PSY4500 Wk3 Assignment Paper

Howard Gardner

utobiographers have numerous choices. It is not difficult for anyone so approached to conjure up a number of stories. One can give an account of Pilgrim’s Progress, where steady work and virtuous behavior are ul- timately rewarded. One can offer humble pie, either denying success altogether or attributing it largely or wholly to others or to fate. One can allude to the sudden breakthrough (the road to Damascus), the series of insights (lucky batting streak or good eye), or regular plugging away (99% perspiration). One can say it was all in a day’s (or night’s) work. Or one can depict oneself as struggling against mighty and per- haps malevolent forces.

Without attempting to characterize my path, I’d like to give the au- tobiographical account that seems most authentic and that might be help- ful to others. In what follows, I give a brief chronology of my youth and mention six major influences on my early career. I then mention those lines of my own work that I consider most significant. I conclude by drawing some general lessons, which I hope will prove helpful to others.

Youth and Training

I am quite certain that I did not have a passion for psychology as a child, nor do I think that psychology was necessarily the destined career choice for me. As a youngster growing up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in the 1940s and 1950s, I assumed that I would become a lawyer or perhaps a teacher. At Harvard College in the early 1960s, I toyed with a number of careers, ranging from law to medicine to teaching.

Ultimately, I was attracted to the social sciences, probably because of the powerful influence of an eclectic collection of brilliant professors

I 79

My Way

http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/10483-005 Psychologists Defying the Crowd: Stories of Those Who Battled the Establishment and Won, edited by R. J. Sternberg Copyright © 2003 American Psychological Association. All rights reserved.

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80 [ H O W A R D G A R D N E R

in the Social Relations Department, an interdisciplinary social sciences department that included David Riesman, Talcott Parsons, Gordon All- port, Henry Murray, David McClelland, Laurence Wiley, and Erik Erik- son, just to name a few. Erikson’s work and his charisma drew me to developmental psychology. When I worked on a summer educational project with Jerome Bruner, I discovered that I was more interested in cognitive than in personological or affective facets of development. Reading Jean Piaget and getting my hands involved in empirical work with Bruner, Roger Brown, and Jerry Kagan as gadflies, I soon found myself in the ranks of empirical developmental psychology, a contrib- utor to journals like Child Development and Developmental Psychology (the chief publishing outlets at the time). PSY4500 Wk3 Assignment Paper

Six Career Influences

Many of my graduate student cohort at Harvard and elsewhere ended up as writers and editors of such influential gatekeeping journals. I found myself taking quite a different path. Reflecting on my strengths and on historical accidents, I can point to six factors that influenced my career choice.

MY INTEREST IN THE ARTS

As a youngster I was a serious pianist, and as an adolescent, I becams an aficionado of several art forms. Turning to psychology, I was surprised to discover that the arts were virtually invisible in most texts. I noted that Piaget, along with other developmental theorists, saw “scientific knowledge” as the end-state of cognition. My initial attempts to publish articles about artistic cognition and development were routinely thwarted. Ignoring signals from “the field,” I was determined to pursue the nature of creation, particularly in the arts, and searched for oppor- tunities to do so. My first scholarly monograph, The Arts a n d H u m a n Development (1973/ 1994), was an effort to examine the processes of h u – man development using the artist, rather than the scientist, as the end- state toward which development was directed.

NELSON GOODMAN AND PROJECT ZERO At the end of my first year in graduate school (spring 1967), I learned that a distinguished philosopher, Nelson Goodman, was planning to start a research project in artistic cognition at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. I knew almost nothing about Goodman (or the Education

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M y W a y I 81

School) but was intrigued by the idea. With David Perkins and several others, I became a founding member of Harvard Project Zero, and in 1972, I joined Perkins as a codirector of that institution. I have now been affiliated with Project Zero for more than a third of a century and have found it to be a stimulating intellectual home. Working at Project Zero has allowed me to pursue my interest in the arts and cognition as well as many other related (and not-so-related) issues with valued col- leagues, many of whom have become friends, one of whom became my wife (Ellen Winner). At Project Zero, I conducted a long series of studies of the development of artistic capacities in children (style sensitivity, understanding of metaphor, story production, and comprehension; Gardner, 1980, 1982) and collaborated on an ambitious study of sym- bolic development in children, more generally (Gardner 6 Wolf, 1983). I also had the pleasure of helping to launch others in careers in research; younger colleagues like Winner, Dennie Wolf, Mindy Kornhaber, Tom Hatch, and Mara Krechevsky have contributed significantly to our un- derstanding of knowledge, particularly in the arts.

