~ The MI News ~
Fall 2000 Edition
(Volume 2, Number 3) |
Publisher Branton Shearer | Editor
Cliff Morris |
Table of contents
1 For your intelligences only by Clifford Morris
2 MI theory and the
workplace by Howard Gardner
3 Interpreting the MIDAS
profile as Part of a psychological evaluation by Branton Shearer
4 In praise of black
sheep by Johann Christoph Arnold
5 Technological means,
human ends by Howard Gardner
1 For your intelligences only
by Clifford Morris
Welcome readers to the Fall 2000 issue of the MI-News.
We hope that you have had an enjoyable summer. For continued readers,
thanks for your ongoing assistance and input. For
those of you who are visiting for the first time, welcome aboard the MI
train. MI-News is provided free by Dr. Charles
Branton Shearer's Multiple Intelligences
(MI) Research and Consulting. The goal of the MI-News is to provide
you with theoretical and practical information about Howard Gardner's MI
Theory. We try to explore MI applications via discussion, contact and
sharing.
We begin this opening section with a slight twist by listing
some interesting internet web sites highlighting general intelligences, and
more specifically, sites outlining Multiple Intelligences (MI) web
locations. We hope that you will find them practical. If you have
your own favorite MI site, not listed here, and in your opinion, of value to
other MI colleagues, please email me (cmorris@igs.net)
with its internet address. I'll then add such web site locations to the
following.
Scientific American's Winter 1998 Special Issue:
Exploring Intelligence
In the Winter of 1998, Scientific American published
a special issue (Vol. 9, No. 4) titled Exploring Intelligence. In
the introductory article, Intelligence Considered, the issue's editor,
Philip Yam, searches for a definition of intelligence as he asks "What
does it mean to have brainpower?" and "Can such brainpower be
measures, quantified and changed?"
If you're a novice to the field of intelligence, then
perhaps this issue is your best starting point. Its 105 pages consists of
five sections: Introduction, Human Intelligence, Animal Intelligence, Machine
Intelligence, and Extraterrestrial Intelligence. More to our interest,
the section on Human Intelligence contains, amongst others, excellent articles
by Robert J. Sternberg, Howard E. Gardner, and Linda S. Gottfredson. On
the one hand, Sternberg and Gardner theorize broader forms of
intelligence. On the other hand, Gottfredson continues to foster the
general intelligence factor, or 'g' viewpoint. To view some of these
excellent articles, click here.
Editorial Comment: Some References on Multiple Intelligences
As often mentioned in earlier issues, I have been reading
and writing about the Gardner model of intelligence since 1985. During
these 15 years I have assembled research references, that is, a name index and
a subject index on those associated with all forms of human intelligences.
For ease of use, I have grouped these works under 20 alphabetical titles,
commencing with "A", "B", "C" ... and concluding
with "UV", "W", "XYZ". Wherever possible, I
have linked psychologists and educators to specific Internet locations.
To visit this reference page, click here.
You will note that I have listed some names (and their web
sites links) associated with the Multiple Intelligences Theory (MIT) of Howard
Earl Gardner (HEG). Here are directions to five examples from the
"A" alphabetical listing. First, go to the "A"
alphabetical listing, and then to the following five (5) links:
1. Click on the first link, About Howard Gardner, at http://www.igs.net/~cmorris/heg99.html
2. Click on the second link, Adult Education and MI,
at http://adulted.about.com/education/adulted/.
In the "Search for" horizontal box, located near the top of the page,
type in either "Howard Gardner", "Multiple Intelligences",
or "Howard Gardner and Multiple Intelligences."
3. Click on the third link: "American Education Network
Corporation (AENC)", at http://www.aenc.org/ABOUT/7Int-Inter.html
4. Scroll down to the seventh listing: "American
Educational Research Association (AERA): Multiple Intelligences Special
Interest Group (MI-SIG)", at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Column/7568/index.html
5. Scroll down to the fourth title up from the bottom
of the list, namely "Armstrong, Thomas", at:
http://www.thomasarmstrong.com/multiple_intelligences.htm
Here is a list of others (Surname, Intital name) who have
developed meaningful programs et al around HG's MIT. Use the above way to go to
them. For example, go to the "B" alphabetical list to see
"Bolanos, Patricia." The list is not complete. If you
have the names of others that you feel are of equal value, please email them to
me at cmorris@igs.net. I'll add them
to my list for all to see and use.
