The Wonderful Theory of Multiple Intelligences

I wrote the first version of this article over 20 years ago for Building Blocks, a newsletter for the families, teachers and friends of what was then Lutheran General Children's Day Care. Even then, I was concerned about the limiting and damaging impact of standardized tests. Now we have high-stakes standardized tests with ever increasing pressures on educators continuing to stymie efforts for a more holistic approach to supporting children's learning and development. It seems to me that this theory and the description here are as important as ever. Take a look and decide for yourself.

Do standardized tests provide a full and accurate assessment of intelligence?  Do the skills required to master standardized tests provide success and fulfillment in life?

Howard Gardner, author and professor of education at Harvard University, has challenged the traditional view of intelligence which focuses primarily on linguistic and logical-mathematical competencies and fails to acknowledge the existence of other kinds of intellectual competence. Gardner proposes that all individuals possess at least eight or more forms of intelligence. These, in combination, are what enable people to solve problems or create with varying levels of skill. They are not just a new set of talents or labels, but describe the variety of ways of knowing, learning and functioning in the world. Imagine the range and depth of competencies children could develop and their increased potential for confidence and success if schools valued all intelligences equally.

The eight ways of knowing are:

• Linguistic
• Musical
• Logical-Mathematical
• Spatial
• Bodily-kinesthetic
• Intrapersonal
• Interpersonal
• Naturalist

The linguistic intelligence involves:

• Fascination and facility with language
• Sensitivity to the sound, meaning and order of words
• Sensitivity to the many uses of language

Since humans are driven to communicate with language, this intelligence is the most widely and democratically shared across the species.

In various combinations, the musical intelligence involves:

• Desire to use music to express oneself to others
• Ability to sing well, to recognize and recall numerous tones or to pick out melodies on an instrument

No gifts emerge earlier than the musical. However, this intelligence is not strictly a reflection of inborn ability. By the age of eight or nine, even the most gifted must build their skill with serious practice. Gardner wonders whether the number of individuals identified with musical intelligence would increase are our values and training methods to change.

The logical-mathematical intelligence involves:

• Ability to recognize significant problems and then to solve them
• Desire to explain physical reality
• Ability to handle long chains of reasoning and to recognize  patterns and order in the world

Infants and young children gain their initial and most fundamental knowledge of this realm as they interact with objects around them -- ordering , reordering and counting them. Here lie the roots of the highest regions of logical, mathematical and scientific thought. Later, children can conduct such actions mentally.

The spatial intelligence, an invaluable asset in our society, involves the following loosely related capacities:

• Perceive the visual world accurately
• Recreate, transform or modify aspects of the world based on one’s perceptions

This intelligence may enhance a child’s ability to draw, to imagine or to transform mental images. Practice in one of these often stimulates the development of skills in the others.

It serves many purposes, such as orienting oneself, recognizing objects and scenes, and working with 2 or 3-dimensional materials (e.g., maps, geometrical forms, DNA model). Many scientists and inventors have acknowledged their use of imagery in solving problems.

The bodily-kinesthetic intelligence involves:

• Fine-tuned ability to use one’s body and/or handle objects

Important in the history and evolution of our species, skilled performances in this realm are created with interconnected components including control, craft, poise, stuff (the physical element--how hard can he/she throw?) and bodily endowment.

Unlike many cultures, ours has recently divorced the “mental” from the “physical,” with the notion that the physical,is less special than other abilities. Yet all skilled performances include a good sense of timing and direction and a clear goal.

The intrapersonal intelligence includes:

• Access to one’s own feeling life and range of emotions
• Capacity to discriminate among, label and draw upon these feelings in understanding and guiding one’s behavior

The interpersonal intelligence includes:

The ability to notice and make distinctions among others and in particular, their moods, temperaments, motivations and intentions

The personal intelligences have been largely ignored by students of cognition, contributing to a narrow view of intellect. The less a person understands his feelings, the more he will fall prey to them. The less a person understands others’ feelings and responses, the more likely he is to interact inappropriately with them. Since all humans feel, live and grow within a social context, it is crucial that they master this realm.

The naturalist intelligence, identified by Gardner later than the original seven, involves:

• Capacity to recognize and classify numerous, new or unfamiliar species in one’s environment
• Exceptional knowledge of and interest in the living world

Clearly, this has proven important in our evolutionary history where survival has depended upon an ability to discriminate among quite similar species (e.g. mushrooms and herbs).

These intelligences never develop in a vacuum -- a lengthy educational process is necessary for their raw potential to be fully developed. In my next post, I'll provide some examples of children's budding intelligences as observed by my colleagues so many years ago and suggestions for early childhood teachers (birth through grade 3) for putting the theory into practice in their classrooms.

For further reading:

Frames of Mind: The theory of multiple intelligences by Howard Gardner
The unschooled mind: How children learn, how schools should teach by Howard Gardner
Project Zero Frameworks for Early Childhood Education (Volumes 1-3) with General Editors: Howard Gardner, David Henry Feldman and Mara Krechevsky:
Building on Children's Strengths: The Experience of Project Spectrum by Jie-Qi Chen, Mara Krechevsky and Julie Viens with Emily Isberg
Project Spectrum: Early Learning Activities Jie-Qi Chen, Editor; Emily Isberg and Mara Krechevsky, Contributing Editors
Project Spectrum: Preschool Assessment Handbook by Mara Krechevsky