Howard Gardner

Twenty years ago Howard Gardner, a Harvard University professor, offered the world a new and alternative way of how children can “be smart” when he published his theory of children having multiple intelligences. Gardner’s new perspective on education has opened many doors to education. His theory on multiple intelligences was initially developed as his contribution to psychology, but his idea was quickly embraced by education and teachers. Based on his study of many people from many different walks of life in everyday circumstances and professions, Gardner developed the theory of multiple intelligences. He performed interviews with and brain research on hundreds of people, including stroke victims, prodigies, autistic individuals, and so-called "idiot savants." Gardner’s theory on multiple intelligences is basic and easy to follow. Gardner’s view of the mind claims that “human cognitive competence is better than described in terms of sets of abilities, talents, or mental skills, which we call ‘intelligences.’ All normal individuals possess each of these skills to some extent; individuals differ in the degree of skill and the nature of their combination” (Gordon & Browne, 2011) Gardner’s theory is that some people have more skill than other’s in certain areas. Those areas are broken up into musical, bodily-kinesthetic, logical-mathematical, linguistic, visual, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalist intelligence.

Gardner’s theory has influenced Early Childhood greatly. Gardner’s concept has helped teachers understand their students better by being able to categorize a student with a special learning style. Teachers are then able to group these children with similar learning styles together so that they are able to learn easier together. Many teachers can get frustrated when they have students in their classroom that just don’t seem to “get it”. By using Gardner’s theory, they can understand their students learning abilities and are able to get ideas on how to teach children with different learning styles.

Since Gardner’s contributions were just introduced in the last 20 years or so, his theories are very much still applicable today and have just