The Multiple Intelligences

In “A Rounded Version: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences”, Howard Gardner illustrates how there are a variety of intelligences. Gardner starts off with an example how IQ tests may predict achievement in school but may not predict achievement in life. After finding out certain parts of the brain are responsible for certain functions, such as “Broca’s Area” which is responsible for sentence production, Gardner proposes the existence of multiple intelligences. Multiple studies later led him to propose seven distinct intelligences; Musical, bodily-kinesthetic, logical-mathematical, linguistic, spatial, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. Each intelligence has certain classifications. According to Gardner’s classifications, I realized my intelligences are bodily-kinesthetic, logical-mathematical, and intrapersonal.

You’re a genius! As this compliment rings in your head imagine that someone is referring to your ability to understand yourself, or even your ability to interact with other people. Under Gardner’s Theory of multiple intelligences each and every one of us have different intelligence strengths, our individual strengths are important in how we develop. Possibly making more unconventional geniuses. Knowing and acknowledging our strengths can help us to excel in life at different levels. Most of us are a combination of many different intelligences. Normally with one or two that are stronger than the others. Like many others you might be thinking intelligence only in reference to a high IQ, and knowledge these other so called “intelligences” are too broad, but I believe you couldn’t be more incorrect. These are possible new ideas for you but consider the fact that we all learn differently if we all had the same type of intelligence than we would all learn the exact same way. As we know this clearly not true. After deep reflection and some research I believe my strongest intelligence is Interpersonal intelligence. Strong interpersonal intelligence are people who are good at understanding and interacting with others nonverbally and verbally. Usually more talented in assessing the emotions and desires of those around them. My second strongest intelligence is intrapersonal intelligences describe as one’s ability to know and understand them self. It is believed that these

Dr. Howard Gardner also the Professor of Education at Harvard University developed the theory of Multiple Intelligences in 1983 (Campbell 12). This principle is well known to most teachers. Although people disagree with his theory, Gardner believes that rather than a single intelligence, we acquire all seven intelligences in different amounts. All seven Gardner’s intelligences should be incorporated in every lesson, to include; linguistic, logical-mathematical, body kinesthetic, spatial, musical, interpersonal, and intrapersonal.

‘‘Gardner’s multiple intelligences theory can be used for curriculum development, planning instruction, selection of course activities, and related assessment strategies. Instruction which is designed to help students develop their strengths can also trigger their confidence to develop areas in which they are not as strong. Students’ multiple learning preferences can be addressed when instruction includes a range of meaningful and appropriate methods, activities, and assessments. Gardner’s early work in psychology and later in human cognition and human potential’ led to the development of the initial six intelligences. Today there are nine intelligences and the possibility of others may eventually expand the list. These intelligences (or competencies) relate to a person’s unique aptitude set of capabilities and ways they might prefer to demonstrate intellectual abilities’’ ( (Armstrong, T., 2010). Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences

Howard Gardner was born July 11, 1943 in Scranton, Pennsylvania. His parents were German-Jewish immigrants named Ralph and Hilde Gardner. They fled from Germany in 1938 bringing their three year old son Eric. Sadly, he was killed right before Howard’s birth. This tragic accident had a huge impact on his life. Howard knew he was nothing like his family and friends. Being in the Gardner family education was an important aspect. His parents thought he would attend a private school because of his ability, but Howard decided to attend a prep school closer to his hometown area. Growing up, he was the type of student that loved to learn and greatly outshined in school. Howard went to Harvard University to study history

Before I begin to analyse the elements of the Intelligence Cycle, I must begin with the definition of ‘Intelligence’.

It is practically impossible for a nation’s intelligence community to detect and prevent every attack on its soil. However, the American failure to uncover the 9/11 plot should be considered a massive failure considering the scope of the attack which involved careful planning, training many perpetrators, and a high profile target with many victims. Furthermore it can be demonstrated that there were many signals and opportunities to discover the plot that the intelligence machinery missed. “Hindsight is 20/20” and there needs to be an understanding of how easy it is to look back at how the intelligence gathered before the attacks should have signaled a serious threat, and thus provoked the unraveling of the 9/11 plot had the intelligence community picked up on and discriminated the signals from the noise. . However, there is evidence that the US intelligence community’s failure to link the information they had differentiated from the “background noise” as representing a possible terrorist threat points to the entire failure of the intelligence system. Therefore, while a nation’s intelligence system and the communities supporting it cannot be expected to succeed 100% of the time, this incident pointed at a 100% failure of the American intelligence community. Although it is recognized that many factors contributed to this failure, there is evidence that the organizational structure and culture both within the individual intelligence agencies and amid the intelligence

