What does it mean for something to be good? That's one of the questions Dr. Howard Gardner asks. He spoke with students at Morning Meeting on April 12, and later with the full faculty in Laube Auditorium and over lunch.
There are three Es of good work, he explains: Excellence, or knowing your stuff. Engagement, liking what you do. And Ethics, thinking about its implications.
"Community is important in this," says Gardner. "We know that what happens in the secondary school years makes a big difference."
Howard Gardner is the John H. and Elisabeth A. Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He also holds positions as adjunct professor of psychology at Harvard University and senior director of Harvard Project Zero. Among numerous honors, Gardner received a MacArthur Prize Fellowship in 1981. He has received honorary degrees from 29 colleges and universities, including institutions in Bulgaria, Chile, Greece, Ireland, Israel, Italy, South Korea and Spain. In 2005 and again in 2008, he was selected by Foreign Policy and Prospect magazines as one of the 100 most influential public intellectuals in the world. Most recently, Gardner received the 2011 Prince of Asturias Award for Social Sciences. The author of 28 books translated into 32 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 adequately assessed by standard psychometric instruments.
For more on his recent work, visit the thegoodproject.org.