John White | admits, he might well have decided not | |||||
1 | ‘How many of your intelligences have | to call them “intelligences” at all, but | ||||
you used today?’ This notice at the | “forms of knowledge”. This is not | |||||
entrance to an Australian school refers | psychology at all. | |||||
to Howard Gardner’s multiple | 6 | The further one looks into the | ||||
intelligence (MI) theory, which is big | theory, the more unsubstantiated it | |||||
in school improvement in Britain and | appears. There are eight criteria by | |||||
across the world. Gardner claims that | which an intelligence is identified, but | |||||
there are eight or more intelligences - | no reason is given for selecting them. | |||||
not just one - including musical, | Gardner stirs into his own flaky theory | |||||
spatial and bodily-kinaesthetic as well | another[id:54239]one about symbols, | |||||
as the linguistic and mathematical | taken from aesthetics. He also holds | |||||
sorts found in intelligence tests. There | that each intelligence unfolds from | |||||
is only one problem: the intelligences | birth to maturity on the pattern of | |||||
have no substance. | biological development in plants and | |||||
2 | This is not just of academic | animal bodies. | ||||
interest. Across the world, pupils are | 7 | This is assumed, not argued, and it | ||||
being taught that they are by nature | is also false. As they grow up, children | |||||
bodily or spatially or interpersonally | usually become better at | |||||
intelligent. They are becoming | understanding other people, but this is | |||||
imprisoned in mythical selfperceptions | not because some seed of interpersonal | |||||
which may well limit their | intelligence has been genetically | |||||
ideas about what they are capable of | implanted in their brains and gradually | |||||
learning. Granted, MI is a godsend to | develops to its full potential. It is | |||||
teachers dealing with children weak on | because of what they learn through | |||||
the basics and hampered by thoughts | experience, from those around them | |||||
of themselves as “thick”. | and the writers they may read. | |||||
3 | There is an excellent example of | 8 | Back to Phil Beadle and the | |||
this in Channel 4’s recent series The | thousands of other British teachers | |||||
Unteachables. Teacher of the Year Phil | sold on MI. Why do they think it true? | |||||
Beadle, faced with a group of | Do they go along with it because so | |||||
disruptive and low-attaining 13-yearolds, | much of today’s teaching world says it | |||||
managed to get them sitting down | delivers the goods? Because it | |||||
long enough to tick their way through | emanates from a Harvard professor | |||||
an inventory of their various abilities. | who must have done the proper | |||||
The verdict was, as he told them, that | research? | |||||
most were strong in bodily and musical | 9 | We don’t know. What we do know | ||||
intelligence. He tailored his pedagogy | is that for many of them it is a lifeline. | |||||
accordingly, teaching punctuation | They use it to change pupils’ beliefs | |||||
karate-fashion and the concept of the | about themselves, to coax them to | |||||
adjective via lyrics sung to the guitar. | learn in non-traditional ways. Does it | |||||
4 | It was a riveting piece of teaching, | matter, then, if MI theory leaks like a | ||||
but does the theory behind it hold | sieve as long as it works in practice? In | |||||
water? Human beings are intelligent | other words, does truth matter? | |||||
creatures in all sorts of ways, and | 10 | It should do, to teachers of all | ||||
Gardner is right that there is no reason | people. That aside, is it really the case | |||||
to privilege abstract areas like | that MI yields results? Zaak and Grace | |||||
language, logic and mathematics. | and the other young “unteachables” | |||||
Intelligent behaviour is about | may now think of themselves not as | |||||
flexibility in the ways one reaches one’s | thick but as bodily or musically | |||||
goals and there are as many types of | intelligent. That is the sort of person | |||||
intelligence as there are types of goal. | they are. They are made that way, so | |||||
Whether we take boxing, biology, or | how could they be expected to be | |||||
bringing up children, each activity | anything else? The danger of this kind | |||||
brings its own kind of practical | of thinking should be obvious - | |||||
judgment. | especially to teachers sceptical about | |||||
5 | Gardner has corralled this variety | the traditional idea of intelligence and | ||||
into eight categories, not by | its assumptions about mental | |||||
painstakingly examining how people | limitations. MI shares with this idea its | |||||
behave, but through his own value | determinist orientation, its belief that | |||||
judgments about what intellectual | nature calls most of the shots. In its | |||||
competences are important. He is | pluralistic way, it is as constraining as | |||||
looking for “a reasonably complete | IQ. | |||||
gamut of the kinds of abilities valued | The writer is Emeritus Professor of | |||||
by human cultures” - and the multiple | Philosophy of Education | |||||
intelligences are what fit the bill. As he | The Independent |