Bolanos, Patricia
Chapman, Carolyn
Diaz-Lefebvre, René
Gardner, Howard
Hoerr, Thomas
Lazear, David
MI at Indiana University
MI & Learning Styles
Multiple Intelligences
MI Smart Program
MI Tool Room
MI-News (This newsletter)
MI & New Horizons
MI & New Horizons
Bookshelf for Learning
MI Presentations
MI & Something to Think
About
MI & Task Cards
MI & Theatre in Motion
MI & The World
MI & Writing
Shearer, Charles, Branton
Weber, Ellen
Yam, Philip
Educational Leadership Journal Articles on Multiple
Intelligences
Do you prefer reading the full text on-line version of
practical, well written and interesting articles outlining meaningful
applications of the Gardner MI model? If you do, then you'll enjoy being
a member of the Association for Curriculum and Development (ASCD). ASCD
offers members opportunities to work on current issues and trends in education.
Through publications, consortiums, conferences, and video-based staff
development programs, educators have access to various perspectives in modern
education, both locally and internationally.
All members (@U$ 49.00) receive the Educational Leadership
journal, Education Update Newsletter, Curriculum Update Newsletter, and
complete information on other ASCD resources. In addition, Regular Members (@U$
69.00) receive two books per year. Comprehensive Members (@U$ 79.00) receive
five books each year. Premium Members (@U$189.00) receive nine books a year, a
key for one PD online course, the Curriculum Technology Quarterly newsletter,
ASCD issues briefings, a voucher to be used toward a professional development
institute, and an ASCD resources diskette. The internet web site for ASCD
is http://www.ascd.org
Teaching and Learning Through the Multiple Intelligences
Since 1994, The Chariho Regional School District, serving
the communities of Charlestown, Richmond, and Hopkinton in southern Rhode
Island, has supported a program designed to nurture the innate talents and
abilities of all types of learners. The basis of their present Gifted and
Talented Program is on teaching and learning through Gardner's MI. The
program has became known as the M.I. Smart! Program, with "Smart"
being an easy way for children to understand that they are all smart in many
different ways. The internet address is http://www.chariho.k12.ri.us/curriculum/MISmart/mi_smart.htm
2. MI theory and the workplace by Howard Gardner
Reprinted with Permission of the
Author from
Intelligence Reframed:
Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century
Basic Books, 1999
We are, again, privileged to bring you two more excerpts
from Howard Gardner's second 1999 book Intelligence Reframed: Multiple
Intelligences for the 21st Century. Here is his first excerpt.
Up to this point, I have committed the sin of lumping a
myriad of enterprises together under the single label of
"business." Of course, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of
kinds of businesses, each with its peculiar mission and problems. Just
like no two people are exactly alike, no two businesses are identical. MI
theory was devised as a description of individuals, based on their evolutionary
past and their survival in ecological and cultural niches. It is not
self-evident that organizations exhibit the same intelligences as individuals,
nor that they create and lead in the same ways. But the corporation itself
was set up in direct analogy to the person, and it is at least worth
considering whether one might profitably think of business individually and
collectively as having multiple intelligences that can be nurtured and deployed
more or less productively.
Sectors and Roles
As a start in disaggregating the terrain of business, I
suggest two primary distinctions. The first has to do with the sphere or
sector, the second with the roles performed within each sector. Obviously,
businesses are involved with diverse products and services. Some make
products that go directly to the consumer, some make products that are used in
making other products, and some deal in direct services (like those handled by
a bank teller, an airplane steward, or a nurse) or in indirect services (like
doing accounting or scheduling airlines). An increasing number of
businesses deal with information per se (for example, compiling statistics
about the weather or the preferences of customers in different zip-code areas);
are involved chiefly in finance (buying and selling money); or manage aspects
of other businesses (consulting, acquisitions and mergers, creation of computer
networks and Web pages, and feedback on consumer preferences).