What is intelligence? Is it how well an individual can excel at academic tasks, emotional tasks, or physical tasks? Can intelligence be measure scientifically and accurately or is it an abstract idea or concept that requires an individual to critically think and come up with an answer? A common interpretation of intelligence is the ability or abilities of an individual’s capacity for: logic, emotion, abstract, learning, planning, understanding, memory, self-awareness, creativity, and most important of all is the ability to problem-solved. Intelligence itself is an umbrella with subtypes under it, and the one to inquire about is the theory of multiple intelligences. Many scientists believe that this theory does not exist because it cannot be proven scientifically but multiple intelligence theory does exist. Multiple intelligences is not a teaching style as many seem to believe, but it is a new way to look at the IQ of an individual while not being bounded by the traditional IQ tests. Just like general intelligences theory, the multiple intelligence theory can be used to distinguish intelligences through tests, logically define theory, as well as real world experiences and applications. These two theories, multiple and general intelligence, has been debated time and time again in the field of psychology but with no absolute solution.

The theory of multiple intelligences was developed by Dr. Howard Gardner in 1983. The Theory of Multiple Intelligences is a critique of the standard psychological view of intellect: there is a single intelligence, adequately measured by IQ or other short answer tests. Instead, on the basis of evidence from disparate sources, the theory claims that human beings have a number of relatively discrete intellectual capacities. IQ tests assess linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligence, and sometimes spatial intelligence; they are a reasonably good predictor of who will do well in school. This is because humans have several other significant intellectual capacities (Harvard University).

For school age children and adolescents (ages six years and above), apply Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences by identifying the child’s strengths (pages 313-314).

In this investigation related to intelligence cognitive and learning as a style of individual differences, explanation the complex process of learning through of the intelligences. Howards Gardner developed the theory of multiple intelligences thirty years ago, explain the intelligence is the profile and each individual has different ways to learn, he affirm has seven intelligences differ in their thinking, feeling, and behavior. “No two people are alike, yet no two people are unlike” Gardner (1983).

A professor of education at Harvard University, Dr. Howard Gardner, developed the theory of multiple intelligences in 1983 (American Institute for Learning and Human Development, n.d.). Gardner’s theory suggests that traditional intelligence tests such as IQ tests, only meausures a limited aspect of human intelligence. Instead, this theory suggests that people have potential in eight areas of intelligence which are; linguistic, logical-mathematic, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapesonal, and naturalist.

This research paper will unpack the multiple intelligences theory developed by Howard Gardner. According to Molly Zhou and David Brown, “Howard Gardner 's theory of Multiple Intelligences utilizes aspects of cognitive and developmental psychology, anthropology, and sociology to explain the human intellect” (Zhou & Brown, 2015). By touching on the life of Howard Gardner, exploring some of his achievements, and studying his theory as well as how it relates to the modern-day classroom, a better understanding of what teachers are up against will be reached.

The researchers during the era of psychometrics and behaviorism believed that intelligence is single, inherit entity. In contrary to this notion an increasing number of researchers and psychologists now believed that individuals are born with and possess different levels of ability. The researcher can support their argument by the use of intelligence tests. Gardner (1993) expresses this view elegantly, stating that “there exist a multitude of intelligence, quite independent of each other, that each intelligence has its own strengths and constraints; that the mind is far from unencumbered at birth; and that it is unexpectedly difficult to teach things that go against naïve theories that challenge the natural lines of force within an intelligence and its matching domains.” Howard Gardner viewed intelligence as “the capacity to solve problems or to fashion products that are valued in one or more cultural settings.”(Gardner and Hatch, 1989)

Why is it so important to define the concept of « intelligence » in education ? Education is dedicated to the fostering of intelligence, and students are evaluated as future members of the workforce on the basis of their intelligence, but how is this possible if we can’t even seem to agree on what ‘intelligence’ is? To this day, we do not have an official definition of intelligence. Even ‘beauty,’ another famously elusive concept, is better defined than ‘intelligence’. However, there are multiple theories about intelligence out there that are well-known and in some cases even used by schools to evaluate students. So I ask the question, « Which current theory of intelligence is most comprehensive and most relevant to education today? » When I first started researching the topic, I became more or less convinced that Gardner’s Multiple intelligences theory was most comprehensive and most relevant to education today, because it was useful to teachers and provided an alternative to the idea of a global intelligence factor, which I strongly disagreed with, and that combined with Carol Dweck’s notion of fixed and fluid intelligence, it would be more or less ideal. In this paper, I will evaluate the MI theory and try to determine whether it is, in fact, the most comprehensive intelligence theory out there, and the most relevant to education.