Princeton, MA
Howard Gardner developed the theory of multiple intelligences (MIs) in the early '80s. Gardner's teacher and great influence was the late Erik Erickson (See Erik Erickson & Play, June 14, 2007).
Long before the work of Daniel Goleman and others in emotional intelligence, Gardner was writing about the multi-dimensionality of human cognition. His most recent book, Five Minds of The Future, provides a broadly gauged but useful update to his earlier work.
Gardner suggests that we have find minds - disciplinary, synthesizing, creating, respectful and ethical - or at least these five minds should be developed and work in unison with one another to produce great thinkers, artists, professionals and leaders. Indeed, Gardner's pursuit here is to explore how we should be producing minds, which often seems the antithesis of the teach-to-the-test rote learning of No Child Left Behind and other politically motivated educational initiatives.
Gardner is certainly correct when he says "that current formal education still prepares students primarily for the world of the past, rather than for possible worlds of the future." (p.17) What those who diminish arts education miss, for example, is preparing young people to experiment, take risks, learn from failure, see abstract connections, and engage in levels of subtlety needed to succeed.
Just skim Tim Weiner's deeply disturbing string of historic CIA failures in Legacy of Ashes and one readily sees the limits of incurious, one-dimensional and regimented learning. Keep in mind that the "smartest guys in the room" at the CIA put the Baathists in charge of Iraq with Saddam Hussein among them, created endless troubles in Iran after their unlawful Mossadegh toppling, engineered the Bay of Pigs fiasco despite dire advance warnings of disaster, failed the Hungarians in their 1956 revolt, completely missed the Suez Crisis in 1956, did not anticipate the Soviet Union's demise, and fabricated apocalyptic WMD predictions prior to the current Iraq War.
Yet it is likely that Alan Dulles, Richard Bissell and even George Tenet aced every standard test they ever took. "Reflective practitioners" they weren't - and aren't in the case of the Bush Administration - to use Donald Schon's term. And remember the DePaul University study that found current MBA students saying they want more technical and financial skills and less of the so-called "soft skills" involving leadership, creativity, empathy and communication. (See When Will We Learn, August 3, 2007)
I am most interested in Gardner's work on synthesis. It was as routine as it was predictable in my corporate career to witness the rejection of Gardner's synthesizing mind. All the value went to narrow, non-threatening expertise in financial, legal and technical subject matter. Take a current business challenge, give it a powerful historic metaphor, link it to certain cultural or scientific trends, imbue it with compelling narrative and watch employees and markets get very excited. And watch your CEO and top-management peers think you're some kind of intellectual, perish the thought. Gardner rightly says "the forces that stand in the way of synthesis are formidable." He adds that "as a species, we are predisposed to learn skills in certain contexts and to resist - or at least find challenging - their wider generalizations and broader applications." (p.47) This underscores the power of Vartan Gregorian's call for a specialization in becoming a generalist. We certainly do need far more curious, broad-minded generalists among our leaders today.
Gardner discusses another one of my concerns. Why is it that we drain ourselves of curiosity and childlike sensibility by the time we reach adulthood? What a loss. Gardner writes that "the mind of the five-year-old represents the height of creative powers." I never wanted to lose certain childlike behaviors - what embryologists call neoteny - and, well, people who know me say that I have not. Yet I certainly had to hide these curious, inquiring and playful tendencies in corporate life (See Erickson). Gardner writes that most corporations tout their creativity, but few actually demonstrate the courage of those convictions. He notes that great companies like 3M and GE have overcome such insecurities and are quite comfortable with creativity.
Finally, Gardner includes the ethical mind in his formulations crossing somewhat as it does beyond pure cognition and into the realm of affective and behavioral science. Why is such a claim paramount in today's ethically hobbled world? Well, he quotes Rabbi Jonathan Sacks whose profound wisdom follows: "When everything that matters can be bought and sold, when commitments can be broken because they are no longer to our advantage, when shopping becomes salvation and advertising slogans become our litany, when our worth is measured by how much we earn and spend, then the market is destroying the very virtues on which in the long run it depends." (p.137)
Howard Gardner developed the theory of multiple intelligences (MIs) in the early '80s. Gardner's teacher and great influence was the late Erik Erickson (See Erik Erickson & Play, June 14, 2007).
