Customer Reviews

Disciplined Mind: What All Students Should Understand

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Since H. Gardner in his introduction describes this book as "a sustained dialectic -- read disagreement -- with E. D. Hirsch," thus co-starring an old adversary, it seems both fair and essential to read Hirsch as well. What you will find are samples of Gardner's old habit of grossly misrepresenting Hirsch's program in order to attack him, but, more interesting, many examples of the degree to which Gardner has come to agree with Hirsch. For instance, he agrees that background knowledge in the traditional disciplines is necessary to an effective education; that lack of a specific, structured curriculum too often results in incoherence, repetition, omission of content and tedium; that progressivism often produces students who "see themselves as creative" but "lack the skills to do a competent job." And sharply deviating from progrssive orthodoxy, he says that to learn to read, children must be taught "interactive processing involving graphic and verbal representations," i.e. phonics. Further he repeats his admission in previous books that progressive education is not for disadvantaged children "who do not acquire literacy in the dominant culture at home," declaring that a core curriculum, even "one by E. D. Hirsch,"helps to provide a level playing field and to ensure ... a common knowledge base." His encouraging conclusion is that the public school system should provide a number of alternative "pathways," including both Gardner-type schools and Hirsch-type schools. Amazon.com's feature telling us what other related books customers order shows how all too often we read only what we expect to agree with. This is one instance which cries out for going further than this.

While I whole-heartedly subscribe to the notion of multiple intelligences, I do so more with the factually accurate books of Stephen J. Gould than I do with Howard Gardener's work. This book is written for the American public, not for academia, and it shows. There is no citation, no supporting evidence, and no statistical analysis - merely Gardener holding forth his opinions about depth of knowledge being more valuable than breadth of knowledge. This would have been a much better essay than book. His choice of three examples of depth of knowledge is disappointingly eurocentric in an increasingly African-American, Hispanic and Asian American culture. I can quickly think of three other examples - 1) a study of jazz in 1920s Harlem, 2) the 16th century decimation of South America by diseases brought by Cortez's crew, and 3) a study of classical tonal Asian music - that would be equally as valid to study in depth and would help our students to understand both our culture and the rich diversity of other cultures. Why does Gardener see fit to publish this work? Perhaps he is blind to his own eurocentric ivory tower. He gives tidbits of other educational systems as being superior to ours, but then tells us "the Italian school simply cannot be transferred." So then why bother to use it as an example? To frustrate inspired teachers? Or to persuade us to send our children to Italy for preschool? Finally, Gardener stated that he would rather send his children to a school taught in Hirsch's curriculum and run by a cohesive staff than a school with his suggested curricula and run by the "average, harried" U.S. teacher. I find this very troubling. If the teacher is so important, than why bother to emphasize the curriculum? Why not emphasize the different methods of teaching the curriculum? Wouldn't that make more sense? In other words, the curriculum is not nearly as important as the teacher is. I think that Gardener had a good point to make, but that the book was so incoherent that his point was lost. I think his point was that no specific curriculum would enable our children to succeed. Instead, there is so much information in the world that teaching children to critically evaluate material has become vastly more important than the actual curriculum. In other words, students have to become meta-learners, learning "how to learn" in different subject areas. For example, learning history is vastly different from learning math. Therefore, while we can't expect all children to take a Ph.D. in history and to take 4 or 5 semesters of calculus, we can give them a good grounding in the overall structure of the field of mathematics, and the overall structure of the field of history. This understanding of the structure of the knowledge in that field of study would allow the student to find the needed information and competently analyze it when needed. I find that point interesting, and overall, made the book worth reading.

Prof. Gardner's book is disappointing. He tries to be all things to all people saying both that he believes in basic competencies but wants to put inquiry first. Also, his language is inflated, and lacking in philosopical specificity. For example, he believes in building up the inner world of "mental representations" [unexplained term] yet insists on "performances of understanding" [another unexplained term].

Also, he has respect for the individual learner and individual differences, yet he is concerned about the "position" or "situation" or social class dynamics in which the learning takes place. Thus, he fails to do justice either to the individual or to class, race, or gender. The role of leadership in learning is wholly ignored; and responsibility is not explored. In short, it is extremely difficult to pin down Prof. Gardner. It would be kind to say he is eclectic. I hope it's just not fuzzy thinking.

However, we can discern that he has a romantic obsession with beauty, truth, and goodness. Imagine -- the Holocaust is reduced to being an illustration of what goodness is or is not! His treatment of these ideas is superficial and banal. I don't like to be so judgmental, but his writing about them does not deserve a detailed analysis.

When attacking E.D. Hirsch whom he calls the main speaker for "cultural literacy," he sets up a straw man. He says that Hirsch's school of thought has an underlying belief in the Lockeian "tabula rasa." Yet, I find nothing in Hirsch's writings to indicate that he believes in a tabula rasa.

Further, is Prof. Gardner really less elitist than Hirsch as some have claimed? I have found that the Harvard elite spend their entire lives trying to achieve and learn everything, and be on top. Their lives are marked by ambition to the Nth degree; yet, he debunks time-honored and experience-honored content areas that traditionally have defined literacy at its best. Thus, I find a certain inherent dishonesty in Gardner's presentation.

Believe me, friends, I have taught students who have many ideals, Greek ideals and other ideals, but know very little, nor do they aspire to learn. If they have those ideals, and if they are facile and glib, will they be the leaders of tomorrow who are embraced by Prof. Gardner?

