How many intelligences?

Education Next, Fall, 2004

Daniel Willingham's critique of Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences ("Reframing the Mind," Check the Facts, Summer 2004) is yet another attempt by a psychometric supremacist to quash other views of intelligence.

Psychometric diehards assume that the correct model of intelligence can be generated by investigating how people think in highly atypical situations. It is true, as Willingham writes, that data from 130,000 individuals enabled John Carroll to produce a three-tiered model of intellect--with g (general intelligence) atop it all. But it is also true that those 130,000 individuals were largely plopped into isolated rows where they frenetically addressed peculiar puzzles and bubble-in answer sheets.

Rather than investigating bubble-sheet results, Gardner sought to illuminate the mental abilities that underlie actual human accomplishments found across cultures. What makes people capable mathematicians and writers as well as teachers, historians, farmers, artists, and even comedians? Gardner tackled this question by drawing on a wide array of evidence from the sciences and social sciences. Since statistical techniques for analyzing this diversity of evidence do not exist, Gardner could not simply use traditional methods. Therefore, he laid out his evidence, criteria, and reasoning--just as, for instance, Charles Darwin did.

Does this mean that all uses of Gardner's theory are effective? No. Gardner, who had not anticipated the wide use of his theory in schools, initially encouraged broad experimentation with it. Hence there were brilliant and stupid uses. My recently published investigation of 41 schools that use multiple intelligences theory has identified those practices that enable educators to use the theory, not for its own sake, but to enable students to produce high-level work. It remains highly questionable whether psychometric theories, which are neither the whole story of human intelligence nor terribly useful to teachers, can do anything similar.

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MINDY L. KORNHABER

Pennsylvania State University

University Park, Pennsylvania

The school that I lead, the New City School, has been implementing multiple intelligences theory since 1988. Our experiences with using Gardner's theory have been very positive. Multiple intelligences theory is a tool that can be used to enable more children to learn and to enable children to learn more. By considering all of the intelligences as they plan and teach, teachers become student-centered rather than curriculum-focused. Too often, schooling is designed so that the only students who succeed are those who are strong in the scholastic intelligences (linguistic and logical-mathematical). In a multiple intelligences school, all of the intelligences are used as tools to facilitate and support students as they learn the requisite curriculum and skills. Our program is no less rigorous because of our use of Gardner's theory; instead, our use of multiple intelligences gives our students richer and wider ways to learn.

THOMAS R. HOERR

New City School

St. Louis, Missouri

Many educators object to the unitary view of intelligence because it tends to narrowly circumscribe the measurement of intelligence and to emphasize verbal and mathematical (and related) skills. It is assumed that even if one could measure a broader range of abilities, the results would not alter any particular child's standing on a combined intelligence scale. Verbal and math skills have traditionally been the focus of intelligence tests because these skills were the focus of schools; hence inquiry into understanding children's intelligence was limited to those skills viewed as essential to learning. As Willingham says, "If it was important in school, it was important on the intelligence test."

Educators have good reasons for seeking alternative views. If by reconstructing our views of children's intelligence we can successfully teach a wider range of students, teachers should not be accused of being confused for doing just that.

LAURA ROGERS

Francis W. Parker Charter School

Devens, Massachusetts

Worcester responds

William G. Howell concludes that the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) has had "little impact at all" on the Worcester Public Schools ("One Child at a Time," Feature, Summer 2004). He bases this conclusion solely on the fact that few parents in Worcester chose to exercise their rights to switch schools or to choose a for-profit vendor for after-school tutoring--options they possess under the federal law's school choice and supplemental services provisions.

But should we be surprised that few parents chose to move their children to other schools? Howell reports that 80 percent of the Worcester parents he surveyed indicated that they were satisfied with their child's school. Satisfied parents do not transfer their children out of a school.

Howell neglects to mention that among the 14 largest urban districts in Massachusetts, Worcester had the second highest percentage (68 percent) of schools meeting state targets for making "adequate yearly progress" under the law; the statewide average was 48 percent. As a district, we met adequate yearly progress targets in English for all economic and ethnic subgroups of students.