After Shakespeare's plays, I went on to other books and authors. I became interested in the whole Western cultural tradition. I purchased taped courses from The Teaching Company (www.teach12.com), an organization that tapes lectures from some of the best college professors in the country on a variety of topics in the humanities and the sciences. I especially loved the taped lectures on American and British literature by Professor Arnold Weinstein of Brown University. I began (finally) to do the reading for my courses. I fell in love with Plato's The Republic and Dante's The Divine Comedy, with Rabelais, with the Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges (the Rod Serling of the international literary world), with Hemingway, Faulkner, Marcus Aurelius, Thomas More, Homer, Thoreau, Dickens, Woolf, Joyce, Austen, Ellison, Morrison; books became like salted peanuts to me. I just couldn't stop! The time that I had been spending before bedtime flipping through the several hundred channels of my cable system, I now spent reading. And it's amazing how much reading a person can do in a few years if he reads for just an hour or two a day. At any rate, what I'm trying to say is that after 25 years as an educator, I finally started to become truly literate myself. This naturally filled me with a desire to share my joy in some way with the world. So, the idea of writing a book that would help children and adults learn how to read and write, so that they too could experience the wonder and excitement of the written word, seemed very appropriate to me as a next step in my own development.
Now, on to the conundrum. Back in the late 1980s, when the theory of multiple intelligences (MI theory) was still in its infancy and I was beginning to do workshops for educators on this emerging topic, I was often asked a question that made me uncomfortable. Though it was asked in different ways, the basic question almost always took something close to the following form: “Both you and Howard Gardner say that there are many different ways to learn and teach. But right now you are lecturing to us about multiple intelligences in only one intelligence: linguistic intelligence. Doesn't that tell us that this particular intelligence is the most important one?“ There would usually be a momentary silence, following which I would hem and haw and tell them that, if I wanted to, I could sing to them about multiple intelligences, dance the multiple intelligences, draw the multiple intelligences, and so forth. But the fact is, I didn't. Over time, in part as a response to this question, I learned to incorporate all the intelligences into my workshops so that participants would be singing, chanting, dancing, drawing, visualizing, and in other ways using all eight of Gardner's intelligences. The fact that I did this, coupled with the increasing acceptance of MI theory as a mainstream concept in education, eventually caused this question to go away. Nowadays, I almost never get asked a question like this at my workshops. Perhaps I should shout “Hurrah! I made the bad question go away!“ and go on to other matters. The truth is, however, that I am still troubled by the question, and even quietly disappointed that nobody asks it very much anymore. Because I think the question is still a valid one and quite fundamental to the ongoing discourse on multiple intelligences.
Consider the following. Gardner initially introduced the theory of multiple intelligences to the world through a book: Frames of Mind. This book received many awards, tremendous media publicity (incredible for a book on education), and was ultimately named by Education Week as one of the 100 most influential education books of the 20th century. One might argue persuasively that the entire theory of multiple intelligences, and the great changes that it has evoked in thousands of schools worldwide, originally emerged from this single linguistic product. Add to this comments by Gardner to interviewers that his own teaching style at the Harvard School of Education relies heavily on lectures and reading. Further consider that although there are multimedia products, videos, and other nonlinguistic resources available for communicating about the concepts of multiple intelligences, the vast bulk of materials on MI theory are in the form of books, articles, audiotapes, and other linguistic sources. Finally, it should be noted that although I do involve my workshop participants actively in all eight of the intelligences, the largest part of my workshops, by far, are taken up by my own lectures, group discussions, questions and answers, and handouts“all of them, linguistic teaching strategies. It might also be added, almost parenthetically, that what you are holding in your hands right now also is a linguistic product: a book that is attempting to come to grips with all of this.
What if Gardner had originally decided to present his ideas about multiple intelligences in the form of a song? Would anybody have listened? What if he had choreographed the concept and presented it as a dance at a large theater hall? Would anybody have showed up? What I am trying to point out here is that the question I was so bothered about in my early workshops is still alive and deserves to be brought to the surface and openly debated in the fullest possible way. There seems to be a basic contradiction when it comes to the actual practice of the theory of multiple intelligences. On the one hand, we say that students should be able to learn and be taught in many different intelligences. On the other hand, when we look at what our culture actually does, what it values most, what it spends most of its time focusing on, we find linguistic intelligence far ahead of the pack. (One might successfully argue a case for the primacy of logical-mathematical intelligence, as well, in our culture. However, consider what would have happened if Gardner had originally introduced MI theory as a series of equations or algorithms. Would anybody have cared? Would anybody have been able to figure them out?)