PASSION TO WRITE Since primary grade school, I have been an enthusiastic reader and writer. I edited my high school newspaper and continued to write stead- ily in college and graduate school. I discovered that, although I liked writing articles, the book was really my preferred form of communica- tion, and, with little talent in the creation of fiction, my genre became the social sciences book. In graduate school, I coauthored a textbook in social psychology (with the now anachronistic name M a n a n d M e n ; Gros- sack 6 Gardner, 1970) and also drafted two other monographs: the aforementioned scholarly tome, The A r t s a n d H u m a n Development (19731 1994), and a popularized account of French structuralism, T h e Quest for M i n d : Piaget, Levi-Strauss a n d the Structuralist Movement ( 1973 I 1 98 1 ). My teachers and fellow students looked somewhat askance at this nonem- pirically oriented writing facility-”write books after you get tenure, Howard,” they advised-but some 20 books later, it is clear that writing has been an important part of my professional identity. PSY4500 Wk3 Assignment Paper

It has been noted that many of my books have the word m i n d in them. That choice of word is overdetermined, but my four children tease me by saying that my last book should be Never M i n d .

INTELLECTUAL CURIOSITY (AKA READILY BORED BY REMAINING WITH A SINGLE TOPIC) In graduate school, one of my professors was criticized because he went on to a new branch of psychology every decade or so. Without having

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82 I H O W A R D G A R D N E R any such master plan in mind, I find that I also have moved o n at regular intervals to new areas, both within and beyond psychology. In college and graduate school, I regularly audited courses in various fields. I read widely although not systematically; last time I counted, I subscribe to and at least skim more than 30 publications. Most of those are not even in psychology! I marvel at those scholars who probe the same topic, deeper and deeper, for many years. Whereas I can certainly trace a continuity in my own intellectual and professional development, it includes excursions in many directions-quite possibly in too many di- rections. At present, I am deeply involved in a collaborative study on professional ethics (Gardner, Csikszentmihalyi, & Damon, 200 1 ) . Cer- tainly, I could never have predicted this particular career turn 10 years ago.

A CHANCE MEETING WITH THE NEUROLOGIST NORMAN GESCHWIND As a graduate student, I happened to attend a session given by Norman Geschwind, a brilliant behavioral neurologist and equally brilliant stu- dent of the history of neurology. Geschwind’s approach to problems fascinated me, and I undertook postdoctoral work with him at Harvard Medical School and the Aphasia Research Center at the Boston Univer- sity School of Medicine and the Boston Veterans Administration Medical Center. My 20-year excursion into neuropsychology constituted my most steady (and probably most significant) input to the experimental psychology literature (Gardner, 1975). Whereas most researchers were focusing on the left hemisphere, with its dominance in linguistic and conceptual matters, my colleagues and I investigated the right hemi- sphere’s role in language and in artistic activities and published some 60 empirical articles (e.g., Gardner, Brownell, Wapner, 6 Michelow, 1983). My work at the Aphasia Research Center also gave me enough familiarity with the brain that I have been able to continue following discoveries in the neurosciences and to chronicle the area of cognitive science, including cognitive neuroscience, in my book The Mind’s N e w Science (1985). At present, I am helping to launch a new area of study, which we at Harvard call M i n d , Bruin, a n d Education. PSY4500 Wk3 Assignment Paper

SUPPORT WAS AVAILABLE FOR UNUSUAL LINES OF RESEARCH It is difficult for individuals my age (born 1943) or younger to appreciate that there was little or n o support for empirical social sciences until the 20th century and that significant government grants became available only in the 1960s. Because of government grants, I was able to attend

