Howard Gardner , Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education is in town.

With Howard Gardner 23/6/2009

Howard Gardner is the John H. and Elisabeth A. Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Among numerous honors, Gardner received a MacArthur Prize Fellowship in 1981. In 1990, he was the first American to receive the University of Louisville’s Grawemeyer Award in Education and in 2000 he received a Fellowship from the John S. Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. He has received honorary degrees from twenty-two colleges and universities,including institutions in Chile, Ireland, Israel, and Italy. In 2004 he was named an Honorary Professor at East China Normal University in Shanghai. In 2005 he was selected by Foreign Policy and Prospect magazines as one of 100 most influential public intellectuals in the world. He has been elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the National Academy of Education, and most recently (2007) the London-based Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts,Manufactures, and Commerce. He serves on a number of boards, including the Spencer Foundation and New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

The author of over twenty books translated into twenty-seven languages,and several hundred articles, Gardner is best known in educational circles for his theory of multiple intelligences, a critique of the notion that there exists but a single human intelligence that can be assessed by standard psychometric instruments. Building on his studies of intelligence, Gardner has also authored Leading Minds, Changing Minds, and Extraordinary Minds.

Over a decade ago, in collaboration with psychologists Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and William Damon, Gardner embarked on a study of GoodWork—work that is excellent in quality, socially responsible, and personally meaningful. The GoodWork Project (see goodworkproject.org) includes studies of outstanding leaders in several professions—among them journalism, law, science, medicine, theater, and philanthropy—as well as examination of exemplary institutions and organizations. More recently, Gardner and collaborators at Harvard Project Zero have embarked on applications of good work insights in secondary schools and colleges; investigations of conceptions of trust and trustworthiness in young people; and studies of ethical issues associated with the new digital media.

In this decade Gardner has authored or co-authored several books. In 2001, Basic Books published Good Work: When Excellence and Ethics Meet. A more recent publication from the project is Making Good: How Young People Cope with Moral Dilemmas at Work. Other recent books by Gardner include The Disciplined Mind, The Development and Education of the Mind, and Multiple Intelligences: New Horizons. Gardner Under Fire (2006) contains a set of critiques to which Gardner has responded as well as an autobiography.

Gardner’s newest book, Five Minds for the Future, was published in April 2007.