This book has emerged from my work over the past 23 years in applying Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences to the nuts-and-bolts issues of classroom teaching. I was initially attracted to MI theory in 1985 when I saw that it provided a language for talking about the inner gifts of children, especially those students who have been given labels such as "LD" and "ADHD" during their school careers (Armstrong, 1987a, 1987b, 1988, 1997, 1999b). It was as a learning disabilities specialist during the late 1970s and early 1980s that I began to feel the need to disassociate myself from what I considered to be a deficit-oriented paradigm in special education. I wanted to forge a new model based on what I plainly saw were the many gifts of these so-called disabled children.

I didn't have to create a new model. Howard Gardner had already done it for me. In 1979, as a Harvard researcher, Gardner was asked by a Dutch philanthropic group, the Bernard Van Leer Foundation, to investigate human potential. This invitation led to the founding of Harvard Project Zero, which served as the institutional midwife for the theory of multiple intelligences. Although Gardner had been thinking about the notion of "many kinds of minds" since at least the mid-1970s (see Gardner, 1989, p. 96), the publication in 1983 of his book Frames of Mind marked the effective birthdate of "MI" theory. Since that time, awareness among educators about the theory of multiple intelligences has continued to grow steadily. From a model that was originally popular mostly in the field of gifted education and among isolated schools and teachers around the United States in the mid- to late 1980s, MI theory has expanded its reach over the past 20 years to include thousands of school districts, tens of thousands of schools, and hundreds of thousands of teachers in the United States and numerous countries across the globe.

In this book, I present my own particular adaptation of Gardner's model for teachers and other educators. My hope is that people can use this book in several ways to help stimulate continued reforms in education:

• As a practical introduction to the theory of multiple intelligences for individuals new to the model;
• As a supplementary text for teachers in training in schools of education;
• As a study guide for groups of teachers and administrators working in schools that are implementing reforms; and
• As a resource book for teachers and other educators looking for new ideas to enhance their teaching experience.

Each chapter concludes with a section called "For Further Study" that can help readers integrate the material into their instructional practice. Several appendixes and a list of references alert readers to other materials related to MI theory that can enrich and extend their understanding of the model.

With the publication of the 2nd edition of Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom in 2000, two new features were added to the original work. First, the naturalist intelligence (integrated into MI theory by Howard Gardner in 1997) was incorporated into all the activities, charts, strategies, and other materials related to the first seven intelligences. Second, a new chapter (Chapter 14) was added focusing on the possibility of a ninth intelligence—the existential—which Gardner describes as the intelligence of concern with ultimate life issues such as the meaning of life, the problem of evil, and the aims of human endeavor (Gardner, 1999). As of this writing, the existential intelligence still has not been formally included as one of the intelligences in MI theory but, rather, exists on the periphery as a potential candidate.

Now, in this 3rd edition, two more chapters have been added. Chapter 15 focuses on criticisms that have been made about MI theory over the past 10 years. These criticisms have emerged in part because of the overwhelming success of the model (success tends to invite criticism), in part because of the more conservative nature of the times (a consequence of the U.S. federal government's No Child Left Behind law—see Armstrong, 2006), and in part because criticism of a theory is always an important component of its further development and improvement. In addition to providing critical arguments from a number of journalistic and academic sources against the validity of multiple intelligences, I've provided my own responses, which I hope will stimulate further critical conversations about MI theory. I've also added Chapter 16, which focuses on the spread of MI theory around the world. Even as MI theory has received increasing criticism in the United States, it has spread by leaps and bounds in many countries around the world. I provide a snapshot of some of these international developments, by chronicling the impact of MI theory at the policymaking level (MI has been incorporated into some countries' laws and federal initiatives), at the academic level (many new studies are coming out on MI theory covering populations from Hong Kong to Zimbabwe), at the community level (in Denmark, for example, a world-class interactive museum has been created based on multiple intelligences), and finally, at the school and classroom level. In addition to two new chapters, I have updated all of the references, resources, and technological developments so that they reflect the rapid expansion in the past eight years of new books, journal articles, software, and other materials that support MI theory.