What do you think of the theory of multiple intelligence developed by Howard Gardner?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligences

Wiki>>>>
Gardner's theory argues that intelligence, particularly as it is traditionally defined, does not sufficiently encompass the wide variety of abilities humans display. In his conception, a child who masters multiplication easily is not necessarily more intelligent overall than a child who struggles to do so. The second child may be stronger in another kind of intelligence, and therefore may best learn the given material through a different approach, may excel in a field outside of mathematics, or may even be looking through the multiplication learning process at a fundamentally deeper level that hides a potentially higher mathematical intelligence than in the one who memorizes the concept easily.
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It seems kind of obvious to me, that's why I created this site, and I am not even a Harvard professor.

Much of the "mainstream" theory of intelligence can be traced back to the prize offered by the Paris public schools in the late 19th century for a quick, inexpensive method to identify learning-challenged students. Binet won with a test that generated one combined score; his test out-predicted others based on multiple-skills assessments. The theory has since expanded far beyond what the Paris project actually established, and much of it is overdue for reexamination. Fact is, though, unless there's some hot new research out there, combining different skills into a single score still seems to predict subsequent school performance better than multi-factor assessments.

The counter-argument to Gardner is that a combined score seems to predict general learning ability better and to be swayed less by preparation on specific narrowly focused skills than a multi-factor assessment.

Last I heard, while the SAT predicted high school seniors' freshman college GPA fairly well, the best predictor of high school seniors' success in life after college was successful participation in extracurricular activities. As I've posted before on other forums in this site, the older we get, the more achievement trumps any kind of test scores.

It seems fairly obvious to me as well.

However, I always find it difficult to tell whether people interested in measuring intelligence or their critics are trying to be helpful or trying to play a dismissive social game.

I went to a high school based on the idea that kids with "exceptional" (meaning high) intelligence could benefit from different teaching methods just as people with low intelligence could. I'm not convinced that this actually happened much, though I think that we had more independent projects in a program called ADVEX, which was much like the free month of January that we had at MIT. (I did two projects, one about the space program, and the other about archy and mehitabel.) There was an IQ test to get in, because people like numbers. In my class, a kid who failed the test three times was finally admitted after his father made a significant donation. He was also a rather destructive kid, selling heroin and all that. It did seem to me that a lot of the kids who were there had affluent parents. I was rather poor, and so was a target.

The school was not properly funded, despite its being a public school. The attitude of most people seemed to be "if they're so damn smart, then they should just go to the library and educate themselves." This actually might not be a bad idea, but it is an idea borne of exclusion, which is primary.

When the school moved in the middle 1990s, the standards had changed, and now it isn't simply an intelligence, but a hodgepodge involving ethnic group and socioeconomic status.

This I know is a bit rambling, but it does seem to me that social views of intelligence predominate, and that these views are pushed by people who are not necessarily very intelligent and who may in many cases be hostile toward intelligence. I'm pretty good at anthropology, and I'm well aware that there are intelligent people who are not viewed as such because of cultural difference. (I saw one revisitation of a study in which some educators had judged children from a different background as less intelligent than they were because of language differences. What was interesting was that the second researcher concluded that the children were talking down to the researchers, much as one might choose simple grammatical constructs in English with a foreigner who does not speak English very well. The original researchers had analyzed the grammatical constructs and concluded that the children were poor at the target dialect, but it turned out that they were not.)

Still, at the same time, there is something about brains that differs. I think it has something to do with the speed of the brain and its ability to handle multiple, perhaps contradictory concepts simultaneously. People who are good at it aren't necessarily good at everything, but they do seem to be good in several areas. They can also get good at new things throughout their lives. I was always good at mathematics, science, and some arts, but I was not always good at getting together and along with women. After I decided that all the advice people normally give was nonsense, but applying substantially the same skills to that new problem, I got good at it.

There is a general quality, and we might as well call it "intelligence."

IQ tests are great, but only if you are good at them.

