Howard Gardner and Multiple Intelligences
Howard Gardner is a Professor of Cognition and Education at Harvard University and Co-Director of Harvard's Project Zero. He is widely known for his Theory of Multiple Intelligences, introduced in his book Frames of Mind (1983). In his book, Gardner proposed a novel notion: the psychological construct 'intelligence' should be formally measured in more ways than simply through the widely accepted logical/linguistic IQ-type formalized tests used in most school systems. Frames of Mind was very well received by those in the educational arena.
Gardner suggests that our intelligences are organized vertically, as a number of almost different faculties, rather than horizontally, as a set of general abilities. This viewpoint was in direct contrast to many of the language and logic theorists who believe that there was only one kind of intelligence, that we either had a lot of it or not that much, and that there was virtually very little that we could be do about that.
In Frames, Gardner theorized eight basic intelligences to represent these other modes:
- linguistic-verbal (most widely accepted)
- logical-mathematical (most widely accepted)
- visual-spatial
- bodily-kinesthetic
- musical-rhythmic
- interpersonal (most criticized)
- intrapersonal (most criticized)
- naturalist (recently added)