I find a tendency on Prof. Gardner's part to oversimplify certain issues like the Holocaust, and to overcomplicate certain others like the nature of intelligence.

The world is not waiting for the concept of intelligence to be re-written. Am I oversimplifying when I think that there is something very awkward about saying that there is no fundamental difference in intelligence between Einstein and the custodian of my school? Is this awkwardness because I am an elitist putting down the custodian? Is it because of lack of intelligence that I am still in the grip of a univocal definition of intelligence? I don't think so. Rather, we all know we are dependent on each other, and that everybody has some unique aptitudes or gifts they can express and be respected for, but trying to elevate this understanding to a higher level of truth or intellectual significance seems to me to be illegitimate.

Lastly, his writing style is a bit too fond of adjectives, and the book reads as a whole like It Takes A Village by Mrs. Clinton. The Disciplined Mind has a mellifluous style that presents itself as being highly sophisticated and, at the same time, as down-to-earth, with balanced common sense. Yet, ultimately, the book is boring. As one Amazon reviewer states, Prof. Gardner is full of himself.

In this book, there is no straightforward discussion or emphasis placed on knowledge, justice, Judeo-Christian values, persistence, responsibility, or character development...words which I find essential for a true philosophy of education.

I picked up this book because the local school system is experimenting with Gardner's multiple intelligences approach. As an interested parent, but not an educator, I found this book engaging and encouraging. It motivates me to get involved in the local school system and more actively involved in their education so that my two boys can benefit from at least some small part of the enlightened approach to schooling that Gardner describes. Not just the multiple intelligences perspective, but the education for understanding and the emphasis on deep exploration of important disciplines and explicit consideration of truth, beauty and morality. Stressing the learning of powerful ways to think over covering some broad checklist of important facts is great, although Gardner also acknowledges that certain core material on citizenship and basic literacy should be learned by all.

I am not sure what disappoints me most - - the fact that Gardner seems to be uninterested in doing, or citing, even the most basic research on cognitive processes; the fact that intelligent people demonstrate almost no sense of history or intellectual objectivity as they rush to kneel at his altar; or the fact that he gives no credit to Spearman, Thurstone, Schwab or Hirst - - all of whom predated his highly-unoriginal writings.

I am disappointed that so many are willing to accept, on his publisher's word alone, that it is "Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences." Yes, he shines new light on this old theory; but then he stands in that light, figuratively extending his arms to his "educational groupies." As such, he belongs more in the company of Jim Bakker and Ross Perot than (as reported by the book's cover notes) that of Bruner, Piaget and Dewey.

Rather than being one of the great educational "thinkers" of our time as the cover notes imply; Howard Gardner proves only to be one of the great "publicists" of our time - - a perfect model for institutional halo effect. If he were teaching at a less prestigious institution, his ideas would be scrutinized with greater objectivity. What he offers is little more than new applications of some good, old theories.

Still, he has done us a couple of favors. He applies those theories in an appealing and effective manner, although when all is said and done, I suspect that he will be forced by his own applications of this "structural learning theory" to admit a host of other disciplines into his group - - each containing multiple discreet subsets. Educators who employ his views of this "structural learning theory" as evidence for the crucial importance of their own specific discipline in educational priority-making, are advised to find another rationale.

Finally, I learn much more about Howard Gardner in this book than I do about the disciplined mind. A degree of transparancy shows up on page 157 as he indicates that he, like most true thinkers, is simply searching for answers to the "deepest questions about the world." Those questions, according to Gardner, are: What is Truth? What is Beauty? What is Goodness? His answers - - "Truth" is determined through knowledge about evolution. "Beauty" is found in humankind's creative efforts. "Good" is recognized only as a contrast to evil. ...and his "disciplines serve as points of entry" for answering these questions.

The Beatitudes offer better "points of entry."

It is interesting that as everyone rushes to quick fix education that they disregard the potential of different learning styles. This book is powerful in many ways, but the best chapter for those of us in the field to read is the one that explains how cultures educate their children. We have some things to learn about children. I hope the book, tied to Dr. Gardner's theory, will continue to open minds. Without his insights the National Board process would have been far more difficult to do. It was his work that opened my eyes to the needs and styles of my students. I learned to assess their personal growth and became a more reflective teacher.

Howard Gardner continues to be the leading thinker on issues of education and developing our various intelligences. In his latest book, he breaks fertile new ground by linking a bold vision for education with the increasing needs to develop citizens for a more civil society. Anyone interested in leadership and personal development, as well as education, should read this book.

This is the new "less is more" bible, taken to comic extremes. Worse, I found this book almost unreadable, mainly because Gardner is so full of himself. Witness his comparison of the wildly successful Suzuki approach with Spectrum schools that use his multiple intelligences ideas--a comparison surely used to imply that the Spectrum approach is similarly successful, without any evidence. Sadly, no matter how hard he tries--and he's trying hard--his multiple intelligences end up being used as excuses for failures more than guidelines for success in the real world.

Most amusing to me is the notion that this plan is workable. Who does Gardner think can follow this plan? Those that emerge from schools of education have the MOST undisciplined minds--in his sense--produced in the universities: their time is dominated by methods classes, not training in the disciplines. A genius like Gardner, with a class of five, could make a go of it--in the real world, there is no chance.