Happy Birthday Howard Gardner | 11th July

Happy Birthday Howard Gardner! Born: 11 July 1943 (age 79 years)!

Howard Earl Gardner is an American developmental psychologist and the John H. and Elisabeth A. Hobbs Research Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education at Harvard University. (Source – wikipedia | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Gardner)

As a Psychologist who deal with career development and career consultation, I personally explored lot on Howard Garner’s Mutiple Intelligence Theory. It shows the various Intelligences that an individual posses and based on that how we can nurture him/her accordingly.

According to Gardner, there is no ONE WAY to become smarter. Since the smartness associated with different parts of the brain, he thought there may be many ways to become smarter. He did research with kids and adults to discover more about how people learn. He named his theory as Multiple Intelligence Theory or MI Theory.

He came up with names for the different kinds of intelligences. Here are the eight kinds of smart he talked about: (1) Linguistic Intelligence, (2) Musical Intelligence, (3) Logical/Mathematical Intelligence, (4) Spatial Intelligence, (5) Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence, (6) Interpersonal Intelligence, (7) Intrapersonal Intelligence, and (8) Naturalist Intelligence, (9) Existential Intelligence (Life Smart).

There are few assessment tools to decode these smartness in children & adults. Post decoding, the assessor should be competent enough to explain the significant findings of the assessment to their parents (for children) or to them (for adults).

Since I am practicing this theory for quite a long time, I feel that decoding and explaining anyone can do. The challenging part is nurturing. Any nurturing needs perfect practice with continuous effort. For children, even when we find the smartness in them through MI Theory, they cannot explore their smartness 100% in schools.

In India, the Smart System should get implemented in all schools, irrespective of the curriculum. Setting up or organizing the classroom in such a way that areas of the room are dedicated to specific intelligences. Although students can certainly engage in MI activities while seated at their desks, the use of long periods of seat time places significant limits on the kinds of MI experiences they can have. Restructuring the classroom to create “intelligence-friendly” areas or activity centers can greatly expand the parameters for student exploration in each domain.

Looking forward to implement this wonderful assessment to all children with proper system in schools not only in India but across the world.

Let’s create SMART WORLD with Smart NextGen!

Note: I have attached few pictures which are downloaded from different sources in internet. As an author of this article, I don’t claim any credit for those pictures.

In Gratitude – N.R.Rakesh Babu | Psychologist | PhD Research Scholar | www.rakeshbabu.com