Multiple Intelligences – Some basic ideas

Hi, everybody!
At Pilgrims, I attended the Course “Teaching English through Multiple Intelligences”. Here, in this blog, I intend to share some ideas and practical exercises I got from this Course. There are lots of books and Internet articles where you can get theoretical information about the MI Theory, its founder, Howard Gardner, and a lot of people who have developed this Theory, which started with Project Zero at Harvard University. So I will not go very deeply into the subject, but concentrate on key concepts that might be useful for anyone who doesn’t know anything about the Theory and would like some basic information before a deeper investigation. So, I’ll start with a post with very basic concepts about this Theory and then I’ll go on with other posts about more practical stuff.
Here are some basic ideas about MI Theory in note form:
• The standard intelligence tests that were used throughout the 20th century focused only on three intelligences: logical- mathematical, linguistic and spacial. Lots of teachers still limit their way of teaching to these three intelligences.
• The traditional way of measuring intelligence, considering it as a general capacity you have inherited from your parents, presents you with problems when you want to measure the intelligence of people with special talents that excel in some areas but that don’t have good results in the areas that are traditionally tested.
• In 1983, Howard Gardner challenged this limited concept of intelligence by proposing a Theory that considered that individuals are born with more intelligences than those mentioned above. Based on the criteria he established, we can consider eight (and a half) intelligences – linguistic, logical-mathematical, visual/spatial, musical, intrapersonal, interpersonal, bodily kinesthetic, naturalist and existential (the one whose existence is not yet completely proved according to Howard’s criteria). Linguistic intelligence involves sensitivity to spoken and written language; logical-mathematical intelligence involves the capacity to think logically and to reason about the connections between objects, actions and ideas; visual/spatial intelligence has to do with the potential to think in images and to recognize and manipulate patterns of space; musical intelligence involves the skill in the performance, composition and appreciation of music; intrapersonal intelligence involves the capacity to understand and reflect on your own thoughts, feelings and actions; interpersonal intelligence denotes a person’s capacity to understand the intentions, motivations and desires of other people; bodily-kinesthetic intelligence entails the potential of using your body or parts of the body; naturalist intelligence has to do with the capacity to recognize and classify the various species of our environment, to think about and understand the natural world; existential intelligence involves the concern with “ultimate” issues of our human condition such as the significance of life or the meaning of death.
• Although we are all born with these intelligences, we don’t have them combined in the same way. So, according to Gardner, (1999), “…intelligences arise from the combination of a person’s genetic heritage and life conditions in a given culture and era.” So, each one of us has a “unique blend of intelligences”.
• As a consequence of this, students should not be treated in the same uniform way and teachers should be aware that each one of them is unique and intelligent in his / her own way. On the other hand, we shouldn’t forget that the intelligences do not work in isolation but they are combined in the different activities we have in our lives.

In my next post I’ll write about some misconceptions and myths related to MI Theory