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M y W a y I 83

graduate school, to secure postdoctoral support for several years, and to carry out empirical work in developmental psychology and neuropsy- chology during the first crucial years of my career. That joint work even- tually led to the positing of the theory of multiple intelligences (Frames of M i n d , 1983/1993b), the work for which I am most widely known. I did not teach regularly until 1987 and could therefore dedicate two decades largely to research and writing. PSY4500 Wk3 Assignment Paper

By the 1980s, it became more difficult to secure support for the issues that I had become interested in. However, by this time I had become better known, and I was able to attract support from private foundations and, more recently, from generous individuals. My career could not have been possible without this continuing support, and I have gratefully acknowledged that support in all of my writings. Being a tad superstitious, I have never tried to tote up the amount of money that I have received for research, but I am sure that I would be quite affluent if I had kept it all for myself! I can categorically say that I am far happier that the sum went into research.

Three Contributions to Psychology

To the best of my reconstruction, those six factors catalyzed whatever modest success I have enjoyed. If asked to list my contributions to psy- chology, I would say that I have sought to broaden our conception of what the human mind is, to determine what the mind at its best can accomplish, and to outline how the young mind might be better edu- cated.

BROADER CONCEPTION OF THE HUMAN MIND Perhaps because their backgrounds are in the hard sciences, perhaps because they aspire for psychology to become a hard science, most psy- chologists in the United States have thought of cognition as the forms of thought of the scientist. From the beginning of my work, I have sought to broaden that conception, and in particular, to include artistic and creative thought as central to the functions of the mind. This mis- sion impelled my propounding of the theory of multiple intelligences. It also accounts for my predilection to bring to bear insights from a variety of fields, ranging from the study of unusual populations, to the examination of the effects of brain damage, to the inclusion of evidence from different cultures and eras (Gardner, 1989). PSY4500 Wk3 Assignment Paper

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8 4 l H O W A R D G A R D N E R

STUDIES OF EXCELLENCE IN VARIOUS DOMAINS

Having laid out a theory of human intelligence, I began to ponder the nature of human accomplishment at its limits. My chosen vehicle for this study was intensive case studies of extraordinary individuals, through both interviews and library research. I studied exemplary cre- ative figures from a variety of domains (Gardner, 1993a, 1997b), leaders (Gardner, with Laskin, 1995), and professionals who carry out work that is excellent and ethical (Gardner et al., 2001). I believe that the science of psychology is incomplete until it can explain the highest and most varied kinds of accomplishment; case methods remain the best vehicle for such research at the present time (Gardner, 1997a).

CONSTRUCTING EDUCATION O N A FIRM PSYCHOLOGICAL BASIS

As a cognitive developmental psychologist, I always had a peripheral interest in education. This interest grew significantly in the 1980s for two reasons. The first reason was idiosyncratic-the enthusiastic re- sponse among educators to the theory of multiple intelligences; the sec- ond was societal-widespread concern in the United States about the mediocre quality of precollegiate education. For 15 years I both wrote about educational issues and became active in school reform. My goal has been to forge stronger links between what is known about the na- ture and development of the human mind and how such knowledge can best be marshaled for educational ends. My major levers have been the positing of different modes of mental representation (Gardner, 1993c, 1999b); the examination of the powerful theories that children develop without explicit tutelage (Gardner, 199 1 ); and the pursuit of education that develops a deep and enduring level of understanding in and across disciplines (Gardner, 1999a). PSY4500 Wk3 Assignment Paper

Reflections

In keeping with the theme of this book, I should describe some of the struggles, defeats, and victories I have experienced. I would have no trouble chronicling the dozens of bad peer reviews I received for schol- arly articles; the equally nasty (and numerous) public reviews I received for books; the dozens of grant applications that were turned down; and the many dismissive comments I heard directly about my work or that were passed on to me by caring friends or by colleagues who may or

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may not have been experiencing Schadenfreude. Like many others, my memory for slights is quite good, if not elephantine. I can also cite hon- ors and positive reviews, but frankly those don’t really compensate for the criticism and insults; rather, it is as if they are stored in two quite separate files that cannot be merged. PSY4500 Wk3 Assignment Paper

It would be wrong to say that I have been uninfluenced by the criticism; certainly it has shaped my behavior in various ways. However, it would be equally wrong to say that it has deterred me from my major missions as a researcher, scholar, and writer. I am impelled by my cu- riosity about the world of human beings and human nature; I want to observe, study, read, and write about that world, and the fact that some- one (or even many ones) may not like what I have done cannot dampen that curiosity or alter that course.

