Frames of MInd

What lead me to reading Howard Gardner's Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences ? (New York: Basic Books, 1983) I had heard a lot about it, and it was included along with several other works by Gardner, on the bibliography given to me by the the Organizational Development expert. The big reason, however, was because I am intrigued by the concept of multiple intelligences, and want to learn more. From one angle, I had been a believer in multiple intelligences for a while, probably since a teaching methods course early in my library career. As a popular notion, multiple intelligences seemed to make sense to me. I also wanted to discover what the theory behind it was; I thought that Gardner's book could answer some questions about how the intelligences work, where they come from, and how (if at all) they are different than ingrained personality traits or abilities. Plus, there is something exciting about reading the ground breaking work that created a sensation in the education and psychology world.

In my encounter with Gardner's theories, I also had a desire to see how this applied to team building and group work. I thought that I could get some good information about how the musical intelligence might factor into what people are doing in a drumming session. I focused also on the chapters about the body-kinesthetic intelligence, and the personal intelligences, since I thought these might also play a role in the groups. The introductory chapter where Gardner lays the groundwork for his theory of intelligence by putting it into context of the historical concepts of intelligence, was important. I began to see the intellectual and scientific theories of intelligence out of which the theory comes. As I found out through my reading, Gardner approaches his subject very much from a cognitive psychology point of view.

It seemed that Gardner was painting a picture of intelligence as not being some static thing that each person has a certain amount of, and no more or less (such as the static score given from an IQ test). Rather, he seemed to be building up evidence to show that what goes under the umbrella term "intelligence" is really a combination of differing actions and processes, talents and gifts, or even simply ways of processing information and understanding the world. He states: "Reason, intelligence, logic, knowledge are not synonymous; and much of this book constitutes an effort to tease out the various skills and capacities that have to easily been combined under the rubric of "the mental" (p. 6-7). He wants to better elucidate what is at work when someone "intelligently" interacts with the world. What do they do? He echoes Dewey's Pattern of Inquiry when he states that "an intellectual competence must entail a set of skills of problem solving--enabling he individual to resolve genuine problems or difficulties that he or she encounters, and when appropriate, to create an effective product--and must also entail the potential for finding or creating problems--thereby laying the groundwork for the acquisition of new knowledge.: (p 60-61).

It is instructive that a lot of the examples for the multiple intelligences comes from research into the activity of the brain (the ubiquitous "brain research" you read about in education periodicals) when a person is performing certain activities. If I understand Gardner right, there are specific locations that are energized in the brain when, say, hearing musical tones, than when someone is reading a book. The areas of the brain are a hint to the fact that a "separate intelligence" might be at work.

Of course, I was interested to see what Gardner said about musical intelligence, since I would think that people who are involved in a group drumming exercise might want to know something about their innate musical intelligence. The chapter was interesting, and I focused on his description of the evolution of music cultures: Stone Age instruments have been found, and the fact that there is presumptive evidence that music played a societal role in organizing work groups, hunting parties, and religious rites (p. 115). Gardner also states that there is "a core set of abilities crucial to all participation in the musical experience of a culture. These core abilities should be found in any normal individual brought into regular contact with any kind of music" (p. 104) My point would be to emphasize to participants that, despite a belief they may hold that they "are not musical", that there are basic ways that they make music, and that drumming and rhythm is one of them. Yes, they are musical and we can all participate in this kind of music! Rhythm is very basic, and it is something that we are all attuned to; just listen to your heartbeat, and you will see that you have an innate rhythm. Just tap your feet to some music that you like, and you know that you have rhythm.

While I did not delve into Frames of Mind too deeply, I did learn some things. The book was written in an academic, sometimes stilted style which I sometimes go for, and sometimes think it gets in the way of my understanding. However, I think his attempt to expand the notion of what it means to be "intelligent", is very creative and important to today's world. We need to see how we all have a unique set of abilities, but we also have much in common. All of this is to say that I am glad that I read selections of Gardner's book, if only to get some background and (hopefully) to bring some of these concepts into my group team building sessions. I think I now have a more informed perspective, and can recognize different kinds of intelligences that are at work in everybody.