Making
Extraordinary Leaders (Short review)1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
The time may now be ripe to review the processes required to develop
smarter instructional leadership talents, skills so vital for success
in politics, business, and life (Reicher, Platow, Haslam, 2007; see
also Reicher, Haslam, & Platow, 2009). And despite its
importance to all, researching and writing about leadership has not
been a top topic in the field of psychology (Sternberg, 2007). More
importantly, this area has been regularly neglected and seriously
overlooked as a fundamental classroom research topic (Graen, 2007;
Hackman & Wageman, 2007). Hence, a warm welcome to Branton
Shearer and Mike Fleetham's timely publication Creating
Extra-Ordinary Teachers: Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom and
Beyond (hereafter Creating Extra-Ordinary Teachers). This
is a book chock-full of pages of hands-on practical learning
activities covering a fresh theme for our intelligences -- launching
Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences (MI) theory into the
leadership workplace (Visser, Ashton & Vernon, 2006). Authors Shearer and
Fleetham are to be commended for their latest effort; they have done so with
scholarly mastery, insight, polish and ease. I do not know of another book like
this on the market.
In short, they wanted to do more than write a cookbook-type account that
would focus on mundane topics such as the mechanics of conventional
teaching or mainstream classroom teaching procedures. Instead, they
sought a book that would help raise the quality of teaching and
learning in classrooms worldwide, a guidebook for others to discover,
value, and enrich and to which they could apply their unique
strengths. In short, they wanted to scribe a sourcebook that might
advance leadership for the 21st Century. They felt that such a
state-of-the-art text did not exist. It is their hope that Creating
Extra-Ordinary Teachers fills that void. In my opinion, they
have succeeded.
I have separated the rest of this review into sections. After commenting briefly about the
authors, I highlight the structure of the book. In the next two
sections, I list the book's virtues and (a few) drawbacks. I
conclude my remarks by summarizing overall. A list of references
close out my comments. I will now discuss, in turn, these sections.
Authors
Unlike many of their peers in cognitive psychology and education, Branton Shearer and Mike Fleetham are not publishing powerhouses, generating one book after another. Rather, both tend to be economical with their words (and our trees), publishing only when they have something extraordinary to say. And when they do, as in the case of their 2008 book, Creating Extra-Ordinary Teachers: Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom and Beyond, that “something” is indeed worth listening to.
Both authors promote Howard Gardner's MI model of the human mind. Branton Shearer, an instructor at Kent State University, is a psychologist with expertise in assessment. He has spent considerable time over the past 20 years building upon MI. During this time, Shearer (1996) has developed the Multiple Intelligences Developmental Assessment Scales (MIDAS). The MIDAS has been translated into 12 different languages and used in more than 23 countries as a research based intelligence-type tool to further the educational and career development of adults, students and teachers.
Mike Fleetham is a master teacher and educational trainer, author and consultant who specializes in the practical infusion of new teaching methods into classrooms. He was a classroom teacher for 10 years and has been an assistant head teacher in a large inner-city primary school. Two of his recently-published MI books are: Multiple Intelligences in Practice: Enhancing Self-esteem and Learning in the Classroom and Pocket PAL: Multiple Intelligences (2007).
Structure
Creating Extra-Ordinary Teachers is an inspirational work because, for the
first time, it places the role of classroom leadership inside a MI
framework. Throughout 144 pages, the authors utilize MI as a
meaningful method for developing leaders. The book is divided into
four sections: Extra-Ordinary Teaching and Leadership, The
Gift of Multiple Intelligences, Tools and Techniques for
Extra-Ordinary Leadership, and Being Extra-Ordinary in the UK
and US.
In the first section of the book, "Extra-ordinary teaching and leadership", one is
introduced to the theme of the book -- using MI to make
extra-ordinary classroom leaders. This is the book's key section as
the contents therein allow readers the chance to recognize and
appreciate their own or others’ potential. Is there anything
more important than that? The answer lies in the question.
In the second section, "The gift of multiple intelligences (MI)
hypothesis",
the authors introduces the reader to MI, specifically, how MI became
Gardner's claim-to-fame model of the human mind. To better
comprehend Gardner's MI, image two theoretical intellectual camps, polar
opposite in nature: those who believe that there exits one general
intelligence, or g, and those who believe in many different
independent intelligences. Those who practice their wares in the
former and more traditional camp suppose that smarter people are more
intelligent than others because they possess the right genes. They
argue that our cognitive capabilities include stronger biological
underpinnings, are more genetically influenced, and that this unitary
g factor accounts for a large part of the intellectual
variance amongst all of us. The opposing camp houses more liberal
theorists who argue against this more hereditary stance ... arguing, as well, that it is also the environment that strongly influences gene
expression. Their view is that our multiple smarts are composed of
various cognitive capacities and that it is the combination of these
outstanding abilities which constitutes our overall bundle of smarts.