Now, had I been steadily rejected for my efforts at an early enough point in my career, I might quite well have gone to law school or be- come a book editor, musical composer, arranger, or nightclub pianist. (These are actually the career lines that I think I might have been able to follow without sinking into poverty.) Fortunately, as B . F. Skinner would put it, I received enough intermittent reinforcement (occasional praise, occasional prizes) that I did not lose heart. Such encouragement is important for almost everyone, and I try to provide it to younger colleagues, along with apt critiques.

By this time in my career (late mid-career), I doubt that any neg- ative reaction would be enough to alter what I do. Perhaps I have become tough skinned; perhaps I have heard it all before; perhaps there are now enough awards that they can tip the balance; or perhaps my curiosity is as strong as ever, and that is what has impelled me throughout.

I have spent many years studying extraordinary people. From them, I have learned the importance of three inclinations: (a) reflecting reg- ularly on one’s goals and how one is fairing in pursuing them, (b) lev- eraging one’s strengths and not worrying about areas of weakness, and (c) framing-confronting defeats and failures and trying to learn from them. As a youth, I was not as good at framing as I should have been, but I have been working steadily on training the framing muscle, and I believe that it is one of the most important parts of every thinking per- son’s body. PSY4500 Wk3 Assignment Paper

My colleagues differ from one another in whether they head to the center of the fray or prefer to work in a n untilled corner of the garden; whether they are energized or exhausted by confrontation; and whether they confront challengers directly, indirectly, or not at all. My own tack has been not to pay too much attention to what others are doing but to follow my own lights-in Frank Sinatra’s memorable lyrics, to do it “my way.” I rarely pick a fight but, then again, I don’t run away from

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86 H O W A R D G A R D N E R

confrontations, either. This modest credo has served me pretty well in daily life, as well as in my professional career.

Probably the biggest honor that I will ever receive was the MacAr- thur Prize Fellowship that I was awarded in 1981, the first year that the prize was given. I remember being interviewed by the APA Monitor (then issued on newsprint) about the fact that I was the first psychologist to receive this distinction. I responded that I did not think I fit anyone’s prototype as a psychologist but that I hoped to be o n many people’s list as a good psychologist. I have moved somewhat away from psychology in the succeeding 20 years, and so this latter hope is perhaps a bit for- lorn. However, I continue to think of myself as a psychologist, and if I ever earn a tombstone in the graveyard of psychologists, I hope that it would recognize that I have helped to broaden our sense of cognitive activities and that I have served as a kind of ambassador between cog- nitive and developmental psychology o n the one hand and among ed- ucators, policymakers, and the general public on the other.

Earlier I alluded to the other careers that I might have pursued had the world of “mainstream” psychology extinguished my enthusiasm rather than simply providing intermittent reinforcement. Were I to ap- ply to myself a “profile of values,” I would score high on writing (and only moderately on speaking or teaching), interest in human beings (and much less so in artifacts or other animals), the arts (although not sports or mass entertainment), and certain of the sciences (biology par- ticularly). I believe that any career that I would have voluntarily chosen would reflect that profile, and so 1 could readily see myself as a scholar in several disciplines or as a journalist. I have some skills in administra- tion but no lust for positions of authority. Personally, I doubt that I would go into psychology as a career if I were 21 years old again. Psy- chology has lost much of the luster that it had in the 1960s. Were I disposed to go into science, I would pursue developmental neuroscience. But I would continue to be interested in psychological issues and would attempt to approach them in other, less disciplined ways. PSY4500 Wk3 Assignment Paper