Focusing on sectors suggests one business application for MI
ways of thinking. Sectors that deal primarily with communication use
language and other symbol systems. Those that deal primarily with
finance, accounting, or science draw on logical-mathematical
intelligence. Sectors that interact with the public highlight the
personal intelligences. There are businesses that explore the other
intelligences: The entertainment business highlights musical and other artistic
intelligences; athletics, arts, and crafts focus on bodily-kinesthetic
intelligence; business involved in navigation, transportation, advertising, or
graphics feature spatial intelligence; businesses that have contact with the
environment, plants, animals, textiles, and ecology exploit the naturalistic
intelligence; businesses that deal with career guidance, self-knowledge,
self-transformation address intrapersonal intelligence; and businesses that
focus on spiritual matters, matters of personal or communal identity address
existential intelligence.
Of course, just as intelligences differ from scholarly
domains, there is no one-to-one correspondence between sectors and
intelligences. Any sector can make use of the range of
intelligences. Moreover, people with varying strengths in the
intelligences are free to gravitate to whatever sector they like, depending
upon interest, passion, or training. Still, one should not lump all
businesses together but instead consider the specific content of the major
traditional sectors as well as emerging ones.
The second major distinction pertains to the different roles
present in businesses. Most businesses have leadership and management
positions, plus a variety of departments: human resources, production,
accounting, finance, marketing, sales, customer relations, philanthropy, and
community outreach. As noted in chapter 8, leaders generally rely
especially on linguistic, personal, and existential intelligences, whereas
managers avoid the existential issues--unless they want to become leaders but
need to be strong in other intelligences, the specific intelligence reflecting
the work of their department.
Going beyond these structural roles, it is easy to match
niches to intelligences. For those involved in human resources, sales, customer
relations, and marketing, knowledge of other people is key. Human
resource workers may have to exploit existential intelligence when dealing with
health and other crises or with hiring and firing, issues that involve
fundamental tensions and dilemmas of existence. Logical-mathematical
intelligence is essential for workers in accounting and finance.
Marketing, advertising, and product design people rely on aspects of their
aesthetic intelligences, particularly poetic language, musical forms, and the
growing panoply of graphic, video, and pictorial devices. Bodily-kinesthetic
intelligence is necessary for those involved directly with production or the
handling of products, and graceful bodily movements prove valuable for those
who wish to put others at ease in meetings and other personal contacts.
At first, it may seem that including naturalist intelligence
is a stretch, except in industries that deal with plants and animals. But
I believe that naturalist intelligence is extremely important in the business
world. Commercial businesses exploit the smallest perceptible difference in
products to convince consumers that they should go to MacDonald's rather than
Burger King, drive a Ford rather than a Plymouth, or jog in Nikes instead of
Adidas shoes. We are capable of making the necessary perceptible
distinctions among products because of our naturalist intelligence. Although we
did not evolve to be able to discriminate between two similar man-made objects,
the ability to discriminate depends on precisely those evolved mechanisms that
allow us to know which plants to eat and which to spurn, which animals to
pursue and which to run away from. These capacities have, as it were,
been "hijacked" by the world of commerce. Without naturalist
intelligence we can neither participate in the creation of these products nor,
perhaps happily, fall prey to advertisers and marketer blandishments.
Across business sectors and functions, the full range of
intelligences should be employed. This assertion challenges the
prevailing idea that there is a single "business intelligence"---an
assumption rarely made explicitly, but entrenched in a "business school
way of thinking." (Indeed, if there were a business IQ, it would no
doubt sample a wide set of skills and abilities.) Business schools highlight
linguistic and logical intelligences, and students who excel in these areas are
recruited by major corporations. This classical view of intelligence has
always its place in business. And if the "symbol analyst"
remains important in the businesses of tomorrow, then the role of linguistic
and logical intelligence cannot be minimized. But as I have argued with
respect to schooling, we need to be more flexible in considering the roles and
functions valued in the business world. Each of the intelligences can be
marshaled in an entrepreneurial environment, and the roles most crucial in
business should be assumed by people who have varying blends of intelligences.
For those involved in hiring, promoting, and firing, clear
implications follow. It does not make sense to judge people in terms of a
single set of dimensions. Rather, one should attempt to learn as much as
possible about candidate's and employees' favored ways of thinking and problem
solving, and use this knowledge to hire and train people, to set up teams, and
to make critical decisions about reployment, advancement, and
termination. In some cases, information about intelligences can be
secured thorough self-report or recommendations. In other cases, simple tasks
or assignments can reveal candidate's favored intelligences.