In my entrance exam to a gifted children's high school I failed miserably. I kept failing IQ tests like stone fails to buoy on water. I did that all the way to age 28 or 29 when I had what seemed like a divine inspiration, and started to see the POINTs in the questions. I don't know what caused this transformation - maybe that I met a gorgeous woman at the time and she went for me? I still don't know.

When I say I started to see the points, I don't mean the mechanism of the logic that one had to psyche or figure out to answer the question correctly. I meant the point value or weighted value that the correct answer to a particular question contributed to the final score. I could see which questions were worth more to score higher in the tests, overall. Also the constant writing of the tests (I wrote 5 tests between ages 15 and 27) made my mind more keen. Six if you count the Ontario High Schools Math Contest in 1973.

I also see arguments about the multiplicity of IQ as crying "sour grape" by most people (not you, Lawrence, you are way above that sort of bitterness and jealousy, in my opinion.) It's good to know that Binet made that prediction with a combined score. Wechsler's is a combining test. I would imagine that it is really tough for test writers to establish the philosophy on what constitutes a problem that demands a high input of intelligence to solve. We talk about code decipherers, and we talk about mothers who drive their three kids all over town to hockey practice, hookey practice, choir practice, etc. and they, having no time to think, still figure out the optimal logistics to get eveyone where they belong AND get them there on time, and pick them up for the ride home... dinner is ready, and yet the code decipherer is called intelligent. Yet the woman and the decipherer would probably score similarly on a test, and that's my hopeful prediction.

I am writing ramblingly too, because it's Saturday night, already undressed for bed, and nowhere to go. Nobody to attract. I could bet it's full moon out tonight -- look at us, all the werewolves of Brainiacdating are howling on the forums.

The original categories do seem obvious, but what do you think about the newer, controversial categories?

I’d say that naturalistic intelligence, in order for it to reflect a mental skill than a category of taste, should instead be a category for attention to detail, and ability to correlate and apply past lessons to current situations. As for the caveat of naturalistic intelligence not wanting to learn anything new – it seems an oxymoron to describe a type of intelligence with lack of learning.

In the 80’s when computers were first becoming household appliances, it was observed that the children jumped right in and started using computers almost naturally, whereas the adults took much longer looking over the manuals, hesitating to try anything, and resultantly not learning the computer nearly as fast as their children. It was discovered that the adults were afraid they’d mess something up if the pressed the wrong button, but the children did not have such a fear.

Introducing computers, a totally different thing from what most people had ever previously encountered, to a whole society of all ages was a unique opportunity to observe how people of different ages responded to something totally new. It is possible that the same sort of thing happens to people no matter what the newly introduced topic.

Existential intelligence seems a misnomer as there is more to philosophy than existentialism. I’d rather they named it philosophical intelligence.

lets fire this up a bit!

Note : any reference to “education system” or similar is in reference to the Australian State education system and/or the Aust. Gov Education dept. / RTO’s and/or other similar contracted delivery systems.

Well, as not being intelligent myself. I can only speak or write and sometimes do both from experience. Being labeled with a learning disability at an early age in life and then continued to fail in the “special” classes for people with such “disabilities”. When I started to question at around the age of 8 or 9 “how is it possible that one can be classed/classified or categorized as a failure or be provided a piece of paper with such a term by a system designed to “removed” us such people from society?

It appeared to contradict, placing someone out of the way of society, then proceed to tell them they failed at being “disconnected from the real world” so a fail in that, would suggest I must therefore be capable of such “connection”.

I will admit I started to see a little humor in the whole experience by the time I was in my mid teens and then proceeded to continue my high schooling and rather go to class where I had some social issues I would just turn up every now and then and answer questions on exams honestly, I couldn’t care less for “study” or “homework” and didn’t understand why it was needed.

