Recipe for Realism
Multiple intelligences. Why has the idea always made me want to laugh? Because I’m a mean rotten swine, that’s why. Obviously. Yes but also because it is quite funny. It’s so easy to think of more of those alternative intelligences. Watching tv intelligence, eating intelligence, using the potty intelligence.
Now, one aspect of the general idea seems perfectly unexceptionable.
Gardner’s ideas appealed to many traditional teachers who extolled hard work but also had some students who did better on tests if multiplication tables were set to music or works of literature were acted out in class.
Well, obviously – if it works, do it. (That is, do it if you can, which seems unlikely when most teachers have classes of 30 to 35 students, five times a day. When are they going to get the time to teach everyone differently?) But that’s a different thing from drawing large conclusions about multiple intelligences.
This summer, two university professors accused Gardner, 61, of encouraging elementary school teaching methods, such as singing new words or writing them out with twigs and leaves, for which there is no scholarly evidence of success. Daniel T. Willingham, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, wrote in the journal Education Next that Gardner’s theory “is an inaccurate description of the mind” and that “the more closely an application draws on the theory, the less likely the application is to be effective.”
And Gardner says one thing that’s slightly alarming.
He added that “the standard psychologist’s view of intelligence is a recipe for despair. It holds that there is but one intelligence and that intelligence is highly heritable.”
Yes but…the fact that something is a recipe for despair is a separate question from whether there is good evidence for it or not. Sad to say, there are a lot of accurate descriptions of the world that are indeed recipes for despair, as well as hopeful ones that are not accurate. Gardner’s benevolence is a good thing, but benevolence-driven research can get things badly wrong.
As so often, this is a debate over the meaning of a word. The right question to ask when considering alternative definitions of a word is not “Is it true?” (which leads to the sterility of a dictionary or a “what do people usually mean by this word?” debate), but the far more interesting question: “Is it useful?”
In that light, Gardner’s statement about the the traditional theory being “a recipe for despair” should indeed – if one thinks he’s right at about that – count against the traditional theory.
Not trolling, honestly.
But it’s more than that. Gardner is doing more than considering alternative definitions of a word, he’s making truth claims about the mind – which is why I included the particular quotation that I did. In other words, claims about intelligence are empirical claims as well as (and sometimes instead of) analytic or linguistic claims.
Which is not to deny that the whole subject is (of course) a very vexed one, and that people use empirical claims about intelligence to make very nasty (and non sequituring) claims about policy.
No, I don’t take you to be trolling!
I was exposed to this Gardner stuff in my education classes at university. However, the professors all seemed very sceptical of it. They encouraged its use as a way of thinking about the needs of students, but discouraged adopting it as a serious model for lesson planning.
Gardner himself seems confused about the nature of the criticism. His model is accused of having no empirical evidence, and his defence is, “Well, it’s a theory of the mind, not of education.” Apparently he thinks that theories of the mind don’t require evidence?
Yes, I’m taking education classes right now en route to my teaching certification, and references to Gardner are ubiquitous.
Honestly, I’m not fully in a position to evaluate Gardner’s claims, having only sampled portions of his books. There does seem to be fairly good evidence that certain kinds of intellectual skills are independent of others, although I’m not sure what consequences should follow.
I worry about one trend that multiple intelligence theory seems to encourage : educators focus attention on the skills students already possess, rather than the ones they lack. This is problematic for any number of reasons. A skill possessed by a given student might not be an inherent cognitive attribute of the student, as Gardner seems to assume, but rather might result from the student’s family or social environment. If so, there is reason to think that certain kinds of training may develop the student’s other faculties. In fact, it seems it should be a primary purpose of education to develop this potential! Why should education leave a student with the capabilities he/she already had before starting school, rather than focusing on developing skills that don’t yet exist?
Phil
Very good point, Phil.
I would add that not only should educators encourage developing new learning abilities in students, it is absolutely essential. When these kids get to college, they are going to be in lectures 90 percent of the time. If they cannot succeed in a classroom where the instructor teaches by lecture exclusively, they will not have a chance at a college degree.
Excellent point indeed, Phil.
I was musing on it yesterday and wondering if Gardner wasn’t just conflating habits with inherent cognitive attributes. I had what one might call a ‘different’ way of learning when I was a kid. But another thing one might call it would be just an entrenched habit of not paying attention, of looking out the window and daydreaming and not being interested. In short, I was an absolutely crappy student until I went to university – it took me that long to wake up. But it was a habit, not a brain module.
