2018年5月25日 星期五

Emmy Hu:其實我並不會擔心什麼赴中留學潮......

其實我並不會擔心什麼赴中留學潮,現今中國社會的確是在很多創新型經濟上有很多資源,以及值得學習的地方,台灣商業菁英、高階白領就算沒有搬到中國居住,手上一定還是有很多中國業務,這本來就是非常吸引人的地方,高中畢業生會被吸引真是一點都不奇怪。
事情是怎樣就是怎樣的,我也不認為高中畢業生去了就會被無限洗腦,真相是不可能被扭曲的,你玩app玩一玩app就被關了,你平常在追的微信公號動不動就消失,千萬級粉絲的公號照樣消失;台灣學生的正常反應就是組織同學去街上抗議,這時候他發現原來不可以,搞不好我們還會看到台灣小朋友在不知情的情況下做了這些事情然後被起訴顛覆國家。。。我覺得這些事情根本不用擔心,知情的中國學生太多了,你怎麼會覺得台灣的學生就會一點感覺都沒有。
我比較擔心的是,台灣在中學以下的教育都很貧乏,人類社會一些真正好的東西幾乎略過不提,例如西方憲政權力分立、人權保障的原則,人類社會如果出現了爭端,人類歷史上最好的一套思想制度是根據怎樣的原則去處理這些問題;例如基礎媒體識讀教育,你如何判斷新聞的真偽,如何選擇自己的資訊來源,整個資訊社會是個什麼狀態,我們該如何通過媒體自我學習成為更聰明的人。
太多太多身而為人非常需要的基礎學習,根本都沒有在台灣高中以下的教育體現,這些課程甚至是到了1990年代以後的大學教育才逐漸發展出來,我們觀察所謂的長輩,那些不可思議的長輩,為什麼會讓新生代的孩子失望,這不是沒有原因的,長輩們成長在甚至沒有這類教育的戒嚴年代,表現出來處理事情的方式就是那樣,這就是教育問題。
我自己的憲法教育、媒體教育,真的都是到了大學時代才出現,高中畢業以前都過得十分痛苦,一直到了大學才豁然開朗,喔,世界上有這麼多好玩的事情你們這麼晚才告訴我?!
我其實不擔心去中國念大學出來後會變得很親中,我一路以來用過的大陸年輕人明白事理的多了去,我相信人都是有感覺、有判斷力的。但是真正會有問題的是教育的內容,中國的學校教育顯然更刻意忽略這些。
大學教育往往是一般人最後能夠「被動接觸」這些重要知識的地方,許多人是因為被要求修課、被要求學習,才學會這些知識,之後在人的一生中,我們遇到問題、遇到困難時,才想起以前我曾經學過這些,然後去主動尋求更深入的知識,去解決人類社會中間的相處問題,然後才能越來越好,這是一個實踐問題。台灣社會上上下下現在相處得很糟,說實話,貧乏的社會科學教育真的是頗重要的肇因。
我想可能有很多正在中國留學的大學生、剛剛畢業在北上深工作的新鮮人在看我的臉書(這幾天收到的信真的太多了,看得淚流滿面),如果你正在看這個post,我希望你知道,這些東西可能是你所缺乏,而必須不斷汲取、主動學習的。
人類的共同生活不是一個大家任性鬧脾氣的組合體,人類社會已經發展過非常多處理事情的原則,許多價值、許多歷史教訓,都已經有所總結,雖然還是跌跌撞撞,但也已經是比較好的了。無論在哪裡上學、工作,我想作為一個更好的人,建設、貢獻於群體,我們都會需要更好的知識基礎、生活實踐。
單純的說你不准想、不准做,然後假裝這個社會和諧了,這是一種欺騙,你也不會相信的,對嗎。

2018年5月23日 星期三

張文亮教授 (臺灣大學)《我在台大的最後一堂課》


歡迎參加《我在台大的最後一堂課》
時間:2019.6.29(週六) 10:00-11:00
地點:臺灣大學博雅館103教室
報名:http://bit.ly/2Hcu3l1
費用:免費

Lily Chan 老師您就怪在 明明60了還保有25的活力和熱情; 明明是教授 卻不太擅長算計; 明明忙的不得了 步調卻是平靜安穩 明明看起來平凡無期 經過您手您口 一切都充滿驚奇!!


