Humans have the capacity for multiple intelligences, rather than just one, an expert said in a lecture Tuesday at Harvard University.

Gardner, a world-renowned professor on cognition and education, lectured to 200 people on his theory of multiple intelligences.

Gardner argued that instead of one all-encompassing intelligence, people contain eight separate intelligences, including linguistic, spatial, musical and logical intelligence.
Intelligences, Gardner said, can be compared to computers.

‘Most psychologists think that we have one general purpose computer inside our skull,’ he said. ‘I believe we have eight relatively independent computers.’

Gardner also said standardized testing is greatly flawed because it focuses only on a select few types of intelligences. The SAT, for example, only tests the linguistic and logical capacities of the mind, leaving the other six faculties untapped.

In his studies, Gardner made two scientific claims: that every person has all eight intelligences, whether they are strong or weak, and that no two people, even identical twins, have exactly the same intelligences or profiles.

Gardner also made two educational claims that acted as advice to teachers: individualize and pluralize.

‘Individualizing is to find out as much as you can about each learner and use that information to teach each child in the way that child learns best,’ Gardner said.

The theory has gained so much fame and recognition that in 1987, a school in Indianapolis, the Key Learning Community, based its entire curriculum around Gardner’s theory. Soon after, the New City School in St. Louis followed suit and created the first multiple intelligence library.

‘Kids can come in and build things, listen to music, reflecting their different intelligences,’ Gardner said.

The multiple intelligence theory has even found its way around the world. While on a visit to Macau, China, Gardner stumbled upon a drink called ‘Frisogrow’ which claimed to improve your eight intelligences if consumed.

Gardner also told the story of a colleague who was traveling in Pyongyang, North Korea and went to the capitol’s library, where he discovered that the only two books in English were ‘Stupid White Men’ by Michael Moore and Gardner’s multiple intelligence best-seller ‘Frame of Mind.’

But Gardner said that intelligence alone is not sufficient.

‘Intelligence plus character, that’s the mark of a true education,’ he said.
The crowd said they respected and admired Gardner and his theory.

‘The basis of teachers trying to adapt their teaching to the specific student seems like a very legitimate framework,’ said Peter Pruyn, a Harvard Graduate School of Education student.

‘It has clearly just transformed educational practice,’ said Meira Levenson, a professor at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. ‘I think it’s terrific and has broadened educator’s notions of what it means to produce stuff of value.’

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