Preview

Howard Gardner and Multiple Intelligences

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
796 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Howard Gardner and Multiple Intelligences
Stephanie Kilhullen
ENG101
The Theory of Multiple Intelligences

On Howard Gardner and Multiple Intelligences The beginning of the school year is possibly one of the most stressful experiences for a student to endure due to mandatory placement testing—ultimately deciding where and what level a student belongs to based upon their test scores. However, what if a student does not do well on the placement testing because the subjects that the educational system deem ‘intelligent’ are not the student’s strongest attribute? Based upon the low score, the educational system would declare that student to be unintelligent. But is that student really unintelligent? Or are we “brain-washed to restrict the notion of intelligence to the capacities used in solving logical and linguistic problems”(Gardner), thus believing in being unintelligent? Doctor Howard Gardner, who published his opinion on intelligence in Frames of Mind during the nineteen-eighties, theorized that the intelligence of a human being is not defined by one particular capability, but is defined by multiple capabilities. Although many criticize that there is little evidence to prove that Doctor Howard Gardner’s theory is true, I cannot help but find the points that Gardner argues in his publication to be very plausible and relatable to my own personal experiences. Before Gardner declares his thesis on intelligence, he writes a scenario using the model of intelligence that society accepts: intelligence quotient tests. In the scenario there are two children of the same grade level taking the exact same test, but it is revealed that one student received a score above the average level of intelligence, while the other student received a moderately normal score. Later on in life, Gardner explains, the student who had gotten moderate scores became successful in mechanical engineering, while the student who was supposedly far more ‘intelligent’ had little success after graduating school. While

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    Since the development of the intelligence quotient, schools in every part of the world have been using the IQ test to categorize millions of students into three groups. These three groups, which are the gifted, the average, and the retarded, are falsifications that perpetuate in our world culture and cause many gifted students to be deemed retarded and vice a versa. Why then is the IQ test so heavily relied on in our school systems? For schools the answer is simple, an I.Q. test is a reliable predictor of a students later performance in academics. This answer is relatively true, but where the I.Q. test falls extremely short is with testing the multiple intelligences of the human brain. The intelligence quotient test, developed by Alfred Binet, was created to evaluate ones intelligence with a test that would yield a numerical value that could be compared with a collective average to determine ones level of intelligence. However, the questions of an I.Q. test, or even the SAT 's for that matter, are testing only the verbal-mathematical forms of intelligence. The human brain is extremely complicated and advanced, and to assume that the indicators of intelligence are only found in logical and linguistic intelligences is a poor assumption at best. A more comprehensive test, which can test all seven types of intelligence, should be implemented into the educational system to ensure every student an education tailored to their strongest abilities.…

    • 1389 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The theory has been met with mixed responses. Traditional intelligence tests and psychometrics have generally found high correlations between different tasks and aspects of intelligence, rather than the low correlations which Gardner's theory predicts. Nevertheless many educationalists support the practical value of the approaches suggested by the theory.[1]…

    • 3598 Words
    • 15 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    In 1983 a professor of education at Harvard University, Dr. Howard Gardner, developed the theory of multiple intelligences. This theory states that there are eight different ways in which a person is intelligent. These different forms of intelligence are as follows: linguistic, or word smart; logical-mathematic, or reasoning/numbers smart; spatial, or picture smart; bodily-kinesthetic, or body smart; musical, or music smart; intrapersonal, or self-smart; and naturalist, or nature smart (“Multiple Intelligences” para. 1-2). It is not difficult to pinpoint which of these intelligences standardized testing primarily measures. For students who are not linguistically or mathematically gifted, the tests do not accurately show the students’…

    • 581 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    It’s easy to see that people think and learn differently, but Howard Gardner of Harvard University has gone deeper and farther with that idea than any have before. According to his Multiple Intelligences Theory, there are nine different intelligences. These intelligences describe how people think and learn, and everyone is a unique blend of all nine learning styles. You may lean towards one or two, but you still use all of them, often at the same time. These intelligences are Verbal-Linguistic, Logical-Mathematical, Musical, Visual-Spatial, Existential, Bodily-Kinesthetic, Naturalistic, Interpersonal and Intrapersonal. People who are strong in different intelligences learn best different ways, and Gardner has said that he thinks schools only…

    • 1210 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Howard Gardner's theory of Multiple Intelligences utilizes aspects of cognitive and developmental psychology, anthropology, and sociology to explain the human intellect. Although Gardner had been working towards the concept of Multiple Intelligences for many years prior, the theory was introduced in 1983, with Gardner's book, Frames of Mind.…

    • 2102 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    The theory of multiple intelligences was thought up by Howard Gardner through his opinion on people having not only one way of thinking. Howard Gardner is a Professor of Education at Harvard Graduate School of Education and author of Multiple Intelligence: New Horizons and many other books. Gardner defines intelligence as an ability or set of abilities that allow a person to solve a problem or fashion a product that is valued in one or more cultures (Lane, 2005). It is suggested by Gardner that varying intelligences can be independent abilities, as a person can be low in one domain area but high in another (Lane, 2005). "It obviously spoke to some sense that people had that kids weren 't all the same and that the tests we had only skimmed the surface about the differences among kids," Gardner said (Checkley, 1997). The characteristics of logical mathematical intelligence will be discussed in this essay.…