Long before the work of Daniel Goleman and others in emotional intelligence, Gardner was writing about the multi-dimensionality of human cognition. His most recent book, Five Minds of The Future, provides a broadly gauged but useful update to his earlier work.
Gardner suggests that we have find minds - disciplinary, synthesizing, creating, respectful and ethical - or at least these five minds should be developed and work in unison with one another to produce great thinkers, artists, professionals and leaders. Indeed, Gardner's pursuit here is to explore how we should be producing minds, which often seems the antithesis of the teach-to-the-test rote learning of No Child Left Behind and other politically motivated educational initiatives.
Gardner is certainly correct when he says "that current formal education still prepares students primarily for the world of the past, rather than for possible worlds of the future." (p.17) What those who diminish arts education miss, for example, is preparing young people to experiment, take risks, learn from failure, see abstract connections, and engage in levels of subtlety needed to succeed.
Just skim Tim Weiner's deeply disturbing string of historic CIA failures in Legacy of Ashes and one readily sees the limits of incurious, one-dimensional and regimented learning. Keep in mind that the "smartest guys in the room" at the CIA put the Baathists in charge of Iraq with Saddam Hussein among them, created endless troubles in Iran after their unlawful Mossadegh toppling, engineered the Bay of Pigs fiasco despite dire advance warnings of disaster, failed the Hungarians in their 1956 revolt, completely missed the Suez Crisis in 1956, did not anticipate the Soviet Union's demise, and fabricated apocalyptic WMD predictions prior to the current Iraq War.
Yet it is likely that Alan Dulles, Richard Bissell and even George Tenet aced every standard test they ever took. "Reflective practitioners" they weren't - and aren't in the case of the Bush Administration - to use Donald Schon's term. And remember the DePaul University study that found current MBA students saying they want more technical and financial skills and less of the so-called "soft skills" involving leadership, creativity, empathy and communication. (See When Will We Learn, August 3, 2007)
I am most interested in Gardner's work on synthesis. It was as routine as it was predictable in my corporate career to witness the rejection of Gardner's synthesizing mind. All the value went to narrow, non-threatening expertise in financial, legal and technical subject matter. Take a current business challenge, give it a powerful historic metaphor, link it to certain cultural or scientific trends, imbue it with compelling narrative and watch employees and markets get very excited. And watch your CEO and top-management peers think you're some kind of intellectual, perish the thought. Gardner rightly says "the forces that stand in the way of synthesis are formidable." He adds that "as a species, we are predisposed to learn skills in certain contexts and to resist - or at least find challenging - their wider generalizations and broader applications." (p.47) This underscores the power of Vartan Gregorian's call for a specialization in becoming a generalist. We certainly do need far more curious, broad-minded generalists among our leaders today.
Gardner discusses another one of my concerns. Why is it that we drain ourselves of curiosity and childlike sensibility by the time we reach adulthood? What a loss. Gardner writes that "the mind of the five-year-old represents the height of creative powers." I never wanted to lose certain childlike behaviors - what embryologists call neoteny - and, well, people who know me say that I have not. Yet I certainly had to hide these curious, inquiring and playful tendencies in corporate life (See Erickson). Gardner writes that most corporations tout their creativity, but few actually demonstrate the courage of those convictions. He notes that great companies like 3M and GE have overcome such insecurities and are quite comfortable with creativity.
Finally, Gardner includes the ethical mind in his formulations crossing somewhat as it does beyond pure cognition and into the realm of affective and behavioral science. Why is such a claim paramount in today's ethically hobbled world? Well, he quotes Rabbi Jonathan Sacks whose profound wisdom follows: "When everything that matters can be bought and sold, when commitments can be broken because they are no longer to our advantage, when shopping becomes salvation and advertising slogans become our litany, when our worth is measured by how much we earn and spend, then the market is destroying the very virtues on which in the long run it depends." (p.137)