When it comes to actual methods of selecting employees in
the future, all bets are off. For some time, it has been true that people
with the most formal credentials or the longest resume have the easiest time
gaining and maintaining employment. But credentials are expensive, and
they may not be necessary for accomplishing a job.
Traditionally, credentials have signaled that a person has
carried out the requisite studies or has performed the required tasks in other
comparable business settings. In the future, however, it should be
possible to devise computer-based simulations that will show, with a high
degree of accuracy, whether an individual will be able to carry out the job for
which he or she is applying. This process could be carried out not only with
respect to professions---arguing a legal case, performing surgery---but also
with respect to various business roles---designing a product, creating a
marketing strategy, or even conducting a delicate meeting. Should it turn
out that only those who have credentials or documented experience can handle
these situations, then hiring will proceed as it has in the past. But if
it turns out that people without such expensive backgrounds can perform well,
or nearly as well, on simulations, costly credentials may not be so
important. A cost-conscious business community may turn instead to
self-trained experts.
From the perspective of MI theory, what is important is
whether people can do their jobs, not what particular intelligences they happen
to be applying. To the extent that professional schools require
admissions or exit tests that measure intelligences only marginally important
for core functions, schools will either have to change or close, yielding to
institutions that can develop the desired skills more directly.
While acknowledging the differences between business and
educational settings, it should be possible to draw inspiration from some of
the educational interventions discussed in earlier chapters. For example,
recruiters can make use of informal assessments of intelligence, or can even
create Spectrum-style settings where relevant intellectual strengths can be
assessed in a naturalistic setting. On-the-job training and retraining can
certainly make use of our knowledge of various entry points, analogies, and
ways of representing the key concepts in a role or task. Finally, those
involved in promoting or transferring personnel will benefit from records,
self-reports, or on-line experiments that reveal the particular intellectual
configurations of employees.
Business and the Personal Intelligences
An awareness of the intelligences involved in different
business sectors and roles is significant. But other aspects of multiple
intelligences may be even more important---those involving the personal
intelligences.
While I am primarily a teacher and a scholar, during the
nearly thirty years that I have codirected Harvard's Project Zero, I have
supervised dozens of research projects and hundreds of gifted young
researchers, and can reasonably say that I have been raising funds for and
managing a small, nonprofit organization. Two decades ago, when I chose
personnel, I looked for people like me. But studying the personal intelligences
has taken me in new directions. I now rarely look for individuals with skills
like mine. Instead, I ask these questions:
· What skills or intelligences are needed for particular
roles, and particularly for new ones?
· Who on my staff already has these skills or
intelligences? Who could readily acquire them?
· Who can work well with a person who has a particular
profile of intelligences and fulfills a certain role?
· Which persons, or kinds of persons, can train others
in new skills?
· How will a project benefit from different mixes of
individuals?
Not
only do these questions bring to the fore people who work well with others, who
are strong in the personal intelligences---the entire way of thinking also
becomes more person-centered. They ask about individual strengths and probe how
these strengths can be mobilized to create effective work groups and bring out
the best in each person. And they also ask individuals, including me, to think
about our own profile of intelligences, how we interact with others, and to use
Peter Drucker's apt phrase---how we manage ourselves.
Businesses used to be set up so that employees would remain
with them indefinitely; indeed, it was assumed that people who did their jobs
well had lifetime employment. But for at least fifteen years, these
assumptions have not held true in the United States; and with every new
economic twist in Europe, Asia, or Latin America, they are undermined further.
In this rapidly changing environment, the role of intrapersonal intelligence
becomes increasingly important---indeed, essential. When people did the same
work as their predecessors, self-knowledge was a luxury, if not a burden. Given
today's extreme fluidity of jobs, roles, and preferences, it is essential that
people have an accurate, up-to-date, and flexible understanding of their own
desires, needs, anxieties, and optimal ways of learning. People with
particularly strong intrapersonal intelligence are prized in the business world
because they can make optimal use of heir talents, especially under rapidly
changing conditions, and they know best how to mesh their talents with those of
their coworkers. In contrast, those with inaccurate self-perceptions behave in
nonproductive ways, personally or professionally, and are a burden to a
company. It is easier to fire such people than to try to instruct them in
knowledge of self.