The problem then was when I finished my last couple of years of high school, Although I passed every exam with high honors – more so in maths and science level studies. I was then again classified as a failure and provided that horrible score or what I consider a life tattoo printed on my forehead that clearly stated I do not belong in this world. I failed the public education system for no other reason I only attended school a few days a year.

Then come the other problems being picked on etc by others even the “dumb” kids that had higher sores them me. Until I presented them with my engineering qualifications in digital and analogue fields, I had completed before year 12. By falsifying age and attending further education instead of being “spoon fed” at school.

I walked straight into a job with a large international construction company, I since continued to obtain “qualifications” from duel trade electrical fitter and electrical mechanic and various other fields in IT and communications.

And by the age of 23 was recognized as an “educator” by the state as an demonstrated experienced professional in the fields of music theory and audio engineering. had already opened my first business (recording studio) and soon later founded a non-profit organization.

What I continued to discover that the “general” education system serves a purpose and that purpose is to help support/maintain the economics of which such education system exists within and therefore any “radical” theories / developments even provided with evidence is not “compatible” with such economic system.

“we don’t want 80% of the population to be smart!” – deal with it, it ain’t going to change

Even before I understood this – I was wasting my energy “fighting” and throwing cash into ways to make amend and chatting to politicians, I soon discovered it wasn’t worth the energy. (there are other ways)

I recently (beginning of the year) stood down from a national peek body advisory committee (broadcasting sector) as one of four selected at tasked to develop and design a delivery method of training and education in specific fields, technical engineering and related. I stood down as a result of understanding why it was not possible to achieve such tasks – economics and political red tape.

So to me the real question is not related to whether or not other methods or theories of educating exists or even how much impact they would make, it’s a question of how do you implement and deliver such a method, theory or system and ensure the mass has equal opportunity to access it?

Question: is it a realistic goal to develop an education system designed for the mass and to be expected to educate each individual the way each individual requires? Or do we need many systems?

As it has been suggested in other responses– some do find a natural ability to understand why things are or is, and develop their own way that enables them to process this information, I believe much of this processing that happens by some is the ability to “dis-believe” what others tell them or teach and this ability to not take things for granted that enables the questioning in the correct manner that allows their own manifestation of idea and thought to really accelerate.

for me,
We all know “1+1=2” we were told that in school – but I was just the “dumb” kid that questioned why?

And when society suggests that “those” kids that at the age of 8+ still showing behaviors of a 3 year old “but why?” it is assumed by society these people are asking such question because they don’t have mental capacity to understand not only the answer but also the capacity to comprehend the formula at hand, is that the case?
As for me it’s just a process of understanding why this “formula” exists and if it can be applied to other experiences in a comparably manner.

“Education by association”

1+1 = 2, 1+1=3, 1+1=4,5,6,7,8 and so on.
There is no right or wrong answer, there will always be situations where the formula will provide an unexpected result, and when I understood that, and then there is only one question left to ask, “but why?”

And that answer is always the same. (and it that answer I’m unable to define to the “physical world”, I just know it, and attempts to define it usually starts with hundreds of pages and required a level of understating of the relationship between “physical” and “non-physical” in which is yet something I just know and again unable to define. )

I apply that theory in maths, music, science, art, economics, social interaction, non-physical world, spiritualism and anything you can think of then the ability comprehend at some level enables the ability to associate everything or provides the ground base to quickly learn just about anything you want.


I’ll admit I’m am not intellectual (and this post may provide that evidence) but there are just some things that cannot be explained in words or “normal communication methods” (voice/written) and this itself makes it even more difficult for me to explain how I see things, more so when often I don’t use or able to use “English” words as the collective level of understanding.

All comes down to everything, every outcome and why are all related, each individual will perceive this relation differently if at all, and in my experience most don’t see the relationship the way I do and I still haven’t been able to define how that works.

Information overload – without going into details, I also believe questioning some things is waste of energy, time and cost knowing what these things are for each individual is as important and “simple” as discovering what this person will excel at.