It's certainly possible to argue, as I and many others have, that while our culture may value linguistic intelligence above the other seven, it certainly shouldn't continue to do so. The theory of multiple intelligences, in this view, serves as a critique of the values of our schools and our culture, suggesting that we need to pay much more attention to the neglected intelligences, especially those such as spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, and naturalist, that may be particular strengths of individuals who have had special difficulties in successfully making their way through our heavily linguistic schools. Taken in this manner, MI theory serves as an important impetus toward fundamental reforms of our educational system, leading to a re-evaluation of those subjects typically taught in school, with increased emphasis placed on the arts, nature, physical culture, and other topics traditionally limited to the periphery of the curriculum.
I continue to argue for such substantial reforms. However, there is also a part of me that understands and accepts the situation, perhaps more fully than before, that linguistic intelligence happens to be what is most valued right now. And not just right now. I would argue that since the beginning of recorded time, linguistic intelligence has held sway in an imposing manner over the other seven intelligences. In fact, by definition, recorded time began when people first recorded information through the written word. We have cave drawings going back tens of thousands of years. We have simple tools going back much farther than that. However, archeologists are unable to reconstruct a clear sense of what individuals were thinking about in those ancient times just by looking at these artifacts, despite a valiant attempt to do so through the emerging field of cognitive archeology. And yet, we can get inside the thoughts of a Sumerian scribe living almost 5,000 years ago when he wrote these words in ancient cuneiform to his menial assistant: “You dolt, numbskull, school pest, you Sumerian ignoramus, your hand is terrible; it cannot even hold the stylus properly; it is unfit for writing and cannot even take dictation. Yet you say you are a scribe like me“ (quoted in McGuinness, 1985, p. 234). Some things never change!
From ancient civilizations to the present time, the balance of power has resided in people who were literate. The scribes of early history were closely allied to the rulers and were part of the power elite. Writing about ancient Mayan civilization, for example, Kevin J. Johnston of Ohio State University notes: “Texts were a medium through which kings asserted and displayed power“ (Johnston, 2001). For further ancient examples, one has only to think of the Code of Hammurabi, the Ten Commandments, and the inscriptions of the Persian king Darius cut high up into an inaccessible portion of a cliff in western Iran. The ancient writing surface, papyrus, gets its name from an Egyptian word pa-en-per-aa meaning “that which belonged to the king“ (Robinson, 1995, p. 107). The overwhelming portion of writing from both the ancient and modern worlds was written by those who had shares in the riches and powers of the elite. We will never know what sorts of thoughts, hopes, wishes, needs, or frustrations ran through the minds of millions of slaves, poor farmers, artisans, soldiers, wives, and other dispossessed peoples during the vast majority of recorded history, because these individuals were never given the opportunity to develop literacy.
In the present day, literacy continues to serve as a requirement for membership in the upper classes in most parts of the world. Educators such as Paulo Freire have argued persuasively that literacy represents a key tool for social change, and for the empowerment of oppressed peoples (Freire, 2000). In American culture, those individuals who are at the top of the social structure are those who are most fully literate, and conversely, those who lack literacy skills occupy the lowest rungs of the social ladder. You can go into a cocktail party and make people laugh empathetically with a comment like: “Gee, I've never been able to balance my checkbook“ or “I've never been able to dance (or draw) well.“ But try saying “Gee, I've never learned how to read or write“ and imagine what kind of response you're likely to get. Stunned silence, most likely. Not to be able to read in our culture is a source of shame and humiliation for many. One can say this is society's fault, and that we put too much emphasis on words in our culture, but those are the facts and we have to live and deal with the situation and what it means for the students who are in our charge. Whether we like it or not, one of the best things that we as educators can do to help our students achieve success in this culture is to assist them in becoming as fully literate as possible.
Now, however, we encounter another sort of difficulty. Many children and adults in America struggle with reading and writing, both in school and as a part of normal living outside of school. According to a study done by the Yale School of Medicine, some 20 percent of American school children“or 10 million kids“have some kind of “reading disorder“ (Shaywitz, Escobar, Shaywitz, Fletcher, & Makuch, 1992). The assessment of 4th grade reading conducted as part of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in 2000 shows declines from previous years among the poorest readers, while all other groups at higher levels of reading proficiency show stable patterns of achievement or even increases over time (Donahue, Finnegan, Lutkus, Allen, & Campell, 2001). A recent National Institute for Literacy report suggests that 40 to 44 million Americans are “functionally illiterate.“ Clearly, the problem of literacy is a national dilemma.