However, I have not a single regret. I am glad that I was born at the time when I was born; that I had the opportunity to pursue psychology and other social sciences as a student; and that I have spent almost 40 enjoyable years reading, experimenting, observing, teaching, and writing about intriguing human behaviors and thoughts. Still, I have a reason for indicating alternative careers: I believe that interests, passions, and intelligences endure across space and time but that the specific career options vary at particular historical moments. If there is reincarnation, and the discipline has a happier future than I can now envision, I will be only happy to return to earth as a psy- chologist and perhaps even a more loyal one than I have been this time around.

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M y W a y I 87

References

Gardner, H. ( 1975). The shattered m i n d : The person after brain damage. New York: Knopf.

Gardner, H. ( 1980). Artful scribbles: The significance of children’s drawings. New York: Basic Books.

Gardner, H. (1981). The quest for mind: Piaget, Levi-Strauss and the struc- turalist movement. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (Original work published 1973)

Gardner, H. (1982). A r t , m i n d , and brain: A cognitive approach to creativity. New York: Basic Books.

Gardner, H. (1985). The mind’s n e w science: A history of the cognitive revo- lution. New York: Basic Books.

Gardner, H. ( 1989). To open minds: Chinese clues to the dilemma of American education. New York: Basic Books.

Gardner, H. (1991). The unschooled mind: H o w children think and h o w schools should teach. New York: Basic Books.

Gardner, H. (1993a). Creating minds. An anatomy of creativity as seen through the lives of Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham, and Gandhi. New York: Basic Books.

Gardner, H. (1 993b). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences. New York: Basic Books. (Original work published 1983)

Gardner, H. ( 1 9 9 3 ~ ) . Multiple intelligences: The theory in practice. New York: Basic Books.

Gardner, H. ( 1994). The arts and h u m a n development: A psychological study of the artistic process. New York: Basic Books. (Original work published 1973)

Gardner, H. (with Laskin, E.). (1995). Leading minds: An anatomy of lead- ership. New York: Basic Books.

Gardner, H. ( 1 997a). Extraordinary cognitive achievement. In W. Damon (Series Ed.) & R. Siegler & D. Kuhn (Vol. Eds.), Handbook of child psychology (Vol. 1, pp. 415-466). New York: Wiley.

Gardner, H. ( 1997b). Extraordinary minds: Portraits of exceptional individ- uals and a n examination of our extraordinariness. New York: Basic Books.

Gardner, H. ( 1999a). The disciplined m i n d : W h a t all students should under- stand. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Gardner, H. ( 1999b). Intelligence reframed: Multiple intelligences for the 21st century. New York: Basic Books.

Gardner, H., Brownell, H. H., Wapner, W., & Michelow, D. (1983). Miss- ing the point: The role of the right hemisphere in the processing of complex linguistic materials. In E. Perecman (Ed.), Cognitive processing in the right hemisphere (pp. 160-192). New York: Academic Press.

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88 I H O W A R D G A R D N E R Gardner, H., Csikszentmihalyi, M., 6 Damon, W. (2001). Good work:

W h e n excellence and ethics meet. New York: Basic Books. Gardner, H., 6 Wolf, D. (1983). Waves and streams of symbolization. In

D. R. Rogers €r J. A. Sloboda (Eds.), The acquisition of symbolic skills (pp. 19-42). London: Plenum Press.

Grossack, M., 6 Gardner, H. (1970). M a n and men: Social psychology as social science. Scranton, PA: International Textbook.

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The introduction to Jerome Kagan’s essay might at first lead you to believe you’ve stumbled on the musings of a psychoanalyst, not those of a noted child psychologist. Kagan’s assessment of his own early child- hood reads like a good Freudian case study. Kagan, who has made sig- nificant strides in the study of cognitive development of children by using a variety of novel methodologies, writes a piece that combines the best of philosophy, morality, religion, nature, literature, and psychology to form an opinion on the importance of the social sciences. PSY4500 Wk3 Assignment Paper

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