"Intelligence is the ability to find and solve problems and create products of value in one's own culture."…-Dr. Howard Gardner
1) Howard Gardner (a psychologist and Professor at Harvard University's Graduate School of Education) claimed that all human beings have 9 intelligences.
2) All human beings possess all nine intelligences in varying amounts.
3) These multiple intelligences can be nurtured and strengthened, or ignored and weakened.
4) Although we each have all nine, no two individuals have them in the same exact amounts - similar to our fingerprints.
5) These intelligences are located in different areas of the brain and can either work independently or together.
Gardner's multiple intelligences theory challenged traditional beliefs in the fields of education and cognitive science. According to a traditional definition
1) people are born with a fixed amount of intelligence
2) Intelligence level does not change over a lifetime.
3) Intelligence consists of ability in logic and language.
4) and it can be easily measured by short-answer tests.
5) An educational system based on national standards and efficient, relatively cheap, universal multiple choice testing is central to the traditional concept of intelligence.
6) In practice a student's score on an I.Q.2 test ranks his or her strengths and weaknesses. It qualifies students for special services (such as programs for the gifted or for those with learning disabilities).
7) An unfortunate use of IQ tests in schools is that it often results in labeling students.
8) Alfred Binet developed the Intelligence Quotient test - it is widely administered in this country as the Stanford-Binet IQ test)
9) WISC3 (The intelligence test most widely used today in K-12 is the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children.)
(Howard Gardner1 defined the first seven intelligences in FRAMES OF MIND (1983). He added the last two in INTELLIGENCE REFRAMED (1999).
1)VISUAL/SPATIAL - children who learn best visually and organizing things spatially. They like to see what you are talking about in order to understand. They enjoy charts, graphs, maps, tables, illustrations, art, puzzles, costumes - anything eye catching. the ability to represent the spatial world internally in your mind – the way a sailor or airplane pilot navigates the large spatial world, or the way a chess player or sculptor represents a more circumscribed spatial world.
Spatial intelligence can be used in the arts or in the sciences. If you are spatially intelligent and oriented toward the arts, you are more likely to become a painter or sculptor or architect than, say a musician or a writer. Similarly, certain sciences like anatomy or topology emphasize spatial intelligence.
Michelangelo Leonardo Da Vinci Picasso
Van Gogh Monet Mary Cassatt
Rembrandt I.M. Pei Frank Lloyd Wright
2)VERBAL/LINGUISTIC - children who demonstrate strength in the language arts: speaking, writing, reading, listening. These students have always been successful in traditional classrooms because their intelligence lends itself to traditional teaching.
Poets really specialize in linguistic intelligence, but any kind of writer, orator, speaker, lawyer, or a person for whom language is an important stock in trade, highlights linguistic intelligence.
SHAKESPEARE….AGATHA CHRISTIE….MAYA ANGELOU…..HEMINGWAY….ROBERT FROST……MARK TWAIN…..JOHN STEINBECK…….J.K. ROWLINGS
3)MATHEMATICAL/LOGICAL - children who display an aptitude for numbers, reasoning and problem solving. This is the other half of the children who typically do well in traditional classrooms where teaching is logically sequenced and students are asked to conform.
Archimedies ….Sir Isaac Newton…….Galileo…….Copernicus……..Einstein ……. Pascal
4)BODILY/KINESTHETIC - children who experience learning best through activity: games, movement, hands-on tasks, building. These children were often labelled "overly active", in traditional classrooms where they were told to sit and be still! The most evident examples are people in athletics or the performing arts, particularly when dancing or acting.
Barishnakov…..Cathy Rigby……Tiger Woods……Michael Jordan…….David Copperfield……Marcel Marceau……Charlie Chaplin……Houdini…..Mia Hamm
5)MUSICAL/RHYTHMIC - children who learn well through songs, patterns, rhythms, instruments and musical expression. It is easy to overlook children with this intelligence in traditional education. People who have strong musical intelligence don't just remember music easily - they can't get it out of their minds, it's so omnipresent
Mozart…..Bach ……Beethoven…….John Lennon …… Stevie Wonder ……Carole King……John Williams……Carlos Santana
6)INTRAPERSONAL - refers to having an understanding of yourself, of knowing who you are, what you can do, what you want to do, how you react to things, which things to avoid, and which things to gravitate toward. We are drawn to people who have a good understanding of themselves because those people tend not to screw up. They tend to know what they can do. They tend to know what they can’t do. And they tend to know where to go if they need help.
NEIL ARMSTRONG….. HELEN KELLER….. COLUMBUS…….CHARLES LINDBERGH…
SIR EDMOND HIlLARY
7)INTERPERSONAL - people oriented and outgoing, and do their learning cooperatively in groups or with a partner. These children may have typically been identified as "talkative" or " too concerned about being social" in a traditional setting. Interpersonal intelligence, (people smart) is understanding other people. It’s an ability we all need, but is at a premium if you are a teacher, clinician, salesperson, or a politician. Anybody who deals with other people has to be skilled in the interpersonal sphere.
Abraham Lincoln…..George Washington……Ghandi……Oprah Winfrey…….
Martin Luther King
8)NATURALIST - children who love the outdoors, animals, field trips. the human ability to discriminate among living things (plants, animals) as well as sensitivity to other features of the natural world (clouds, rock configurations). it continues to be central in such roles as botanist or chef.
John Audubon…..Lewis & Clark…….Jane Goodall……Jacques Costeau……. John Muir…….Sacajawea
9)EXISTENTIALIST - children who learn in the context of where humankind stands in the "big picture" of existence. They ask "Why are we here?" and "What is our role in the world?" This intelligence is seen in the discipline of philosophy. Individuals who exhibit the proclivity to pose (and ponder) questions about life, death, and ultimate realities.
Aristotle…Confucius,…….Plato…….Socrates