Gardner's Multiple Intelligences in our Classrooms:
Students Are Smarter Than We Think: Part II (of III)
by Clifford Morris

Those who evaluate school success state that pupil achievement is poor.  These same reviewers conclude their articles by stating that efforts at improvements have ranged from altering how schools are organized to changing classroom teaching methods.  I would conclude such a review by          stating that, basic to such change, is how teachers view the psychological construct called 'intelligence.'  This second of three articles continues to address that need to change and how teachers could become a vital part of this exciting process.

Your child's eight intelligence styles

Let us pause briefly and conduct two mental experiments.  First, look at your own children.  Are they intelligent in more ways than one: for example, in music, in sports, in chess, in debating, or in computer science, to name just five?  The most sensible approach to measuring these talents would be to recognize their multiplicity.

As our other mental exercise, use the enclosed banner to visualize a child's mind as a "boxing ring", squared off into four learning corners, formed by the intersection of the following two continuums of human abilities.  The first and vertical continuum is more affective in nature and represents a learning spectrum ranging from a high self-efficacy (a belief in one's ability to get a job done) and internal locus-of-control (the extent to which we view our successes and failures as either contingent upon or independent of our own behaviors) to a lower level of self-efficacy (Bandura, 1977, 1982, 1986; Bandura & Adams & Beyer, 1977; Bandura et al, 1980; Bandura & Schunk, 1981; Bandura & Simon, 1977) and external locus-of-control (Coopersmith, 1967; Rotter, 1975).  The second and horizontal continuum represents an intelligence continuum, ranging from a unitary form of mind as measured by IQ-type tests (Wechsler, 1958) to a much broader view of cognition (Gardner, 1983).

I view the intersection of these two continuums as forming four intelligent "corners".  The most negative end of one polar opposite is located in the lower left hand corner.  Here spar students "at risk"; children with a low level of self-esteem, an external locus-of-control, and very limited in IQ-type skills (in the main, language and logic).  We often label these youngsters as LD (Learning Disabled).  In the opposite corner of our "ring" spar those students "at promise"; students whose LD label is much more positive.  Simply stated, they Learn Differently (Armstrong, 1987, 1988).

Each of the flashing line segments intersecting both continuums exemplify one of Gardner's eight intelligences.  They purport to pinpoint the location of a prototype student in each intelligence.  The closer a student is positioned to the upper right hand corner on any one intelligence, the more "promising" that student's ability is hypothesized to be of an intellectual nature.

I firmly believe that most of our classroom youngsters are unaware of their talents on each of these spectrums.  Many often perceive themselves as educational washouts; they fail to realize that they have a learning strength in, at least, one of those strands.  Such students frequently become discouraged and withdrawn.  Often, they become aggressive and rebellious to mask their low self-esteem, due, in part, to their ignorance of their "intelligences".  As I work with such students, I am constantly reminded of Vail's (1987) text which states that a focus on weaknesses at the expense of developing talents can result in poor self-esteem, a lack of motivation, and depression.

To summarize the above, I believe that as teachers, we must retrain ourselves to  think that cognition may be pluralistic.  Then, we must work with our fellow colleagues to devise statistically reliable and valid assessment instruments to measure and train such intelligences.

How can such a task be accomplished?  June Maker, at the University of Arizona, is developing procedures to translate Gardner's hypothesis into measurable psychometric data.  Gardner and his colleagues are publishing a final report on Project Spectrum.  This handbook will include suggestions and techniques on assessing and training intelligences (Gardner and Feldman, 1989).  In the interim, I am field testing my own computer program called Smarter.

Smarter

In many ways, the education value of Smarter is inherent in its name.  The acronym stands for Stimulated Minds Are Really The End Result which indicates the overall intention of my ongoing research.  Smarter contains a series of intelligence cards.  Each card highlights an activity best describing a specific learning style based directly on one of Gardner's intelligences.  Students respond to a 7-item Likert-type scale questionnaire.  Current field testing of Smarter has enabled me to analyze several measures important in informally rating intelligences in students.  I am able to assess domain specific strengths and learning limitations from various content centered areas.  Students who appear to learn better visually prefer seeing Smarter's overall summary of their responses in a vertical bar graph format.

Summary

As classroom teachers, we see many students who think that they are dumb or stupid when, in fact, they possess many different skills and abilities.  If we are to enhance their level of self-esteem, perhaps we ought to be viewing them as repositories of not just a single IQ-type language-logic skill, but as youngsters with a wider array of domain specific skills, ... or, to coin Howard Gardner, INTELLIGENCES  writ large.

References

Armstrong, T.  (1987).  In their own way: Discovering and encouraging your child's personal learning style.  New York: St. Martin's Press.

Armstrong, T.  (1988, September).  Learning Differences--Not Disabilities.  Principal, 68(1), 34-36.

Bandura, Albert  (1977).  Towards a unifying theory of behavior change.  Psychological Review, 84, 1999-215.

Bandura, A. (1982).  Self-efficacy mechanism in human agency.  American Psychologist, 37, 122-147.

Bandura, A. (1986).  Social foundations of thought and action: A social-cognitive view.  Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Bandura, A., Adams, N. E., & Beyer, J.  (1977).  Cognitive processes mediating behavioral change. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35, 125-139.

Bandura, A., Adams, N. E., Hardy, A. B., & Howells, G. N. (1980).  Tests of the generality of self-efficacy theory.  Cognitive Theory and Research, 4, 39-66.

Bandura, A., & Schunk, D. H. (1981).  Cultivating competence, self- efficacy, and intrinsic interest through proximal self-motivation.  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 41, 586-598.

Bandura, A., & Simon, K. M. (1977).  The role of proximal intentions in self regulation of refractory behavior.  Cognitive Therapy and Research, 1, 177-193.

Gardner, H.  (1983).  Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences.  New York: Basic Books.

Gardner, H. & Feldman, D.  1989.  Final report on Project Spectrum.  Submitted to the Spencer Foundation.

Rotter, J. B.  (1975).  Some problems and misconceptions related to the construct of internal versus external locus of reinforcement.  Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology,  43(1), 56-57.

Vail, P. L.  (1987).  Smart kids with school problems: Things to know and ways to help.  New York: Penguin Books.

Wechsler, D.  (1958).  The measurement and appraisal of adult intelligence.  (5th ed.).  Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins.

In the final article, I describe how educators are currently involved in pilot projects exclusively designed to implement the practical aspects of Gardner's ideas.

Note

The original version of this article was published in 1992 when the author was a grade 5/6 classroom teacher at John Young Elementary School, Kanata, Ontario, Canada.  The current version has been slightly revised and updated.

home | Most recently revised on Wednesday, 21 July, 2004