This same section of the book goes into some detail about Gardner's eight
intelligences: verbal -- linguistic (comprehension and expression of
written and oral language), logical -- mathematical (computation, deductive
and inductive reasoning), musical -- rhythmic (pitch, melody, rhythm, texture,
musical themes, harmony), visual -- spatial (design, color, form, perspective,
balance, contrast), bodily -- kinaesthetic (control and coordination, balance,
locating self or objects in space), interpersonal -- social (ability to
inspire, instruct, or lead others and respond to their actions, emotions,
motivations, and situations), intrapersonal -- introspective (knowledge and
understanding of one's strengths and weaknesses, styles, emotions,
self-orientation), and naturalist -- environmental (noting the differences
that are key to discriminating among several categories or species of objects
in the natural world).
Briefly summarized here, for the unacquainted reader, Gardner hypothesizes that
all of us are born with and possess a unique compilation of all eight intelligences, which may be strengthened
through experience and effort. Gardner first published his MI model in his (1983) famous book Frames of Mind:
The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, then revised and addressed
their implications in Frames of mind: The theory of multiple
intelligences: Tenth anniversary edition (1993) and
in Intelligence Reframed: Multiple intelligences for the
21st century (1999). In Frames, Gardner argued against a unitary or one-dimensional view of
intelligence, instead, proposed that human intelligence be viewed as
multifaceted.
To this day, Gardner's thesis remains the same -- intelligence is not
a single measurable phenomenon but a set of different
potentialities that vary in importance from individual to individual
and from culture to culture, potentialities most of which Gardner
believes have been vastly overlooked by mainstream standardized
IQ-type tests. To sum up Gardner's stance, for here, he believes
that we have multiple and separate forms of intelligences in and
around us, always arguing that there is much more to human
intelligence than only high IQ-test scores (Brooks, 2007; Salvador,
2007), that there exists a greater variety of ways to be a smarter human.
Creating Extra-Ordinary Teachers falls
within this Gardner framework. Authors Shearer and Fleetham (2008)
argue that MI can be a powerful teaching tool that can assist anyone
to appreciate and enrich their talents, whatever their age, gender,
or ability. To paraphrase again the central theme of the book --
creating an understanding of MI, be it in counselling children
(O'Brien & Burnett, 2000), in the business office (Martin, 2003),
within the walls of higher education (Kezar, 2001), or in the wider
community (Gardner, 2000; Weller, 1999) -- MI has shown to improve
one's self-esteem, self-motivation and independence. In short, an
understanding of MI can aid achievers and underachievers from all
walks of life to realize their true potential.
In the third section, "Tools and techniques for extra-ordinary leadership",
Shearer and Fleetham identify leadership as many things: being able
to recognize the potential in selves and others, being an accessible,
innovative, practical, and resourceful person, aiding others to grow
cognitively and emotionally, inspiring others to follow their
extra-ordinary actions, setting examples and taking risks, and
finally, thinking creatively when solving various societal problems.
In the final section of the book, "Being extra-ordinary in the UK and US", the
reader is able to examine a series of MI narrations from an
innovative approach. The freshness lies in the choice of the United States of
America and
England as the arena on which the location is set. Both countries are
painted as ideal settings for comparing and contrasting MI practices.
I found this section of the book to be the most personable -- being
able to peek into the detailed interviews that the authors conducted
with extraordinary teachers. Their interesting stories reflected one
of the significant benefits of becoming an excellent teacher.
While all parts of the book create a coherent whole to the development of leadership skills
via the MI avenue, the four sub-sections therein focus on
particular issues and dilemmas so often encountered when regular classroom teachers seek to discover their inner leadership qualities.
Strengths
Both authors have an engaging writing style. Throughout, they use vivid and short case
studies and keep a focus on how ordinary classroom teachers can
aspire to develop their inner leadership skills. I believe that most
readers will find the many pages of activities and suggestions quite
useful. I write this as one who spent over 40 years in elementary and high schools, as a regular and
special classroom teacher, and as a former school principal. More
precisely, here is why I enjoyed reading and reviewing this book.
First, I believe that this book is an important read because, throughout, the authors offer
the reader pages and pages of first-rate suggestions for educators,
parents, and the wider community. For those seeking a practical and
reflective type of guidebook with numerous exercises that explore
creative ways for teachers to become extra-ordinary classroom
leaders, this book is a must read.