Throw me a football, and not only will I not catch the ball, I will response by saying “I’m not athletic, and have no interest in being active in this manner, give me a deck chair and I’ll just watch”
But the opportunity exists if I choose to take advantage of, even If I feel like being “curious”

I may not have the need to play football today, but tomorrow I might wake up and want to have a go.

Question: Some people learn by association but association will only exist with experience and being provided the opportunity, therefore we could conclude or argue that the education system then provides the opportunity for our youth to lean and explore (even in narrow fields) and if that’s the case would they have the experience to associate?

Example: remember that kid that asked “why the hell are we learning this? I will never use that in real life!”

Opportunity exists and provided, but no experience for association.

Anyhow, it good’s to see I’m not the only “rambler” around, and if you can make any sense out of that then from my experience “something is wrong!”



oh yeah to answer the OP "What do you think of the theory of multiple intelligence developed by Howard Gardner?"
answer: Its a theory, but why?

or let me reword that - why do we need to measure intelligence?

cheers.

Need to go read the wiki about multiple intelligences but did study Richard Sternberg's Triarchal Theory of Intelligence in college. Spelling is no longer my forte since the double strokes so I THINK I spell triarchal wrong but anyway ... lol ... he thought, as I do, that to 'determine' intelligence or genius one must look beyond a number created by a test.

What does the person DO with that intelligence is the true mark of genius/higher intelligence. I could be a genius in the humanities, be miserably inept in hard sciences yet make that flair for humanities become my reason for success. In other words, it doesn't matter what area you are a 'genius' in, nor what 'number' you are assigned by some test but instead, how happy are you and how successful you have become with what you've got!

I liked that and to this day, believe Sternberg was on to the real issue of genius or 'higher intellect.' Does it work for that person? Are they successful DUE to their intelligence or has it somehow held them back? It held me back because I never trusted in myself due to emotional issues that had nothing to do with intelligence but had everything to do with application of intelligence. And yes, it CAN be "too late" in our society, especially for women. Sigh.

I'm just not that into 2 minute noodles,



but, I do like the idea of what one does with such intelligence as a base plate. but even such idea then poses the question of how do we measure what one does and apply such efforts again the scale of an intelligence measuring device/system, theory or even test.

And there we start to head into the seeing intelligence as a comparative (which I assume it already is), are we measuring an individual’s intelligence again another individual or against some grounding on which we measure at a collective level (society on a whole – local or global?).

Pull me out to one side and I am lacking compared to “the rest of the world” I even have all the papers to provide the evidence – but then again I have plenty of papers that suggest this is not the case, go figure?

But place me in a crowd, group, team or even in the real world, then the game rules for me are in my favour and I’ll take advantage of the situation.

What I discovered many years ago, that with a little understanding of how my own mind works, it then makes for a grounding how others might as well. In saying that I believe my mind “may” not work in similar ways as others or just have some crossed wires somewhere – either way I’m happy consider myself successful, fulfilled and live a lonely life……..

The discovery of vision seams to accelerate ones desire to do anything (we all know that) but this vision only works while one is allowed into society or at least interacts with others.

I believe, it appears when one refers to vision as a method of motivation it’s usually describe in relation to individuals who has such vision.

For me my vision just doesn’t motive others, and why – my vision only provides the sense of purpose within myself to live a fulfilling life. It makes sense that for others to really be motivate to live a fulfilling life, they require their own vision that will be the grounding or self purpose.
But if we are all selfish and only live life to our own purpose then nothing would happen, would society come to a screaming halt and not move forward and we all end up not living the fulfilling life and disconnected. (whatever that means).

Or would the opposite happen? what I believe a possibility is if everybody was to live to their own fulfilment and purpose (some may argue some/most already do) then it just makes sense to me that people would acknowledge in areas they are not intelligent, lacking skills or whatever the case may be (defined by the individual) and start to connect with those that can provide the intelligence they require to achieve their own sense of purpose.

