Howard gardner who is he

His most recent research undertaking, conducted with Wendy Fischman, is a large-scale national study documenting how different groups think about the goals of college and the value of a course of study emphasizing liberal arts and sciences. Ultimately, the study aims to provide valuable suggestions of how best to provide quality, non-professional higher education in the 21st century.

He is also directing an international study of United World Colleges, a network of secondary schools. But that's nonsense. Everything can be taught in more than one way," Howard Gardner has suggested. Howard Gardner was born on July 11, in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He described himself as "a studious child who gained much pleasure from playing the piano.

While he had originally planned to study law, he was inspired to study developmental psychology by the works of Jean Piaget. He also cited the mentoring he received from the famous psychoanalyst Erik Erikson as part of the reason why he set his sights on psychology. That helped set me on the course of investigating human nature, particularly how human beings think," he later explained. After spending time working with two very different groups, normal and gifted children, and brain-damaged adults, Gardner began developing a theory designed to synthesize his research and observations.

In , he published Frames of Mind which outlined his theory of multiple intelligences. According to this theory, people have many different ways of learning. Unlike traditional theories of intelligence that focus on one single general intelligence , Gardner believed that people instead have multiple different ways of thinking and learning.

He has since identified and described eight different kinds of intelligence:. He has also proposed the possible addition of a ninth type which he refers to as "existential intelligence.

Gardner's theory has perhaps had the greatest impact within the field of education, where it has received considerable attention and use. His conceptualization of intelligence as more than a single, solitary quality has opened the doors for further research and different ways of thinking about human intelligence.

Researcher Mindy L. Kornhaber has suggested that the theory of multiple intelligences is so popular within the field of education because it:. It also provides educators with a conceptual framework for organizing and reflecting on curriculum assessment and pedagogical practices. In turn, this reflection has led many educators to develop new approaches that might better meet the needs of the range of learners in their classrooms.

Gardner currently serves as the John H. He is also an adjunct professor of psychology at Harvard University and senior director of Harvard Project Zero. Gardner, H. Frames of Mind. The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. New York: BasicBooks. Intelligence Reframed. New York: Basic Books. New York: Penguin Putnam. In his book The App Generation , Gardner and co-author Katie Davis suggests that the theory of multiple intelligences has too often been conflated with the idea of learning styles.

The two are not the same, Gardner explains and uses a computer analogy to demonstrate the differences between the ideas. Traditional conceptions of a single intelligence suggest that the mind possesses a single, central and all-purpose "computer" suggests Gardner in his book. This computer then determines how people perform in every aspect of their lives. Whatever bodily-kinesthetic intelligence I may have had was completely quashed, except for drilling, soldier style, because I could follow commands, and digital dexterity, from decades of typing and playing the piano.

That is true about any intelligence. I also think that personal intelligences are easier to keep improving than logical-mathematical intelligence and musical intelligence, both of which are better off if you start early.

I should mention that my teacher in the realm of giftedness and prodigiousness — and much else! We fell in love, were married in , our son Benjamin was born in , and we recently celebrated our 35 th anniversary.

Gazette: Later on, you added to the list of intelligences. Will experts find more in the future? As a scholar, I have lost interest in multiple intelligences even though 80 percent of my mail is still about it. Ninety percent of my speaking invitations are about multiple intelligences and I maintain a website. But with technology, we — or the technology! Gazette: More recently, you have said that intelligence is important, but ethics is even more important — that what we do with our intelligence, the purpose, is what matters.

Could you expand on this? Gardner: I am fortunate to have the example of my parents, who were deeply ethical people. In my own case, I was pretty judgmental about people who cross lines, and I always have been.

I hope that other people tell me when I do so. But ethics was not something I was interested in as a scholar. I became interested in the purpose of our minds and our lives, in how intelligences and morality can work together to yield the kind of persons we admire and the kind of society in which we would like to live. More generally, as a scholar, I work at Project Zero and honor its motto — we develop ideas and give them a push in the right direction.

My competitive advantage has been developing ideas and concepts, but ever since becoming more than an educationalist, my work is not just developing ideas, but trying to think about what to do with the ideas. Gazette: You have written more than 20 books. Which one are you most proud of? I like it because I had the opportunity to study seven great creators in great depth. That is the book I had the most fun doing.

Gazette: What about the book on multiple intelligences? It made me a well-known scholar, and it will be on my tombstone, so to speak. But there is a problem here. In a way, books are like children. You feel most empathy for the ones that are neglected. That meant an enormous amount to me. It became clear that many people are very happy living with a deficient sense of truth — not knowing, not caring. Gazette: I read that you consider Mahatma Gandhi one of your heroes.

Gardner: Gandhi understood that we live in a world where for the first time in human history, someone could destroy the world. As a result of this unprecedented situation, said Gandhi, we have to learn to dispute, argue in a nonviolent way.

Everything he did, he looked back and criticized and tried to do better. In addition to being an international giant, Gandhi gave us an example of a healthy and practical way to think about and lead your own life. Gardner, third from left, poses with fellow Harvard graduates in Gardner: I have tried to be a good husband and a good father but I went through a difficult divorce when I was young, and it caused pain.

I regret that. I have tried my best to make up for it. Going to Harvard College, going to a Harvard graduate school, and being on the books for over 55 years, it has been very comfortable for me. There are very few people now my age who have been here their entire lives.

A question I ask myself almost every day is, If I was exactly who I am, would I go into academics today? I have real doubts that I would. I think there are professional things which I could have done differently and better. And what I tried to do is make amends for it. And you never really know what people think about you. When over of them wrote tributes to me when I turned 70, what really surprised me was that more people wrote about my personal example than about my particular scholarly ideas or books.

What I tried to give to my doctoral students and to the hundreds of people that have worked with me in Project Zero, over 50 years now, is an example of one way to live a life. I got that from my parents, and I would like to think that I kept people, besides myself, from doing things which were foolish in retrospect. Gazette: What has been the most rewarding part of your academic career? Gardner: As an academic, you can work in splendid obscurity. But as compensation, as Henry Adams famously said: A teacher never knows when his or her influence stops.

Having been taught by brilliant teachers such as Erik Erikson, David Riesman, Nelson Goodman, and Jerome Bruner was transformative; it was important for me to be part of that lineage. I am who I am because of my teachers, and I want my students and colleagues to know that.

When I was a graduate student, I wrote about them, and then sent them my essay. And to my amazement both scholars sent me letters on the same day! For me, that sends a strong message to a young student, when two people he greatly admires both take the time to write him a substantive letter.