A second strong point is that the authors have written a book outlining
how ordinary people can become remarkable leaders in their field. This objective has been reinforced via a series of links in
http://extraordinary-teachers.wikispaces.com/,
a Wikispace web site that accompanies the book. Of particularly interest
to me was the
Navigation sub-link entitled The Book. If the more interested
reader goes here, s/he will be able to listen to a dialogue from the
first author. A short note about this dialogue is in order before
continuing.
In his dialogue, Shearer clearly
outlines Gardner's MI; in particular, his description of how regular classroom teachers could become super
classroom leaders was especially clean and tidy. I
deliberately highlight the words "clean" and "tidy" as Gardner's overall
concept of how all of us possess "many different kinds of minds" in not all
that easy a psychological construct to digest. Thus, Shearer's
elucidation of Gardner's broader forms of human intelligences is excellent! Finally, and in the same
series of links but under E-Teachers UK, there are a series of
audio interviews between the second author and three of his six
extra-ordinary teachers. The transcripts of these interviews are
also outlined in the book (see pp. 100-124). At the time of this
review (February of 2009), the final four links, E-Teachers US,
Using MIDAS, Leadership Tools, and Virtual Classroom
were under construction. Once muscle has been added to this
skeletal format, these additional links will surely add to the
overall value of the book.
A third strong point is how the authors emphasize the oft-ignored importance of
self-assessment, that is, enabling classroom teachers to seek out
their own inner strengths and weaknesses. Such a way of
self-exploration is a highly diverse phenomenon, often so difficult
to assess. More to that latter point, any book purchaser can email
the second author “to receive instructions for accessing [a]
free online MIDAS”, (p.23). Upon completion, that person
receives a three-page MIDAS Profile (pp. 83-85). The MIDAS Profile
represents areas of strength and limitations as reported by
[the user] at this time” (p. 83).
A fourth strength is how the authors have opened up their websites to the more interested reader. Shearer's site is
http://www.miresearch.org and Fleetham's site is
http://www.thinkingclassroom.co.uk/ . What readers of this review should be happy to know is that both
sites augment and update suggestions scattered meaningfully
throughout the book.
A fifth and final plus is that this book has an added application as a guidebook. The book is aimed and priced for a mass education market and may leave many who
are in the business of researching or teaching classroom leadership
skills to wonder what is here for them. To repeat what I have
indicated elsewhere, a forte of the book is the quality of the
explanations that are provided for moving ordinary teachers to that
extra-ordinary level. And, as also stated earlier, this book could
provide a new context from which to motivate students into seeing how leadership
skills are connected to societal success.
Just because the authors hint that their text "is about taking (or taking back) control
of [ones] own teaching journey and discovering (or rediscovering!)
the joy of helping others to learn and grow" (p. xi), this does
not mean that their book can only be used for those reasons alone. Once in a while a book that fails predominantly as a guidebook will
still have significant value as a reference source for exclusive
topics. This book addresses that possibility as it is a worthwhile
read, from cover to cover, for all practicing classroom teachers,
parents and members of the wider community.
While the editors limn their book as "a source book and as a workbook" (p. xiii),
I feel that their product is of equal value as a reference guide for
those who already have some basic understanding of the research
associated with classroom leadership strategies but who want to
address specific gaps in their research knowledge base. In the end,
I would expect that this book will be read widely, especially by
those who research pedagogy and teach courses in the psychology of
teacher leadership.
Weaknesses
Though it is a reviewer's responsibility to point out the faults of a book,
I must say that the (above) strengths well outweigh any weaknesses. Having said that, I must also mention that I have yet to review a
book that is without blemish and, as is the case with most first
editions, this book is not without its weak points. To be fair to the authors,
in a publication that covers such key and current instructional
strategies as this one does, it is always possible to find minor
things to quibble about. But my critiques are minor. Here then are
the more glaring slip-ups that I spotted.
My lone critique of this book stems from a few proofreading oversights
that did escape the final editing phase. First, and located at the
bottom of page 74, the reader is shown an asterisk to the left of the
Universal Resource Locator (URL)
www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/aims/. There is no corresponding asterisk on that page. As there is a
quote from the British document Every Child Matters, at the
top of the page, I believe that that the absent asterisk should have
been placed there.
Two additional but major proofreading errors surfaced on page 128. Both
blunders prevent the more serious reader from accessing two quite
critical websites! In the Further Information section of
Resources and Further Reading (see pp. 127-128), two of the
three URLs are not operational. The "Branton's website: http://www.miresearch.com"
link should read "Branton's website: http://www.miresearch.org"
and the URL for the link "This book's wikispace:
http://extraordinary-teachers.wikispace.com/" should read "This
book's wikispace: http://extraordinary-teachers.wikispaces.com/". Hopefully, the next printing will have these oversights
rectified. In the interim, the authors might make a
notation of such inaccuracies on their websites, or request that the publisher
place an erratum in the book. In the end however, such slipups do
not detract from the greater worth of this book.
