By nature, I am not an optimist, though I try to act as if I am.
If you think education is expensive, try estimating the cost of ignorance.
A lot of knowledge in any kind of an organization is what we call task knowledge. These are things that people who have been there a long time understand are important, but they may not know how to talk about them. It’s often called the culture of the organization.
Emile Zola was a poor student at his school at Aix. We are all so different largely because we all have different combinations of intelligences. If we recognize this, I think we will have at least a better chance of dealing appropriately with many problems that we face in the world.
To ask “Where in your brain is intelligence?” is like asking “Where is the voice in the radio?”
Twenty-five years ago, the notion was you could create a general problem-solver software that could solve problems in many different domains. That just turned out to be totally wrong.
Education is at a turning point.
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.
Much of the material presented in schools strikes students as alien, if not pointless.
Well, if storytelling is important, then your narrative ability, or your ability to put into words or use what someone else has put into words effectively, is important too.
I am knowledgeable enough about the world of prizes to realize that there is a large degree of luck – both for the recognitions that you receive and those that you did not.
While I’ve worked on many topics and written many books, I have not abandoned my interest in multiple intelligences.
I align myself with almost all researchers in assuming that anything we do is a composite of whatever genetic limitations were given to us by our parents and whatever kinds of environmental opportunities are available.
The biggest communities in which young people now reside are online communities.
Til 1983, I wrote primarily for other psychologists and expected that they would be the principal audience for my book.
Intelligence is the ability to find and solve problems and create products of value in one’s own culture.
Part of the maturity of the sciences is an appreciation of which questions are best left to other disciplinary approaches.
I need to add that my work on multiple intelligences received a huge boost in 1995 when Daniel Goleman published his book on emotional intelligence. I am often confused with Dan. Initially, though Dan and I are longtime friends, this confusion irritated me.
Hitler didn’t travel. Stalin didn’t travel. Saddam Hussein never traveled. They didn’t want to have their orthodoxy challenged.
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.
My belief in why America has been doing so well up to now is that we have been propelled by our immigrants and our encouragement of technical innovation and, indeed, creativity across the board.