Unfortunately, we don't know a lot about the personal
intelligences. We do not understand their operations well, we do not know how
to measure these intelligences, and we are not skilled at training them. This
fact helps to explain why businesses have little patience for people deficient
in personal intelligences. One might argue that personal intelligences are
important in companies that require face-to-face interaction and less so when
people work at home or communicate via the Internet. It may well be true
that the particular mix of personal intelligences may change, but I am
convinced that these intelligences will remain equally important, if not more
so. To work effectively at a distance, one must be able to transmit and interpret
subtle linguistic cues and, if face-to-face contacts occur, behave
appropriately in light of the earlier, more "distant" contacts.
Furthermore, in the future, more work may be temporary. When
a job needs to be done, the producers will assemble a staff, with varying
skills and intelligences, and ask them to accomplish the work as expeditiously
and expertly as possible. (About 90 percent of the employees of the influential
management company McKinsey and Co. are considered consultants rather than employees
or partners.) If these staff are to be well assembled and work effectively with
one another, individuals will need better personal intelligences than ever
before.
3. Interpreting the MIDAS profile as part of a psychological
evaluation by Branton Shearer
Attention School Psychologists!
I am gathering information about how Multiple Intelligences
(MI) and The Multiple Intelligences Developmental Assessment Scales (MIDAS) can
be included in a school psychologist's assessments and consultations. The
MIDAS gathers considerable information useful for a rich understanding of a
student's intellectual strengths and weaknesses. Detailed descriptions of
strengths would seem to me to be particularly beneficial when planning
therapeutic interventions. I believe that it is this kind of information that
is often missing when we only use deficit oriented tests.
If you are a school psychologist (or you know one) who would
be willing to contribute your process or a case study to my research, I would
provide you with several sample MIDAS profiles for your students. Below I
have sketched out my ideas about how a MIDAS profile can incorporated into the
diagnostic process. I am interested in hearing your response to this work and
how it might be improved. I am especially interested in gathering several case
studies that illuminate how an MI understanding can be beneficial to students,
teachers and parents.
A MIDAS Profile can contribute useful information for a
psychological report in several important ways. You can use such a
Profile to gather information for creating teaching and learning plans,
cognitive remediation plans, behavioral interventions, and answering questions
about curriculum / vocational planning. More specifically, a MIDAS Profile can give you the following kinds of
information:
1.
You can gain the student's perspective on his /her intellectual abilities and
involvement.
2. You can obtain the parent's view of the child's
profile of abilities and activities.
3. You can ask teachers to provide information related to
each intelligence in the form of work samples or a brief questionnaire.
4. The Profile is a good source for understanding a
student's specific areas of strength that are often overlooked or minimized.
These specific activities can be used as part of a "strengths vs.
weaknesses" remedial or compensatory learning plan.
5. Curriculum and vocational planning can be enhanced by
matching the students' MI strengths with course electives and vocational
options.
Interpretation Process
1. Referral Question(s):
-
Learning / Memory__
- Behavioral__
- Emotional__
- Interpersonal / Peer__
- Attitudinal__
- Family Issues__
- Mental Status__
- Curriculum / Vocational Planning__
2.
Background Information:
3. Data Collection:
-
Testing:
- Teacher / Classroom:
- Child Interview:
- Parent:
4.
Profile of Intellectual Strengths / Limitations:
5. Recommendations:
-
For Teachers:
- For Students:
- For Parents:
- Activities / strategies to build weaknesses
and solve problems:
- Activities / strategies to develop and
maximize strengths:
6.
Summary: Next steps and follow-up:
Guiding Questions
1. Does a MIDAS Profile agree with other sources of
information….
-
Tests:
- Grades:
- Teacher reports:
- Child reports:
- Parent reports:
2.
What are specific areas of strength?
3. What are specific areas of limitation?
4. What is the relationship between MI limitations and the
referral question- the problem?
5. What strength activities / strategies can be pursued to
remediate or compensate for problems/ limitations?
6. What would be good activities / classes to develop MI
strengths?