Conclusion
Creating Extra-Ordinary Teachers: Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom and
Beyond is an excellent book, written in an accessible and engaging manner, advancing the argument
that, overall, leadership represents a key factor for success, be it within
the rows of classroom desks or out in the wider workplace. It expounds the reality of aspiring to
being a classroom leader in a format that is easy to understand. Will this book scare
some readers away from classroom teaching as a (possible) profession? Possibly,
but that might be constructive. This book facilitates discussion rather than
regurgitating theory or fact. It is obviously anchored in Howard Gardner's
Theory of Multiple Intelligences, but it offers real-life school examples that
prospective teachers can recognize and engage with. Most important, the
readers can become part of the brawl, so-to-speak, that all will find in the
world of present-day classroom instruction.
Read
this book if you want to shore up your own ideas about the personal
strategies for becoming an extraordinary instructor. Read this book if you want a
glimpse into an overview of the trials and tribulations of molding
ordinary individuals into super leaders. Both author develop their
thoughts and lay them out, clearly for the reader to view and
interpret. Although each of the four sections of the book can stand
on their own and provide insight and food for thought to the reader,
the concepts presented are interwoven throughout. Thus, I feel that
the book is best read as a whole.
Is this book worth having on your bookshelf? Definitely a yes.
This book is not only a must-read for those involved in classroom education
but for that wannabe office manager. It is always arrogant to predict
the future, but my speculation is that this book will have made an enduring
contribution to the emerging field of extra-ordinary classroom leadership.
Were I to present a professional development (PD) day workshop to educators, I
would surely quote often from this book, especially from some of the appealing
case studies and personal leadership stories. Everyone likes a story and
this book indeed contains many! I thought that I understood MI, but I
have never been confronted with such a realistic approach to putting it into
practice and hence improving my own personal knowledge. No one will turn
its final page without having gained precious information and wisdom that will
directly and noticeably improve leadership development. Truly, a
well-crafted book and rewarding read!
References
Brooks, D. (2007, September 14).
The waning of IQ. New York Times, Op-Ed Column, A25.
Fleetham, M. (2006). Multiple Intelligences in Practice: Enhancing Self-esteem and Learning in the Classroom. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group.
Fleetham, M. (2007). Pocket PAL: Multiple Intelligences. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group.
Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences. New York: Basic Books.
Gardner, H. (1993). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences: Tenth anniversary edition. New York: Basic Books.
Gardner, H. (1999). Intelligence reframed: Multiple intelligences for the 21st century. New York: Basic Books.
Gardner, H. (2000, October). Using multiple intelligences to improve negotiation theory and practice. Negotiation Journal, 16(4), 321-324.
Graen, George, B. (2007, September). Asking the wrong questions about leadership. American Psychologist, 62(6), 604-605.
Hackman, Richard J., &Wageman, Ruth. (2007, January). Asking the right questions about leadership:
Discussion and conclusions. American Psychologist, 62(1), 43-47.
Kezar, A. (2001). Theory of multiple intelligences: Implications for higher learning. Innovative Higher Learning, 26(2), 141-154.
Martin, J. (2003, May). Multiple intelligences and business diversity. Journal of Career Assessment, 11(2), 187-204.
O'Brien, P., &Burnett, Paul, C. (2000). Counselling children using a multiple intelligences framework. British Journal of Guidance and Counselling, 28(3), 353-371.
Reicher, S. D., Haslam, S., & Platow, M. J. (2009). The New Psychology of Leadership: Identity, Influence and
Power. New York: Psychology Press.
Reicher, S. D., Platow, M. J., Haslam, S. A. (2007, August/September). The New Psychology of Leadership.
Scientific American Mind, 18(4), 22-29.
Salvador, L. (2007, April 18). Human intelligence: Going beyond mere IQ. American Chronicle.
Shearer, C. B. (1996). The MIDAS: A guide to assessment and education for the multiple intelligences. Columbus, OH: Greyden Press.
Shearer, B. & Fleetham, M. (2008). Creating Extra-Ordinary Teachers: Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom and
Beyond. New York:
The Continuum International Publishing Group.
Sternberg, R., J. (2007, January). A systems model of leadership: WICS. American Psychologist, 62(1), 34-42.
Visser, Beth A., Ashton, Michael C. , & Vernon, Philip, A. (2006).
Beyond g: Putting multiple intelligences theory to the test. Intelligence, 34(5), 487-502.
Weller, David, L. (1999). Application of the multiple intelligences theory in quality organizations. Team Performance Management, 5(4), 136-146.
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Revised by Clifford Morris on Saturday, 07 March, 2009