如何讓自己的一生,從事一場有價值的工作? 張文亮
我感謝我的學校,
給我一間辦公室,
我可以在那裡泡咖啡,聽音樂;
校園裡有福利社,
我可以在那裏買到好吃的大波蘿與茶葉蛋;
校園像座美麗的大花園,
我可以在那裡散散步,看看花草與樹木;
即使是暴雨天、颱風天…只要在學校裡放慢腳步,
就是享受。
更棒的是,
每年學校都送數百個學生,
坐在我面前,
聽我上課,
也許,他們在家裡,
父母對他們講幾句話,他們就聽不下。
而我可以勸勉他們,
承接他們父母的下一棒,
繼續培育他們的孩子。
「老師,我們都覺得你有一點怪。」有個同學說道。「怎麼會呢?我是個平凡的人,不笨也不聰明。上課都有來,下課都有走。哪有什麼怪?」我不解道。「老師的專長,真的是『環境汙染』嗎?」那個學生繼續問道。「是啊,我不是在破壞環境,也不是在製造汙染,而是在傳授幫助環境降低污染的技術。每一個頭腦正常的人,都會支持這種事。」我分辯道。「怪就怪在這個地方,老師學的是環境污染,怎麼會知道許多關於教育的知識呢?」學生提出問題的關鍵。
「我懂教育?我真的懂教育嗎?」我雙拳緊握,望著天叫道。學生們都點頭。「唔,看來沒有人同情我。好,讓我冷靜點,剛才講到…」我拉回主題。「老師,你如何在自己的專業之外,又懂教育?學校才請你來教這門課。」另一個學生繼續追問,學生似乎對我很有興趣,非得問個水落石出。

教育工程師
「環境污染工程學是我的專業,讓我從工程的角度,試著來回答你們。人一生的操作,像是參與一場挖礦的工程。我若在乎錢,應該去挖『金礦』;我若想提昇國家的武力,應該去挖『鐵礦』;我若想滿足時代迫切的需求,應該去挖『油礦』。但是,若在乎最基本的,應該去挖『人礦』。許多人想去挖金礦、鐵礦或油礦,但是總要留下幾個人去挖人礦,為培養人才而努力。我在大學四年級時,就有這個體會,渴慕成為一個『培養人才的工程師』,這是我在自己的專業之外,又關心教育的原因。」我說明道。
「老師在大學畢業之前,就決定以後要當個老師?」學生又問道。「教育是一個很大的禾場,與每一個人都有關。對教育有負擔,不一定要當老師。還有許多事可以做,如工程師、律師、醫師、會計師、作家、攝影家、音樂家、出版家、編劇家、記者、公務員等都能與教育有關,只是當年我尚不知道這種『心裡深處的負擔』,將會導引我投入那一項工作。」我說道。「什麼是心裡深處的負擔?」學生不解道。「心裡深處的負擔,是一種內在的壓力,彷如催促的聲音,不斷使人朝那方向前進。聲音的英文是voice, voice衍生的工作,稱為vocation。vocation的字源來自拉丁文的vocatio,vo-是voice的字根,catio是呼召(calling)的字根。一個人可以藉由心裡深處的負擔,作為人生意義的尋求。」我靜靜地說道。