Dr. Shearer continues to develop and refine the "My
Young Child" version of The MIDAS for 4 to 8 year old children. If you
would like to participate in this process and become a data collection site
(pre-school through 2nd grade children) by having parents complete the
questionniare on their child, please contact him at sbranton@kent.edu.
4. In praise of black sheep by
Johann Christoph Arnold: Rule-Breaking Children make the most self-reliant and
Independent Adults
Editorial comment:
As editor, I receive various articles et al from those
seeking to have their viewpoints published. While I read and consider all
of them, for various reasons many can not be published. However, such was
not the case with a recently received email. As I began reading Johann
Christoph Arnold's In Praise of Black Sheep, I 'saw' shadows of numerous
students that I had worked with over the past 35 years. Many such
'difficult' youngsters did indeed fit the 'black sheep' mold, so well described
by Arnold. As I read onward, I also thought of the Gardner MI
model. I wondered if an MI approach introduced into their earlier home
and school environment would have improved their eventual outcome? What
do you think?
In praise of black sheep:
Rule-breaking children make the most self-reliant and Independent Adults
There's a black sheep in every flock, and there are few of
us who don't know one, or didn't know one as a child. Every family, every
class, has one: that brother or sister, boy or girl, who's always in trouble,
who's prone to stretch limits or take things "too far," who's
embarrassingly honest, who never fits in. It's that child over whom every
teacher puzzles longest and every parent loses the most sleep.
But no matter how natural the phenomenon, being a misfit is
never easy. Because children are so vulnerable, and because they are
dependent on the adults around them, they are far more sensitive to criticism
than one might guess, and far more easily crushed. And even if their
natural forgetfulness and their amazing capacity to forgive relieves most
children of much that might burden an adult, there are those whose
self-confidence can be shriveled by an unjust accusation, a cutting remark, or
a hasty miscalculation.
Whenever we pass judgment on a child, we fail to see him as
a whole person. True, he may be nervous, shy, stubborn, moody, or
violent; we may know his siblings or his background, or think we recognize
family traits. But to focus on any one aspect of a child, especially a
negative one, is to put him in a box whose sides may not really be determined
by reality, but only by our own expectations.
Obviously, every child is different. Some seem to get
all the lucky breaks, while others have a rough time simply coping with
life. One child consistently brings home perfect scores, while the next
is always at the bottom of the class. Another is gifted and popular,
while still another, no matter how hard he tries, is always in trouble and
often gets forgotten. As parents, we must refrain from showing
favoritism, and from comparing our children with others. Above all, we
must refrain from pushing them to become something that their unique personal
makeup may never allow them to be.
Neither should we forget that raising a "good"
child is a dubious goal in the first place, if only because the line between
instilling integrity and breeding self-righteousness is so fine. Getting into
trouble can be a vital part of building a child's character. As the Polish
pediatrician Janusz Korczak points out: "The good child cries very little,
he sleeps through the night, he is confident and good-natured. He is
well-behaved, convenient, obedient, and good. Yet no consideration is given to
the fact that he may grow up to be indolent and stagnant."
It is often hard for parents to see the benefits of having
raised a difficult child - even when the outcome is positive. But strange as it
may sound, I believe that the more challenging the child, the more grateful the
parent should be. If anything, parents of difficult children ought to be
envied, because it is they, more than any others, who are forced to learn the
most wonderful secret of true parenthood: the meaning of unconditional love. It
is a secret that remains hidden from those whose love is never tested.
At a conference in the sixties, at a time when
"mal-adjustment" was the educational catchphrase of the day, Martin
Luther King shocked teachers and parents by turning the supposed problem on its
head. "Thank God for maladjusted children," a colleague remembers him
saying.
When we welcome the prospect of raising the problematic
child with these things in mind, we will begin to see our frustrations as moments
that can awaken our best qualities. And instead of envying the ease with which
our neighbors seem to raise perfect offspring, we will remember that
rule-breakers and children who show their horns often make more self-reliant
and independent adults than those whose limits are never tried. By helping us
to discover the limitations of "goodness" and the boredom of
conformity, they can teach us the necessity of genuineness, the wisdom of
humility, and finally the reality that nothing good is won without struggle.
