Howard Gardner's Theory Of Multiple Intelligences

Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences ushered vast changes into the once stagnant learning environments of the education and business worlds. Multiple Intelligence Theory evaluates and considers the educational practice of the last century and provides alternative methods to tap into human intelligence, learning style, personality and behavior, it examines learning on many new levels. Educators and employers who once sat stagnant with no understanding of teaching the difficult or exceptional with traditional ways now had new hopes.

Howard Gardner was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania in 1943 to German Jewish immigrant parents. He went to Harvard University in 1961 to begin studies in history after which he changed his major to social relations studies. Harvard is where he met his early mentors including Erik Erikson, and there is where he became a psychologist and a professor of neuroscience. Harvard is also where he met Bruner, who like Gardner had a deep interest in how children learn. The collaboration of Bruner and Gardner started Gardner’s lifelong interest in pre-collegiate education. Geschwind, another Harvard-trained physician who studied the architecture of the brain, and Goodman who founded an organization to study how children, adults, and organizations learn played large rolls influencing Gardner in his studies on Multiple Intelligences.

In 1983 Gardner released his Theory of Multiple Intelligences for use in the psychology world to understand learning styles. Multiple Intelligences quickly catapulted into the the classroom, into education and business worlds, it challenged traditional beliefs about education and cognitive science, giving opportunities never considered for students or employees. This o...

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...clusion if Multiple Intelligences Theory is practiced in the classroom discipline problems can be significantly reduced. If students who were previously identified as difficult learners are given new tools and methods to learn their abilities will significantly improve thus reducing the issues seen previously. Those seen as discipline problems may in fact be boredom and restlessness due to the ineffectiveness of the lecture to capture their attention.

In Margaret Mead’s words, "weave a social fabric in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place."

“Intelligence is the capacity to do something useful in the society in which we live. Intelligence is the ability to respond successfully to new situations and the capacity to learn from one’s past experiences.” Dr. Howard Gardner, author, Frames of Mind and Multiple Intelligences: The Theory in Practice.