教育與美食
「每個人心裡的負擔,都會對應外面的一個工作?」學生追問道。「負擔可以將各樣的工作,產生『質變』,產生喜悅的光彩與神聖的意義。我的負擔是當個教育者,大學三年級時,去參加教育心理輔導的普考,祇是沒有考上。大學四年級時,我的老師鼓勵我去唸研究所。」我回想到大學時代的日子。「後來怎麼會去念博士學位呢?這也與心裡的負擔有關嗎?」同學問道。
「是的,承受呼召接受裝備,那是責任。以我當時粗淺的認識,認為教育者有很多種,如蠟燭型的,燃燒才發光;嘴巴型的,常常在講話;出習題型的,老在改作業;偵探型的,學生稍露口風,立即看出端倪;聖人型的,只想供後人立碑作典範;暴虐型的,令人一見就害怕;專家型的,喜歡引經據典…。我期待能夠成為一個『廚師型』的教育家,能將各種知識,煮成好吃的食物,供給學生享用。我發現內心深處的負擔,竟轉化成為一個烹飪食物的烤箱。所以,我決定出國學習專業,和將知識轉成好吃食物的煮法。」我仔細地說明道。

呼召與夢想
「教育與烹飪不同,怎能相提並論呢?」學生繼續問道。「你們吃過披薩嗎?」我轉一個方向問道。很多學生點頭,有個學生還說:「海鮮披薩最好吃了。」「廚師型的老師,認為教育就像做披薩。首先做出一塊披薩餅,而後用蝦子、鳳梨、洋菇、火腿、豬肉、牛肉、鮪魚、番茄、洋蔥、青椒、青豆、玉米等來做配料,而後一起烤。假設用這十二種配料,作排列組合,至少可做上萬種的披薩。因此,用一個烤箱,一種餅,一些配料,就可以給學生近乎無窮的口味變化。接受裝備,最重要的是要有烤箱,其次是餅,最後才是配料。祇要有這三樣,就可以做出各樣的美食,滿足多人的口味與需求。」我邊說邊比劃,彷彿在做披薩。
「年輕時心裡的感動,用來作為一生追求的理想,會不會太幼稚?」學生愈問愈深入。「剛好相反。年紀愈大,考慮太多、反而容易裹足不前。學生時代是人生單純有夢想,又最有體力的時期。人生最具理想的時候,不去作夢,什麼時候才去作夢?雖然不成熟,卻絕對不世故。按著自己所知、所能、所感動的方向往前,即使不知未來如何,也是美好的探險。美好的結果,會逐漸地呈現。」我說明道。
教育的真諦
「老師對自己的呼召,從來沒有懷疑過嗎?心裡的負擔會不會祇是感情一時的投射,或是某種心理作用,產生出來的影響?」學生倒為我擔起心來。「我懷疑過千、百次以上。甚至到現在,有時還在懷疑,我是否走在正確的方向上?還是在混日子,等退休。我不太解析心理的負擔究竟是感情投射,或是心理作用;這些名詞,不能與人內心深處相對等。在感情與心理的背後,還有更深邃的層次,例如人有做事情的意志,卻不明白意志背後的意志;人感受情感,卻不明白影響情感背後的感情。我寧願在每次的懷疑中,學習單純地交託給上帝。如果是祂給我感動,祂終必會負責;如果不是祂給我的感動,會逐漸消失。」我平靜地說道。
「那怎麼又會當大學老師呢?」學生追問道。「我在二十二歲有從事教育的感動,三十五歲的時候,學校才聘請我任教,其間我做過別的事。成為一個老師,不一定就是成為教育者。老師的工作有一大堆的瑣碎,教育圈裡有些不合理的制度,還有自己野心無止境的擴張,這些都會讓我耗盡體力、心力、腦力與愛心。平時看似很忙碌,卻常在做與教育無關的事。不過,我只是盡可能保持往起初心裡負擔的方向走。」我說道。

披薩師傅的歡唱
「老師很不錯喔。」有個學生誇道。「謝謝。任何的榜樣,都不能取代真理;前人走過的腳踪,只能作為參考;你們需要自己去尋找。尋找的,終必尋見。」
好吧,親愛的同學,
讓我為你們唱一首披薩的歌。
要有一顆火熱的心,
才能保持烘烤的溫度;
要有良好做餅的技術,
才能打好穩固的底子;
要有幾款的配料,
才能做出多變的口感與香味。
怕會沒有人要嗎?
好吃的披薩,
永遠有市場。
但是,你一定要知道,
維持烘烤的熱力,不是來自外界的掌聲,
而是讓烤箱不斷地連接在
來自上帝感動的插頭上。」

