People from different places have different conceptions of intelligence. And Gardner’s view of intelligence is only one of the many ideas of intelligence that we could find in different cultures all over the world. We could say thus that Gaardner's meaning is true only insofar as it coheres with his own system of findings and claims about intelligence. And it may be thought unsatisfactory by those who do not share his view of intelligence.
The educators may respond to this situation in sundry ways. Some might conduct first an evaluative inquiry, suspend their decision, and wait till they have enough reason to accept or reject the view in question. Others might just instead rely on and accept the opinion of experts whom they regard as trustworthy researchers or experts on the matter at hand. And perhaps, there are also those who shall be happy to stick to their own beloved theories, which have been the bases of their classroom practices since they started teaching. I believe that many would agree with me that the first tack is the most responsible reaction.
Gardner (1999), in his book titled Intelligence Reframed, is well aware that intelligence has a certain kind of difficulty.
"I wish this were a simple matter. Fundamentally, an intelligence refers to a biopsychological potential of our species to process certain kinds of information in certain kinds of ways. As such, it clearly involves processes that are carried out by dedicated neural networks. No doubt each of the intelligences has its characteristic neural processes, with most of them similar across human beings. Some of the processes might prove to be more customized to an individual." (p. 94)
In another part of the book, Gardner (1999) gave the following for a definition of intelligence:
"I now conceptualize an intelligence as a biopsychological potential to process information that can be activated in a cultural setting to solve problems or create products that are of value in a culture. This modest change in wording is important because it suggests that intelligences are not things that can be seen or counted. Instead they are potentials—presumably, neural ones—that will or will not be activated, depending upon the values of a particular culture, the opportunities available in that culture, and the personal decisions made by individuals and/or their families, schoolteachers, and others." (pp. 33-34)
Now, it's worth noting that Gardner is not interested in using psychometric instruments to measure the different intelligences that he believes a human being may have. As to whether a candidate intelligence deserves to be included in his current list of intelligences, Gardner relied on a set of criteria that he developed. (I’ll have more to say about the validity of his criteria later.) Now, Gardner maintains that research shows that the mightiest scientific evidence ever produced about intelligence is in favor of his view of intelligence or the MI theory. Granting that that is true, we must not lose sight just the same of the fact that this is his beloved theory. I am thus still leery as regards the scientific status of MI. Note again that Gardner himself is not interested in using psychometric instruments. Could this be taken as a sign that some intelligences defy scientific measurement? If, for instance, there is no widely accepted scientific way of testing one’s intrapersonal intelligence, then it is difficult to include such faculty in the list of solidly scientific concepts. Perhaps, it is fair at this point to ask if there is really a widely accepted way of determining one’s level of intrapersonal intelligence. It is, however, possible that long before the immediately foregoing thoughts could have occurred to many school personnel, they already had decided to embrace MI theory faithfully and put it into action. And, of course, this is not a remote possibility owing to the undeniable strength of appeal of the MI theory that Gardner himself, as suggested earlier, is aware of even if psychometric testing does not appear to have a grand place in his theory.
Again, Gardner’s suggested notion of intelligent person is only one of the many cultural versions of ideal human being. This he made evident in the opening section of Intelligence Reframed. He himself knows that the set of requirements to meet in order to be considered an intelligent person could vary from one society to another. But while he does not deny that there is a plethora of views about intelligence, he had to make a choice, which is, again, by no means universally acceptable. He adopted a somewhat radical way of seeing intelligence called modularity. With this, it appears now that his next important task is to provide a satisfactory justification for this belief and to get people from different cultures to accept his picture and idea of the mind and its workings. This, I believe, is what Gardner has already started doing and there are signs that he is beginning to hold sway in the minds of many educators on this issue inside and outside the United States--at least within the range of the not-so-distant past and the present moment.
Reference: Gardner, Howard. (1999). Intelligence reframed: Multiple intelligences for the 21st century. NY: Basic Books.
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