    • 1183 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Dr. Gardner formulated this theory some eighty years after the first intelligence tests were created. Gardner viewed these traditional tests as “too narrow,” stating “that intelligence has more to do with the capacity for (1) solving problems and (2) fashioning products in a context-rich and naturalistic setting.” He felt that it was unrealistic to consider that one’s intelligence could be determined by removing a person from their natural environment and insisting that they perform solitary tasks that they would never encounter or choose to encounter in their natural life. With this in mind, Gardner created his theory to evaluate and assert intelligences that people invoke in their everyday lives.…

    • 862 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Multiple Intelligences

    • 1253 Words
    • 6 Pages

    In 1983, Howard Gardner, a Harvard University professor, changed the way people perceive intelligence and learning with his theory of Multiple Intelligences. Intelligence is an ability to solve problems or fashion products that are useful in a particular cultural setting or community. Gardner believed that there are at least eight intelligences possessed by all people, and that every person has developed some intelligence more fully than others. According to this theory, when you find a task or subject easy, you are probably using a more fully developed intelligence. Using a less developed intelligence is considered when you have trouble. “The theory distinguishes eight kinds of intelligence: musical, bodily/kinesthetic, spatial, linguistic or verbal, logical/mathematical, naturalist, intrapersonal, and interpersonal. Gardner argues that intelligences can be isolated based on a number of criteria, including their neurological independence, the presence of savants (who are severely deficient in major intellectual respects but have pockets of giftedness), and their different developmental courses. Someone could be a brilliant mathematician but inhabit the lowest percentiles of interpersonal intelligence.” (Kowalski & Western, 2009.) To learn successfully, one would need to maximize their strengths and compensate for the weaknesses.…

    • 1253 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Week 3 Psychology

    • 377 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Instead of focusing on the analysis of test scores, Gardner proposed that numerical expressions of human intelligence are not a full and accurate depiction of people's abilities. His theory describes eight distinct intelligences that are based on skills and abilities that are valued within different cultures.…

    • 377 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    1.Traditionally, people have defined (and standardized tests have assessed) someone who is intelligent as an individual who can solve problems, use logic to answer questions, and think critically. But psychologist Howard Gardner has a much broader definition of intelligence. Compare the traditional idea about intelligence with Gardner's. Are there advantages to the traditional format of intelligence testing? How can Gardner’s ideas change the way we assess the strengths and weaknesses of people?…

    • 890 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Into The Unknown Analysis

    • 1592 Words
    • 7 Pages

    In Warwick’s “Into the Unknown,” he introduces the hypersphere model and goes into details on how one’s intelligence can be portrayed in “a wide range of axes (210).” First, he refers back the argument that he previously mentions, which demonstrates his acknowledgement on how it is improbable to achieve an objective IQ test when nearly everything becomes subjective in human’s standard. Then, he redirects his audiences’ attention by showing his ambitions on overturning this dilemma and suggesting researchers to measure the performance on every facility and make further analysis on how they closely relate to each other. He continues to build upon his groundwork by listing other possible instruments of intelligence, including “a score for math, a score for music, a score for art, motorcycle maintenance” to showcase his understanding in realizing each individual has their own strengths and weakness on different facilities (210). In “The Sociological Imagination,” Flynn complements Warwick’s framework by promoting the Gardner’s theory on intelligence. He lists the seven categories of intelligence and raises awareness on how they can be integrate and assimilate to our living. Flynn postulates, “Perhaps we have overlooked the fact that a Mozart integrates a wide variety…

    • 1592 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Multiple Intelligences

    • 1221 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Human beings all have a list of skills and devices that are used in our everyday lives so we can solve different kinds of problems that we deal with. People use multiple intelligences since the day they were born into this world. We have never thought about how we use them in our daily lives because they are used naturally. Gardner defines intelligence as "the capacity to solve problems or to fashion products that are valued in one or more cultural setting". Using biological as well as cultural research, he formulated a list of seven intelligences. The seven intelligences include interpersonal intelligence, intrapersonal intelligence, musical intelligence, linguistic intelligence, spatial intelligence, logical intelligence, and mathematical intelligence.…

    • 1221 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Howard Gardner, is an American Psychologist who changed the way that intelligence is studied, with his multiple intelligences theory. In this theory, Gardner proposed that there are “frames of mind,” which allow individuals to have different views about the world and ways of being smart. As a result, each frame of mind is different and an independent type of intelligence. In 1999, Gardner decided that there are eight, (nine tentatively,) different frames of mind, including: linguistic, logical/mathematical, spatial, musical, body-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic, and existential. For the purpose of this essay, I will focus on the verbal/linguistic, body-kinesthetic, and logical/mathematical frames of mind.…

    • 688 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    According to an article entitled “What is Standardized Testing? – Definition and Types,” when a particular group of students take a standardized test, they take the exact same set of questions, and will be scored and analyzed in the same way. We, as human beings, are unique. But more than that, it is a psychological fact that we have different intelligences. Howard Gardner, a Doctor of Philosophy and a Professor of Education at Harvard University, brought about the Theory of Multiple Intelligences. The theory expresses that “human beings have all of the intelligences,…

    • 1117 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Social Intellegence Theory

    • 2006 Words
    • 9 Pages

    The old idea that a person's potential in life can be measured and predicted by a single number - his or her "IQ" score - has lost a great deal of credibility during the last decade or so. Many researchers now accept Gardner's proposition that intelligence is multidimensional, and many believe that each of the key dimensions of intelligence can continue to increase throughout one's life, given the appropriate experiences, challenges and…

    • 2006 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays