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Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom

Brought to FEN by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development
By Thomas Armstrong

In 1904, the minister of public instruction in Paris asked the French psychologist Alfred Binet and a group of colleagues to develop a means of determining which primary grade students were "at risk" for failure so these students could receive remedial attention. Out of their efforts came the first intelligence tests. Imported to the United States several years later, intelligence testing became widespread, as did the notion that there was something called "intelligence" that could be objectively measured and reduced to a single number or "IQ" score.

Almost eighty years after the first intelligence tests were developed, a Harvard psychologist named Howard Gardner challenged this commonly held belief. Saying that our culture had defined intelligence too narrowly, he proposed in the book Frames of Mind (Gardner 1983) the existence of at least seven basic intelligences. In his theory of multiple intelligences (MI theory), Gardner sought to broaden the scope of human potential beyond the confines of the IQ score and suggested that intelligence has more to do with the capacity for (1) solving problems and (2) fashioning products in a context-rich and naturalistic setting.

Once this broader and more pragmatic perspective was taken, the concept of intelligence began to lose its mystique and became a functional concept that could be seen working in people's lives in a variety of ways. Gardner grouped these capabilities into seven comprehensive categories or "intelligences":

• Linguistic Intelligence: The capacity to use words effectively, whether orally (e.g., as a storyteller, orator, or politician) or in writing (e.g., as a poet, playwright, editor, or journalist).

• Logical-Mathematical Intelligence: The capacity to use numbers effectively (e.g., as a mathematician, tax accountant, or statistician) and to reason well (e.g., as a scientist, computer programmer, or logician).

• Spatial Intelligence: The ability to perceive the visual-spatial world accurately (e.g., as a hunter, scout, or guide) and to perform transformations upon those perceptions (e.g., as an interior decorator, architect, artist, or inventor).

• Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence: Expertise in using one's whole body to express ideas and feelings (e.g., as an actor, a mime, an athlete, or a dancer) and facility in using one's hands to produce or transform things (e.g., as a craftsperson, sculptor, mechanic, or surgeon).

• Musical Intelligence: The capacity to perceive (e.g., as a music aficionado), discriminate (e.g., as a music critic), transform (e.g., as a composer), and express (e.g., as a performer) musical forms.

• Interpersonal Intelligence: The ability to perceive and make distinctions in the moods, intentions, motivations, and feelings of other people.

• Intrapersonal Intelligence: Self-knowledge and the ability to act adaptively on the basis of that knowledge.

Editor's Note: When Howard Gardner wrote Frames of Mind in 1983, he deliberately limited his examination of human capacities to seven intelligences. Are there more? Yes. In fact, after this book was published Gardner added an eighth intelligence to the list. The Naturalist Intelligence is the ability to recognize plant or animal species in one's environment.]

Beyond the descriptions of the seven intelligences and their theoretical underpinnings, certain points of the model are important to remember:

1. Each person possesses all seven intelligences. Of course, the intelligences function together in ways unique to each person. Most of us fall somewhere in between two poles -- being highly developed in some intelligences, modestly developed in others, and relatively underdeveloped in the rest.

2. Most people can develop each intelligence to an adequate level of competency. Although an individual may bewail his deficiencies in a given area and consider his problems innate and intractable, Gardner suggests that virtually everyone has the capacity to develop all seven intelligences to a reasonably high level of performance if given the appropriate encouragement, enrichment, and instruction.

3. Intelligences usually work together in complex ways. Gardner points out that no intelligence exists by itself in life (except perhaps in very rare instances in savants and brain-injured individuals). Intelligences are always interacting with each other. To cook a meal, one must read the recipe (linguistic), possibly divide the recipe in half (logical-mathematical), develop a menu that satisfies all members of a family (interpersonal), and placate one's own appetite as well (intrapersonal). Similarly, when a child plays a game of kickball, he needs bodily-kinesthetic intelligence (to run, kick, and catch), spatial intelligence (to orient himself to the playing field and to anticipate the trajectories of flying balls), and linguistic and interpersonal intelligences (to successfully argue a point during a dispute in the game).

4. There are many ways to be intelligent within each category. A person may not be able to read, yet be highly linguistic because he can tell a terrific story or has a large oral vocabulary. Similarly, a person may be quite awkward on the playing field, yet possess superior bodily-kinesthetic intelligence when she weaves a carpet or creates an inlaid chess table. MI theory emphasizes the rich diversity of ways in which people show their gifts within intelligences as well as between intelligences.

   Here are some suggestions for exploring more deeply the foundations of MI theory:

   1. Form a study group on MI theory using Howard Gardner's seminal book Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences (New York: Basic Books, 1983) as a text. Each member can be responsible for reading and reporting on a specific chapter.

   2. Use Gardner's exhaustive bibliography on MI theory found in his book Multiple Intelligences: The Theory in Practice (New York: Basic Books, 1993a) as a basis for reading more widely on the model.
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