Word: mi
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...increasing use of MI in schools raises a very simple question: Is this a good thing? The answer is not so simple, but there are good reasons to have doubts about this trend. To be sure, cognitive psychologists and educational researchers tend to give Gardner high praise for helping the public understand that intelligence is multifaceted, and MI has undoubtedly helped teachers understand and value the various talents a child has. Nevertheless, evidence for the specifics of Gardner theory is weak, and there is no firm research showing that its practical applications have been effective. No one says that using...
Expressed at this level of generality, Gardner's theory is one with which few people could disagree. But the purpose of Frames of Mind was to identify seven specific "intelligences," and that list forms the basis of all the educational applications of MI. Gardner argued against the view of intelligence as a single faculty that is accurately measured by an IQ test. Rather, he said, we have several separate intellectual capacities, each of which deserves to be called an intelligence. The seven intelligences are linguistic, musical, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal (the ability to understand others) and intrapersonal...
...years since Frames of Mind was published, those other volumes have never appeared. Nor, as Gardner acknowledges, have those discussions and tests been undertaken. He now says that as a scientist he preferred to move on to other matters within MI and outside it. Moreover, he says, it goes against the grain of his philosophy to develop tests to measure the intelligences, a prerequisite psychologists say would be necessary to determine the validity of the theory. Gardner also points out that the overall trends in neurology and cognitive psychology strongly support his view that intelligence comprises many abilities...
...less to the theory of multiple intelligences than many educators seem to believe. That may not matter so much. Gardner and other researchers say it's not necessary for a theory to enjoy absolute scientific confirmation as long as it shows good results in the classroom. But does MI show such results...
Gardner has never laid down a detailed plan for applying his theory in schools, and the consultants and publishers who offer training in MI operate independently of him, so there is a wide range of actual practices. A few hundred schools, like Coyote Creek, use the theory in a thoroughgoing way; thousands more adopt pieces of it. The result is that the methods that go under the name of multiple intelligences are often ones Gardner would not approve of. He insists, for example, that it is a waste of time to simply "exercise the intelligence muscles...