Howard Gardner Quotes

Anything that is worth teaching can be presented in many different ways. These multiple ways can make use of our multiple intelligences.

The biggest mistake of past centuries in teaching has been to treat all students as if they were variants of the same individual and thus to feel justified in teaching them all the same subjects the same way.

It's not how smart you are that matters, what really counts is how you are smart.

We should spend less time ranking children and more time helping them to identify their natural competencies and gifts and cultivate these. There are hundreds and hundreds of ways to succeed and many, many different abilities that will help you get there.

You learn at your best when you have something you care about and can get pleasure in being engaged in.

But once we realize that people have very different kinds of minds, different kinds of strengths -- some people are good in thinking spatially, some in thinking language, others are very logical, other people need to be hands on and explore actively and try things out -- then education, which treats everybody the same way, is actually the most unfair education.

Intelligence is the ability to find and solve problems and create products of value in one's own culture.

The Goal of Education is to Help People Use Their Minds Better

All human beings have all of the intelligences. But we differ, for both genetic and experiential reasons, in our profile of intelligences at any moment.

I want my children to understand the world, but not just because the world is fascinating and the human mind is curious. I want them to understand it so that they will be positioned to make it a better place

What we want... is for students to get more interested in things, more involved in them, more engaged in wanting to know; to have projects that they can get excited about and work on over long periods of time, to be stimulated to find things out on their own.

If you think education is expensive, try estimating the cost of ignorance.

Intelligences are enhanced when a person is engaged in activities that involve the exercise of that intelligence. It helps to have good teachers, ample resources, and personal motivation. Anyone can improve any intelligence; but it is easier to improve the intelligence if those factors are available and if you have high potential in that intelligence.

Kids make their mark in life by doing what they can do, not what they can't... School is important, but life is more important. Being happy is using your skills productively, no matter what they are.

Much of the material presented in schools strikes students as alien, if not pointless.

Stories are the single most powerful tool in a leader's toolkit.

Creativity begins with an affinity for something. It's like falling in love.

If you are not prepared to resign or be fired for what you believe in, then you are not a worker, let alone a professional. You are a slave.

An individual understands a concept, skill, theory, or domain of knowledge to the extent that he or she can apply it appropriately in a new situation.

We need to focus on the kind of human beings we want to have and the kind of society in which we want to live.

When a child is thriving, there is no reason to spend time assessing intelligences. But when a child is NOT thriving - in school or at home - that is the time to apply the lens of multiple intelligences and see whether one can find ways to help the child thrive in different environments.

What is usually called 'intelligence' refers to the linguistic and logical capacities that are valued in certain kinds of school and for certain school-like tasks. It leaves little if any room for spatial intelligence, personal intelligences, musical intelligence, etc.

In order for me to 'endorse' an intelligence, I need to carry out lots of research.

Education is at a turning point

Kids go to school and college and get through, but they don't seem to really care about using their minds. School doesn't have the kind of long term positive impact that it should.