Educators, researchers, scientists, and others have written extensively on why so many people in the United States struggle with literacy, despite the fact that we have one of the most highly developed educational systems in the world. Some suggest that social inequities are the cause. Others point to neurological abnormalities of genetic origin. Some indicate that not enough phonics is the culprit. Others put forth still newer theories to prove their case. What we really need, however, are not reasons or excuses for why so many children and adults are not literate, but rather positive solutions for helping empower everyone with the skills of literacy. It is here where I believe the theory of multiple intelligences can, curiously, make one of its most valuable contributions to education. In this book, I advocate an approach to literacy based on the belief that there is no one best way to teach reading and writing skills, in part because each person is so differently organized neurologically, and that the best attitude to adopt in any literacy program is a multiple-solution focus. In this book I show that reading and writing are not simply linguistic acts; they involve all of the intelligences, and many more areas of the brain are involved in literacy acquisition than has previously been assumed by educators working in the field. We have limited ourselves too much in the past“even in the field of MI theory“by considering too narrow a range of interventions, and ignoring many other strategies that are available for helping children and adults acquire literacy skills.
Reading and writing are unique evolutionary features of the human species that represent the tail end of a long and carefully articulated process of development over time. I show in this book how literacy emerged out of our oral language capacities, our logical capabilities, our physical movements, our image-making abilities, our musical proclivities, our emotional life, our attempts to decipher and control nature, and our impulse to connect meaningfully with others. Moreover, I point out how reading and writing, while definitely distinctive activities in their own right, still retain close connections to these broader aspects of human potential. Literacy is far too recent a development in human life for it to be otherwise. I suggest that a revolution of sorts is required in the way that we think about reading and writing, so that more of the brain's power may be brought to bear upon the acquisition of these valued skills.
The first chapter summarizes the basics of multiple intelligences theory, and provides an overview of the connections that reading and writing have with different areas of the brain, including not simply those areas typically tied to language functions (e.g., Broca's area, Wernicke's area), but also with areas associated with emotion, music, imagery, and motor activity. Each subsequent chapter examines the relationship of reading and writing to a different intelligence within MI theory. Following Howard Gardner's approach in Frames of Mind, each of these chapters begins with a section that connects a particular intelligence to literacy through research in the brain sciences, developmental psychology, evolutionary studies, biographies of creative individuals, cognitive psychology, and other fields. The larger part of each chapter, however, is devoted to practical strategies that exploit the resources of that particular intelligence for teaching reading and writing skills to children or adults. There is no attempt to pit one approach over another“to claim, for example, that a phonics approach is better than a whole-word method or a whole-language approach. In fact, phonetic strategies will be covered in each chapter, because each of the eight intelligences provides different ways of helping learners acquire the all-important knowledge of sound-symbol relationships. The structure of the applied section of each chapter moves from micro to macro in its coverage of practical strategies. Beginning with letters and sounds, we then move on to whole words, then whole sentences, then to bodies of text, then to selecting appropriate books and other literacy materials that integrate linguistic text with the intelligence of that chapter, and finally conclude with the broader treatment of general literacy styles that might be associated with each of the eight intelligences. Many of the activities and ideas associated with a wide range of approaches to teaching reading and writing, and to specific literacy programs are also cited in each chapter.
The emphasis here is to be inclusive and to not waste time on which system or method or program is best, but rather to see the best aspects of each way of teaching reading and writing“and to understand why certain methods work best with certain students and not with others. The theory of multiple intelligences and its neurological underpinnings, I believe, reveal the power of certain literacy strategies to work miracles with those individuals who have previously been thought to have intractable difficulties when it came to learning to read or write (and where various labels such as “dyslexic,“ “learning disabled,“ and “reading disordered“ have been used to explain away their supposed incapacity to learn).
It is my hope that this book will be a helpful supplementary resource for educators seeking to expand their repertoire of strategies for engaging students in reading and writing, whether they be regular classroom teachers, learning disability specialists, speech and language pathologists, reading teachers, Title I personnel, bilingual or ESOL educators, private tutors, literacy volunteers, parents, or anyone else interested in helping others experience the satisfactions of literacy. My special wish is that this book will serve as a doorway for educators who are seeking to reach students who have had difficulty with traditional methods of learning to read and write. If this book helps just a few students learn to read and write who otherwise might have been frustrated in their attempts, or makes the journey toward literacy come alive for students who might otherwise have considered it drudgery, I will have accomplished my goal, which is to share my own deep love of literacy with others.