And very true about the need to develop faculties. On the other hand I also can’t help having sympathy for teachers who just don’t have enough time to teach the numbers they have. It’s understandable that they want to do what works right now. Understandable but not desirable…
This is an interesting and volatile topic. It is also something where the educational system (applied) continues to be confused with the theoretical side of it. Eric would like to remind us that “if they cannot succeed in a classroom where the instructor teaches by lecture exclusively, they will not have a chance at a college degree.” It brings up that most evil of educational practices that reinforces the system. Gardner wants us to question (if you apply his theories) whether 90% lecture is the best way to educate.
Certainly a unique education tailored to each student sounds idealistic, but it also sounds quite likely to produce better results. Arguments that ‘we have done it differently’ or that it would require more teachers do nothing to detract, obviously, as they are off-base.
Personally, I feel the educational system I went through, including college, was a travesty. A massive, mounmental time-waste where I was educated only incidentally, accidentally, and then only through my own actions and some random luck with scattered, random, fantastic teachers who somehow keyed and synched with me.
While Gardner’s theories may be inaccurate, at least he HAS a theory at the heart; the current educational system is based purely on conjecture and tradition gleaned from religious seminaries- certainly not from the Greek system of education.
Phil Mole’s point is, I think, brilliant. There is decidedly a tendency to force specialization rather than generalization. We shouldn’t identify strengths to strengthen them alone at the expense of the weaknesses. Specialization, however, leads to greater rewards in society- just ask the ants.
Hrumph. I am one of those teachers who has had 30 high school students per class five times a day, and was so frustrated by my inability to attend to all of their needs that I decided to teach college…where I am given 30 students and expected to lecture at them.
I appreciate the criticisms of Gardner’s work. I understand the points regarding teaching only to strengths. Still, I feel educators can benefit from examining their work with Gardner’s in mind.
Too few of us on the college level discuss teaching methods at all once we’re solidly placed in a position. In fact, academics are known to look on those colleagues who ask them to share classroom ideas with suspicion. And unless you pursued a degree in education or a teaching certificate, you most likely had to take one, perhpas two classes which discussed method before getting that position. At the very least, Gardner, like Paulo Freire, Ira Shor, and others, pompts us to question whether lecturing year after year from those yellowing notes (or, more recently, reading PowerPoint slides) really is “education.”
Interesting discussion.
My experience of university was the opposite – as I said, that’s where my brain finally woke up. (Well it wasn’t totally asleep before that, but it was terribly narrow. It just wasn’t interested in many things. That’s what changed.) But not via lectures – via classes, with impassioned teachers – and of course via reading. I never did see the point of lectures…
I think the *original* idea of lectures was to enable the students to copy the lecturer’s copy of the book (centuries ago, before printing!) Now that modern technology has moved on, copying the notes can be done more easily :)
I am not sure what to replace lectures with – I am not convinced that they are so badly flawed that they need to be junked and replaced by some random method of instruction suggested by Gardner or someone else. I want some sort of evidence that the new method works better before I switch.
Lecture may seem the only sane option to someone at a large university, like mine, where some classes have over 300 students.
Yes, I can see lecture as the only plausible option when one has 300 students. However, many of us have 15-30, and still lecture. Why?
As for proof, there has been quite a bit of work done in methodology studies and so called “action research” (read: real teachers sharing what has worked for them and offering theories as to why)in my field, English Composition. I couldn’t speak for teaching in other fields.
I can’t quite relate to the statement above that “I want some sort of evidence that the new method works better before I switch.” I have always discovered the best means for teaching by trying anything and everything out for myself. (While a study may offer “proof” of effectiveness, it still may not work for me or my students; on the other hand, a method with little research attatched might be just what my class is aching for.)If a given method doesn’t work, I don’t employ it in the next class, and little if any harm is generally done.
Certainly lectures are a the best stopgap for overcrowded and overtaxed teachers. That doesn’t imply that they are the only or best solution for actually educating people. Nor do I think lecturing to 300 people has been ‘proven’ to be successful – I think it is a rather modern adaptation (or commercialization). The more historic collegiate system had a lot more one-on-one interaction between long term (per year or even per entire matriculation) tutors and pupils, including tailored reading lists and specific personal instruction.
And Gardner isn’t ‘random’, he’s experienced and actually approaching education like a science. You can disagree with his theories, certainly, but any actual thought into the matter is better than ‘what we always did before’. Your ‘proven lectures’ are just a ‘hey, this works sort of’ rather than a designed, articulated, system: it is arbitary, Gardner is not.
Back to the original topic…
Gardner himself had a specific reason for calling the qualities he identified “intelligences”. Early in the book (don’t ask me where now), he wrote:
“In delineating a narrow definition of intelligence, however, one usually devalues those capacities that are not within that definition’s purview: thus, dancers or chess players may be talented but they are not smart”.