New City School - Multiple Intelligences

Multiple Intelligences

Multiple Intelligences at New City School

In 1988 we began implementing Harvard Professor Howard Gardner’s theory of Multiple Intelligences (MI). We did this because MI supported our beliefs that all children have talent, that the arts are important, and that who you are is more important than what you know. MI becomes a tool to help our students learn. For us, using MI has been a profound experience. It has affected how we design our curriculum, how we teach and assess, how we work as colleagues, and how we communicate with our students’ parents.

What is “smart"?

What began as a theory of intelligence, intended for psychologists, has become a tool that educators around the world seize with enthusiasm.The theory of Multiple Intelligences (MI) brings a very pragmatic approach to how we define intelligence and allows us to use our students’ strengths to help them learn. Students who read and write well are still smart, but they are joined by other students who have different talents. Schools and classrooms become settings in which a variety of skills and abilities can be used to learn and solve problems. Being smart is no longer solely determined by a score on a test; it is also determined and assessed by how well students learn in a variety of ways.

What are the "multiple intelligences"?

The Theory of Multiple Intelligences

Often “smart” is defined as doing well on a standardized test or being a good reader, writer, and calculator. Standardized tests are important and students must be strong in the 3 R’s. But a realistic definition of intelligence is much broader than this.

The theory of multiple intelligences (MI) brings a very pragmatic approach to how we define intelligence and allows us to use our students’ strengths to help them learn. Students who read and write well are still smart, but they are joined by other students who have different talents. Being smart is no longer determined by a score on a test but, rather, by how well students learn in a variety of ways.

Howard Gardner set out the theory of multiple intelligences (MI) in his 1983 book, Frames Of Mind. He defines intelligence as the ability to solve a problem or create a product that is valued in a society. Gardner’s eight intelligences are:

Linguistic: sensitivity to the meaning and order of words
Logical-Mathematical: the ability to handle chains of reasoning and to recognize patterns and order
Musical: sensitivity to pitch, melody, rhythm and tone
Bodily-Kinesthetic: the ability to use the body skillfully and handle objects adroitly
Spatial: the ability to perceive the world accurately and to recreate or transform aspects of that world
Naturalist: the ability to recognize and classify the numerous species, the flora and fauna, of an environment
Interpersonal: the ability to understand people and relationships
Intrapersonal: access to one's emotional life as a means to understand oneself and others

At New City School, we work to build on all of the intelligences. Students learn to read, write, and calculate, but they also learn how to use other strengths in solving problems. Our faculty has written extensively about how MI can help students learn (and teachers grow) in Celebrating Every Learner (Jossey-Bass, 2010).