From
ENDANGERED: Your Child in a Hostile World by Johann Christoph Arnold
Free ebook & interactive website: http://www.plough.com/endangered
Order the paperback 1-800-521-8011(US), 0800 018
0799(UK)
Email the author at JCA@plough.com
About
the author
An internationally known children's advocate, Johann
Christoph Arnold has been a guest on over 100 talk shows, and a speaker at
numerous colleges and universities. His books on sex and marriage, children's
education, death and dying, forgiveness, and peace have sold over 200,000
copies in English and have been translated into eight foreign languages.
Endangered tackles some of the most crucial and controversial issues he has
addressed to date.
In thirty years as a family counselor, Arnold has advised
thousands of families and individuals, including single parents, prison
inmates, and teenagers. As a father of eight and grandfather of twenty-four, he
draws on a wealth of personal experience, bringing an intense passion for
children to his writing.
5 Technological means, human
ends by Howard Gardner
We are, once again, privileged to bring you another excerpt
from Howard Gardner's second 1999 book Intelligence Reframed: Multiple
Intelligences for the 21st Century. Here is his commentary.
I have restricted myself until now almost entirely to the
simplest forms of technology -- books, pencils, papers, a few art supplies, a
simple biological laboratory. This is appropriate; fundamental
discussions of educational goals and means should not depend on the latest
technological advances. But the approach promises to be enhanced
significantly by technology. It is not easy for teachers to provide
individualized curricula and pedagogy for a class of thirty elementary school
students, let alone several high school classes totaling more than a hundred
students. And it is challenging to ask students to provide a variety of
performances and then give them meaningful feedback.
Happily, we have in our grasp today technology that should
allow a quantum leap in the delivery of individualized services for both
students and teachers. It is already possible to create software that
addresses the different intelligences, provides a range of entry points, allows
students to exhibit their own understandings in diverse symbol systems
(linguistic, numerical, musical, graphic, and more), and begins to allow
teachers to examine student work flexibly and rapidly. Student work can
even be examined from a distance, thanks to electronic mail, Web sites, video
conferencing, and the like. The development of "intelligent
systems" that will be able to evaluate student work and provide relevant
feedback is no longer simply a chapter from science fiction. Indeed, such
systems should be able to vary both exercises and pedagogical feedback based on
the success or failure of earlier interventions. The earlier arguments
against the feasibility of individualized instruction are no longer
tenable. Future reluctance will have to be justified on other
grounds. My strong hunch is that such resistance is not likely to
persuade students and parents who are not experiencing success "in the
usual way" and who might benefit from alternative forms of delivery, or
scholars who have arrived at new ways of conceptualizing materials, or teachers
dedicated to a variety of pedagogies and assessments.
Educators have always tinkered with promising technologies.
Much of the history of education chronicles the varying fates of paper, books,
lecture halls, filmstrips, television, computers, and other human
artifacts. Current technologies seem tailor-made to help bring into
reality the kind of MI approach I have endorsed here. Still, there are no
guarantees. Many technologies have faded, and many others have been used
superficially and unproductively. And we cannot forget that some of the
horrible events of human history---such as the Holocaust---featured a
perversion of the existing technologies. That is why any consideration of
education cannot remain merely instrumental: If we get more computers, what do
we want them for? More broadly, what do we want education for? I have
taken here a strong position: Education must ultimately justify itself in terms
of enhancing human understanding. But that understanding itself is up for
grabs. After all, one can use knowledge of physics to build bridges or bombs;
one can use knowledge of human beings to free or to enslave them.
I want my children to understand the world, but not just
because the world is fascinating and the human mind is curious. I want
them to understand it so that they will be positioned to make it a better
place. Knowledge is not the same as morality, but we need to understand
if we are to avoid past mistakes and move in productive directions. An
important part of that understanding is knowing who we are and what we can
do. Part of that answer lies in biology---the roots and constraints of
our species---and part of it lies in our history---what people have done and
are capable of doing. Many topics are important, but I personally believe
that evolution and the Holocaust are especially important. They bear on
the possibilities of our species, for both good and evil. A student needs
to know about these topics not primarily because they may appear on an
examination but rather because they help us to chart human possibilities.
Ultimately, we must synthesize our understandings for ourselves. The
performances of understanding that truly matter are the ones we carry out as
human beings in an imperfect world which we can affect for good or for ill.