A couple of weeks ago, the Los Angeles Times interviewed four members of the elite club, Mensa’open to those who score in the top 2 percent on an accepted standardized intelligence test. ”The questions were fatuous: What else could they have been? Examples such as ‘How do Mensans go wild?’ or ‘What’s the downside of a high IQ?’ But then the answer to ‘Who was the smartest famous person? was provocative. ‘Benjamin Franklin,’ said one Mensan. ‘He had a grasp of democracy and international relations, and he got along really well with women.’ ”Aha, sounds like multiple intelligences, I thought. MI theory, promulgated by Dr. Howard Gardner over 20 years ago to wrest intellect from test makers, takes an interdisciplinary stand toward looking at intelligence. Gardner posits that all individuals have multiple intelligences’nine, using his criteria. These include linguistic, logical-mathematical (the aptitudes we base our I.Q. tests upon), but also kinesthetic (dancer/craftsperson), interpersonal (understanding of self), intrapersonal (politician/ salesperson), musical, spatial (architect/ sculptor), naturalist (to make discriminations in nature) and the existential intelligence (asking the big question, e.g., What is love? What’s going to happen to our universe?). ”A psychologist and professor of neuroscience at Harvard, Gardner updated educators and parents last week at Seven Arrows School about his theory of multiple intelligences and offered applications of how well this way of looking at human capacity can be used in education. ”All of us have all of these intelligences in degrees. So, when somebody declares that they are not ‘creative,’ it reflects a defeatist attitude, which Gardner attributes to the Western world’s view that there is only one single intelligence that one is born with; ‘If you know who the parents are, you can predict the child’s I.Q., and there is not much you can do about it.’ He leans towards the Asian model, that intelligence reflects effort, which may explain why ‘East Asians are at the top of the intelligence score.’ ”Most schools throughout the world are uniform schools, where everybody is treated the same way. And that way pitches everything in the language/logic intelligence camp. ”’If you don’t think that way, then school is not too contoured to you,’ Gardner says. ”Another approach, one that he advocates, caters to the student’s strengths. ‘You find out all about the intelligences of your students so you can teach things in lots of ways.’ ”Gardner says that the best way to assess intelligences is much more contextual, and cited as an example the preschools in Reggio Emilia, Italy, which teach young children through what they term the ‘hundred languages’ of childhood. These include graphic representations of the children’s thoughts and ideas, and verbal, motor, musical, mathematical, ethical, imaginary, cognitive and other expressions. ”Each infant-toddler center and pre-primary in Reggio has a studio or laboratory, which is filled with natural materials and art supplies. In one area, children manipulate simple machines, such as gears and threaded pipes. In another area, children learn about water from a system of transparent pipes and cascades. ”One center features a table with a Plexiglas cover, lighted underneath, used for drawing and related activities. There is also a center for teachers to document the children’s interests and plan lessons. ”While Gardner reminded the audience that multiple intelligences is not a goal, education is totally a goal-oriented enterprise. ”Schools set goals, such as understanding a discipline, establishing a civil society, service to community, critical thinking. ”Gardner’s own education priority is teaching for understanding in any discipline. ‘If you can take something and apply it appropriately in a new situation, that shows you’ve understood it,’ he believes. ”He cited three ‘topics’ in three disciplines: the theory of evolution in science; the Holocaust in history and Mozart in the arts. ‘If you devote real time to these topics, and are willing to sacrifice coverage for uncoverage and go deeply by activating different intelligences, then you reach more kids and you show what it’s like to really understand something.’ ”For this reporter, the picture of knowledge as a room with many windows, each one an intelligence that can be used to understand, said it all.
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