The Essential Howard Gardner on Education

Howard Gardner, best known for his theory of multiple intelligences, is the Hobbs Research Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Among his numerous honors, Gardner received a MacArthur Prize Fellowship, the Grawemeyer Prize in Education, a fellowship from the John S. Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Prince of Asturias Award in the Social Sciences, and the American Educational Research Association’s Distinguished Contributions to Research in Education Award. His book include The Essential Howard Gardner on Mind.

Contents


Acknowledgments  xiii


Introduction  xv


Influences


1.  Jerome S. Bruner as Educator  5

References  10


2.  Harvard Project Zero: A Personal History  11

Events Surrounding the Beginning of Project Zero  11

Project Zero at Its Inception  14

Leadership Transition  16

Comments  18

The Move to Educational Reform  18

A Fateful Car Ride  19

The 1990s: Going National and International  20

Comment  21

Beyond 2000—New Governance, New Opportunities, New Challenges  22

Final Thoughts—The “Symptoms” of Project Zero  22

References  23


3.  The Hundred Languages of Successful Educational Reform  24


China: The Key in the Key Slot


4.  The Key in the Key Slot: Creativity in a Chinese Key  31

I. A Recurring Incident  31

II. Childrearing in China: General Comments  32

III. Life as Performance  33

IV. The Arts as Beautiful and Good  35

V: The Importance of Hierarchy  37

VI. Shaping and Molding From Birth On  38

VII. Basic Skills Before Creativity  40

Toward a Productive Synthesis  41

Acknowledgments  43


Educational Philosophy

Progressivism—The True, the Beautiful, and the Good  45


5.  The Age of Innocence Reconsidered: Preserving the Best of the Progressive Traditions in Psychology and Education  47

Co-authored by Bruce Torff and Thomas Hatch

A Canonical View in Psychology and Education at Midcentury  47

New Insights  49

The Symbol Systems Approach  52

The View From Education  55

Closing the Loop: Innocence Recaptured  60

References  61


6.  Educating for the True, the Beautiful, and the Good  62

Truth  63

Beauty  63

Goodness  64

Threats  66

Villains and Heroes  66

Going Forward  67

Reference  67


7.  The Tensions Between Education and Development  68

I. Memories of Larry Kohlberg  68

II. The Relation Between Development and Education  69

III. Parameters of the Problem  71

IV. Three Principal Ways of Representing Knowledge  72

V. The Disjunctions Among Ways of Knowing  74

VI. Possible Bridges Among Disparate Ways of Knowing  77

VII. Closing Thoughts  78

Acknowledgments  79

References  79


Introducing Multiple Intelligences: Claims, Critiques, and Educational Implications


Overview of MI Theory  83

References  84


8.  Beyond IQ: Developing the Spectrum of Human Intelligences  85

References  92


9.  Reflections on MI Myths and Messages  93

I. Breaking a Decade of Silence  94

II. Myths of Multiple Intelligences  94

III. Messages About MI in the Classroom  98

Reference  102


10.  “Multiple Intelligences” Are Not “Learning Styles”  103


11.  The Crystallizing Experience: Discovering an Intellectual Gift  106

Joseph Walters and Howard Gardner

The Biographies  110

The Interviews  116

Crystallizing Experiences  116

The Issue of Talent  118

In Conclusion  121

References  122


Educational Experiments in the Spirit of Multiple Intelligences


12.  MI Around the World  125

The MI Meme  125

The Nature of the Soil  127

Why MI Takes Hold in Certain Soils  128

The Policy Level  129

Concluding Note: The Personal and the Political  130


Identification and Nurturing of Intelligences in Early Life

Student Projects in the Pods at the Key School  131

The Artistic Intelligences: Can They Be Mastered and Measured in Adolescence?  132

References  133


13.  The Spectrum Approach to Assessment: Nurturing Intelligences in Early Childhood  135

Co-authored With Mara Krechevsky

The Spectrum Approach to Assessment  136

Implementation of the Spectrum Approach  137

Initial Results  139

Working Styles  140

A Comparison of Views: Parents, Teachers, and Spectrum  142

A Comparison of Spectrum Results With the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale  143


14.  Projects During the Elementary Years  149

An MI School  149

Project Assessment  151

Project Scaffolding  154

References  156


15.  Arts PROPEL  157

Disciplined Inquiry in High School: An Introduction to Arts PROPEL  157

Building on the Theory of Multiple Intelligences  157

Alternative Accents in Arts Education  158

Disciplined Inquiry in High School: An Introduction to Arts PROPEL  159

The Project Zero Approach to Art Education  159

Arts PROPEL  162

Two Educational Vehicles  163


Curriculum, Pedagogy, and Assessment

Acknowledgment  175

References  175


16.  The Unschooled Mind: Why Even the Best Students in the Best Schools May Not Understand  177

Reference  191


17.  Understanding Through the Disciplines  192

Three Puzzles  192

Vantage Points: From Puzzles to Concepts  195

The Patterns of the Scientist . . . and the Mathematician  199

The Beauty of the Artist  201

The Accounts of the Historian  203

In the Shopping Mall of the Disciplines  205

Reference  209


18.  Teaching for Understanding Within and Across the Disciplines  210

Howard Gardner and Veronica Boix-Mansilla

Understanding Within the Disciplines  211

From Common Sense to Interdisciplinary Study  212

Disciplinary Powers and Limitations  214

Assessment Within and Across the Disciplines  215

From Disciplinary to Personal Knowledge  215


19.  Assessment in Context: The Alternative to Standardized Testing  217

Binet, the Testing Society, and the “Uniform” View of Schooling  218

Sources for an Alternative Approach to Assessment  220

The Need for a Developmental Perspective  221

The Emergence of a Symbol-System Perspective  221

Emergence of a Multiple Intelligences Perspective  222

A Search for Human Creative Capacities  223

The Desirability of Assessing Learning in Context  224

Locating Competence and Skill Outside the Head of the Individual  225

General Features of a New Approach to Assessment  226

Toward the Assessing Society  230

References  234


Higher Education


20.  If We Were Designing a New College . . .  237

Wendy Fischman and Howard Gardner

1. Why College?  238

2. Less Is More  238

3. More Alike Than Different  239

Final Thoughts  239

Reference  240


21.  Why We Should Require All Students to Take Two Philosophy Courses  241


Contemporary Challenges and Opportunities


22.  Education in the Era of the Apps  247

With Katie Davis

Apps for a Better World  254

References  256


23.  The Five Minds for the Future  257

Cultivating New Ways of Thinking to Achieve Important Societal Goals  257

The Disciplined Mind  257

The Synthesizing Mind  258

The Creating Mind  259

The Respectful Mind  260

The Ethical Mind  261

Tension Exists  262

Wake-Up Calls  262

Role-Modeling  263


24.  Synthesis 1.0: A Few Essential Tips  264


25.  Changing Minds  267

80/20 and Seven R’s  267

References  274


26.  On Educating for the Three Virtues: A Hegelian Approach  275

Toward a Synthesis  279

The Beauty of Truth-Seeking  279

The Conception of the Good  280

From Synthesis to Action  281

Lingering Questions  282

Concluding Note  285

References  285


27.  The Myths in “Neuromyths”  287

References  289


28.  Becoming a Good Person, a Good Worker, a Good Citizen in a Democratic Society  290

The Challenge  290

Framework  291

The Lenses of Psychology  292

A Recommended Course of Action  295

Reference  298


29.  To an Aspiring Researcher: Twelve Pieces of Advice  299

A Thought Experiment  299

Acknowledgments  306


Original Publication List  307

Reference List  307


Index  311


Permissions  319


About the Author  320