be seen or counted), but are neutral ones that can only be activated depending on the culture surrounding the individual, the opportunities available in the culture, and the will to use it by the individual with the influence of the family, schoolteacher, and others. In writing about multiple intelligences, Gardner laid out eight separate criteria which were grouped in their disciplinary roots. The eight criteria Gardner formulated that contributed to multiple intelligences are: A. From biological sciences: 1. ‘The potential of isolation by brain damage’ – As a neuropsychologist, Gardner said that there are patients of brain damage who might have this intelligence, a faculty separated from other faculties; 2. ‘An evolutionary history and evolutionary plausibility ‘ – Gardner has inferred to the Homo Sapiens and its predecessors or information about contemporary species. Gardner posited that early hominids were ‘capable spatially of finding their way around diverse terrains’ and now, as for us, we can study the spatial capacities of other mammals like rats. (Gardner, 1999, p. 36) B. From logical analysis: 3. ‘An identifiable core operation or set of operations’ – There are core or central intelligences of the mind, for example linguistic intelligence includes core operations of ‘phonemic discriminations’, including syntax, pragmatic uses of language, word meanings. 4. ‘Susceptibility to encoding in a symbol system’ - At work or in school, people have much time reading and mastering symbols, which are spoken or written. These symbols can be in the form of mathematical system, charts, logical equations, etc. Our brain has evolved to process certain kinds of symbols efficiently. C. From developmental psychology: 5. ‘A distinct developmental history, along with a definable set of expert “end-state” performances” – Intelligences evolved, for example, they have their developmental histories. If you want to be a mathematician, you have to develop your logical-mathematical ability in some ways. It’s the same way with other people’s calling or career. If you want to be a musician, you have to have a well-developed musical intelligence. 6. ‘The existence of idiot savants, prodigies, and other exceptional people’ – There are people who exhibit outstanding abilities, for example, autistic people have extraordinary skills in numerical calculations or musical performances. A prodigy can also be outstanding in a specific performance but slow in other areas. D. From traditional research: 7. ‘Support from experimental psychological tasks’ – Psychologists can draw on conclusions from tests wherein intelligences can be drawn separately. For example, most of us can walk at the same time conversing. There are two intelligences involved in this activity. 8. ‘Support from psychometric findings’ - There are some instances that psychometric evidence points a correlation, for example, through psychometric tests, it was found that there was a weak correlation between spatial and linguistic intelligences. The Seven Multiple Intelligences 1. Logical-mathematical intelligence – an individual who has this intelligence is good at solving problems logically and carrying out mathematical operations. These individuals are usually mathematicians, logicians, and scientists. 2. Musical intelligence – good in the arts; an intelligence that ‘entails skill in the performance, composition, and appreciation of musical patterns’ (Gardner, 1999, p. 42). Mozart is a great example of an individual with musical intelligence. Aside from musical intelligence, gifted with music, he also has deep intelligence, ‘an insight into human condition’ (Gardner, 2006, p. 39). 3. Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence – this refers to intelligence of dancers, actors, and athletes, but also can be important to craftspersons, surgeons, bench-top scientists, mechanics, and those technically-inclined jobs. 4. Spatial intelligence – entails recognizing and manipulating patterns of wide space (such as those used by navigators and pilots). 5. Interpersonal intelligence – a person who has this has the capacity to understand the intentions, motivations, and desires of others. 6. Intrapersonal intelligence – entails the capacity to understand ones’ self. 7. Linguistic intelligence – almost parallel to musical intelligence. Conclusion Howard Gardner is one of the intellectuals and philosophers of the twenty-first century who formulated and popularized the concept of multiple intelligences. To some of us, it is a new concept, because all we used to know is that there is only one intelligence. But Gardner postulates that there are several intelligences which were once called faculties, or talents and skills. Gardner’s new concept, however, is that intelligence can be nurtured, where before scientists and theorists thought that intelligence is inborn. References Armstrong, T. (2009). When cultures connect: multiple intelligences theory as a successful American export to other countries. In J. Chen, S. Moran, & H. Gardner, Multiple intelligences around the world (pp. 17-28). San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Gardner, H. (1999). Intelligence reframed: Multiple intelligences for the 21st century. New York: Perseus Books. Gardner, H. (2006). Multiple intelligences: new horizons. United States of America: Perseus Books Group. Read More