Example: from personal experience – I do lack in the use of the English language, this has some effect on the way I tend to interact with others, including lack of vocabulary, spelling department and gramma in general.

I could then go back to school and spend the next 1-5 years at study, as society suggests that to achieve my success that is what’s required, assuming that success provides the sense of purpose we need to be motivated and play an active role in general.

Or I could just, provide my sense of purpose in the form of vision to
people that have a good grasps or intelligence with the use of the English language, soon you find that providing your vision doesn’t work. You need to provide your vision that is either the same, simular or compatible with the one you choose to connect with to allow them to provide the intelligence you need.

And all of a sudden you are working as a team; you are both living a fulfilling life with a sense of individual purpose. I consider it, “intelligence barter”.

Connect with 3, 4 or many others in the same manner and some really interesting things and patterns start to become apparent.
Then we may argue the patterns etc I see are really quite simple and obvious, in fact to me they are,

Question: But who else acknowledges these patterns as a “way of life” to become successful, fulfilled and at the same achieves the sense of individual purpose that is perceived as “doing good for society”?
I find it interesting to see a pattern of this perception appears to come from those who are unable to see society as a whole or on a global level in the way I do.

“Quantum physics is a waste of effort , time and money!” So I may offend some people with that statement.

But “learning English is a waste as well!” oops did I do it again?…

Usual response to these statements is a long winded argument.

But what is really does is filter out the people that are passionate about the topic and then filters out the ones that uses their knowledge, wisdom and whatever it is they have and who fulfils their sense of purpose within the given topics. When used in general conversation.

Those that walk away I don’t connect with, (seemingly obvious)
And those that don’t, end up enjoying a cup of coffee in a local coffee shop having long winded conversations on the topic usually ending with them saying “look I’ve run of time, I need to be somewhere else.”

Oh yeah I also see time also having no relevance in my life as well
(don’t ask)

Utter respect on a global level.

These types of statements are relevant to my personal sense of purpose and fulfilment.

I am not fulfilled in any way by “learning” English or going to university to study Quantum physics.

Therefore it would be waste of effort, time, and cost to society on a global level for me to do any of these things.
But on a global level I respect we need people to be passionate, fulfilled and to do, be and/or whatever it is that motivates these people to achieve in these areas.

I mean where would we be, as a global society if E didn’t equal MC squared, or if somebody didn’t discover how to refine the elements etc.
Generally I’m fascinated about just about every topic you can think of, but more so interested in how others who are passionate about their chosen topic of purpose and how they think or whatever it is that motivates them.

And one way to achieve that is to sit and listen, I always have time for that….. (Unless it’s in a school and the information is spoon fed)
And back to the original topic I guess,

Regarding methods of intelligence discovery.

Well I guess I just see it as this, if I believe you have more intelligence than me in a given topic/subject or area and we connect then that’s all that’s matters. In providing purpose in ones life.
And really I don’t set the bar very high with it comes to comparing my own intelligence level in most areas in regards to others.
So then it’s just a simple question of “do we connect?” and that can only be answered provided opportunity, and opportunity only exists with time, and therefore if time is of no relevance in my life then. It can only be you that decides if we connect.

Or are the methods/theories of measuring intelligence to be used to “provide the best opportunity” for one to enter in an area or subject they are “considered” to play the most active role within a given society?

Then what happens to the people that are lucky enough to discover their sense of purpose at a very early age of life? Where any such tests or so called methods are of no real relevance at an individual level any way.

Or maybe, we just continue to research and develop such methods for that purpose with respect that is serves a purpose but on the understanding that there are just some times where it doesn’t work.
And there for in that case do we research, why such methods don’t work and when to detect and/or predict when some form of intelligence measuring device will actually hamper one’s ability to have an active role in society.

Or is their already?

Anyhow just a thought!


oh year in saying that, If you have any theories of bettering the taste of 2 minute noodles than I would consider you not only more intelligent than me in the area of tasty noodles, but also one that can be productive to society in general.

and that's worth a cuppa.