Multiple Intelligences: The Theory in Practice, a Reader

I was working on a manuscript on intelligence and found this book very helpful. It is a good read !

"Multiple Intelligences: The Theory in Practice" is a book that I bought in, about 2005 or 2006. I admit the book is somewhat dry. However, I am not a teacher and had realized in the 1970's that the time had come for a reassessment of what we mean when we say 'human intelligence'. It had become obvious that the left half of the brain worked somewhat differently than the right half of the brain and not all human brains worked exactly alike. One of the ideas to come out of psychological and medical studies was that there might be several tipes of "intelligence" and, perhaps, we should be measuring them differently and, perhaps, each might require different methods of teaching. This book grew from such efforts. Newer insigts on how 'consciousness' works and the continued studies on intelligence are still developing some of these ideas. However, when I first discovered this book, I was quite happy to see that our concepts of intelligence were evolving. Now, as I said the book is somewhat dry and is not written for a popular audience. However, it delves into important ideas and the beginnings of acting on the theory that we have multiple intelligences. I think we will see a good deal more work before we are completely ready to throw out those old-time IQ tests, but, eventually, we will. Also, this particular area of inquiry may not be the ultimate source of the entirety of that future understanding of our human intelligence. Meanwhile, this book is for folks who are serious about achieving a better understanding of how our brains and our minds work.

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 lif

Howard Gardner wurde von dem Erfolg seines Buches Frames of Mind (1983) überrascht. Besonders im Bereich von Schule und Erziehung fielen seine Gedanken über die sieben Intelligenzen auf fruchtbaren Boden. Diese Tatsache machte genauere pädagogische Überlegungen nötig und ein Buch, das sich mit den Auswirkungen und Anwendungen der Theorie von den multiplen Intelligenzen befasste. Dieses Buch liegt nun vor.Der 1.Teil von M.I. - The Theory in Practice fasst noch einmal kurz die theoretischen Grundlagen zusammen, wie Gardner sie in Frames of Mind zuerst veröffentlicht hatte.Im 2.Teil berichten Gardner und sein Mit-Autorinnen (Tina Blythe und Mara Krechevsky) von Versuchen und Projekten im Erziehungsbereich, die sich auf die M.I.-Theorie gründen. Sie beschreiben unter anderem:- den Project Spectrum Approach: Hier wird versucht, bei Kindern schon in einem sehr frühen Alter die unterschiedlichen Intelligenzbereiche zu erkennen. Die Ergebnisse dieses Ansatzes werden denen des Stanford-Binet Standard-Intelligenztests gegenübergestellt. Selbst bei vorsichtiger Interpretation zeigt sich, dass der Project Spectrum Approach, wie zu erwarten war, mehr Fähigkeiten in Kindern erkennen lässt, als die Tests nach der alten Methode. Darüber hinaus werden Beispiele für die Implementierung dieses Ansatzes auch bei Schülern anderer Altersgruppen beschrieben. - Arts PROPEL: Speziell auf den Bereich der künstlerischen Erziehung ist dieses Projekt bezogen. Es wird durchgeführt von Gardners Harvard Project Zero in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Educational Testing Service und den Pittsburgh Public Schools. Die Schüler sammeln ihnen wichtige Arbeiten in einer Kunstmappe (Portfolio oder Processfolio) und werden nach den Kriterien der M.I.-Theorie beurteilt. Der Portfolio-Ansatz als Alternative zu den Standard-Testverfahren wird im 3.Teil des vorliegenden Buches noch genauer beschrieben. Wie an mehreren Stellen, so auch hier, kritisiert Gardner die Kontext-Unabhängigkeit der Standard-Intelligenztests. Sie verlangen häufig andere Fähigkeiten, als die eigentlich zu untersuchenden; nämlich die, unter Zeitdruck abstrakte Probleme gut durchdenken und sich schriftlich angemessen ausdrücken zu können. Auch der schulische Erfolg eines Kindes hängt mehr von diesen Fähigkeiten ab als davon, auf einem konkreten Gebiet (Zeichnen, Sport, Gärtnern, Werken etc.) gute Leistungen zu zeigen. In diesem Zusammenhang kommt Gardner auch auf sein Verständnis von Understanding zu sprechen, wie er es in The Unschooled Mind (1991) dargestellt hatte. Es geht ihm, kurz gesagt, darum, dass ein Schüler erworbenes Wissen auch wirklich anwenden kann.Der 4. und letzte Teil beginnt mit einer systematisch-historischen Übersicht über die Sieben Phasen der Intelligenz, von laienhaften Vorstellungen angefangen über die Verwissenschaftlichung und die Pluralisation und Kontextualisierung bis hin zur Individualisierung der Intelligenz, also bis hin zur Erkenntnis, dass offensichtl

I would like to quote you from this book in a book that I am writing on Accelerated Learning. "I would like to introduce the concept of an individual centered school that takes this multifaceted view of intelligence seriously. In my view, the purpose of school should be to develop intelligences and to help people reach vocational and avocational goals that are appropriate to their spectrum of intelligence." Can I use this quote with your permission or if more is needed, who do I contact? Thanks, Lou Russell Please give this information to Carol Mason.