〈課後點滴〉
「老師在大學四年級時,在什麼樣的狀況,產生從事教育的感動呢?」學生問道。

「那時我接受一個邀約,在禮拜六下午前往附近的楊梅高中,擔任學生團契的輔導。當我與他們分享時,他們的回應,使我深深的感動,原來自己的遭遇起起伏伏,自己的學習也不完全,卻可以幫助別人,是有意義的。輔導的工作,竟是幫助自己走出自束自縛的困境。施比受更為有福,擔任一年的輔導,我總有股說不出的渴慕,以教育己任。」我說道。
「後來都沒有想做別的?或是沒有遭受挫折嗎?」學生興味盎然地問道。
「有啊,我當過研究人員。在美國唸書時,也曾到加州水資源局上班,與在某公司擔任環保分析人員,但是總覺得意義不夠,轉向教育才覺得走對了。這期間,也有想放棄的時候,每當想豎白旗投降時,上帝總將白布藏起來,用愛為旗來取代。」我說道。
「所以老師不是一個為理想而有毅力或堅持的人。」學生明白道。
「是的,我是一個想舉白旗卻找不到白布的人,別人看我一直朝目標走下去,其實天曉得我是何等的光景。」我靜靜的望天答道。

慈心華德福 ......

2018-05-22 張金源
興中國中廢校案 牽扯慈心華德福 時代力量再批縣府無能撕裂人民【記者張金源/宜蘭報導】時代力量宜蘭縣黨部指出,原定昨(21)日將召開有關興中國中廢校案的說明會,縣府卻在召開前兩小時取消,完全不見縣府溝通的誠意。裁撤興中國中,縣政府需要照顧到社區需求、學生權益、辦學績效、區域總體發展及全縣總體面對少子化的教育對策。縣府不應以「財務單一指標」考量決斷獨行。 

時代力量指出,慈心是宜蘭縣頗為用心的實驗教育機構,興中廢校德事牽扯到慈心實為無妄之災,顯現縣府無能,並無審慎思考全縣教育方向,及國中小少子化通盤、多元考量、漸進式、的轉型與配套能力。無端製造宜蘭人民之間的矛盾,出了如此的烏龍大包,難道不需有人負責?究竟決策過程為何?讓宜蘭的教育淪為成本與買賣? 

慈心華德福高中發表聲明:針對外傳宜蘭縣政府停辦興中國中,是為提供校舍給慈心華德福高中,以及慈心華德福高中已在社區進行辦學簡報,與事實不符,說明如下: 

人智學教育基金會自2002年起受宜蘭縣政府委託辦理實驗教育,十餘年來,慈心華德福高中身為公辦民營學校,所有校務推動皆以配合縣府教育政策推動為前提,從無介入他校發展的決策,在慈心華德福全體師生與基金會努力耕耘下,辦學績效不僅受到肯定,也為宜蘭的教育選擇創造更多可能性, 

今年4月,二結地區地方人士因閱讀親子天下期刊【為孩子找自由 台灣父母「島內移民」】專文,熱心邀約基金會前往與社區人士交流,分享華德福教育理念,基金會常年推廣華德福教育等相關活動,樂見宜蘭各地方願意接觸與了解。 

不料這些行動竟遭外界解讀為,興中國中停辦是因慈心華德福想擴大辦理實驗教育,基金會深感遺憾,特發此澄清稿聲明以正視聽。 

慈心華德福高中為實驗教育的創先者,原以每年級2班的規模進行國中小辦學,全校共以18班的規模進行校園空間規劃,然而近年來因學校辦學受到肯定並因應12年國教與實驗教育向上轉銜發展的需求,獲得縣府同意改制為縣立公辦民營高中,並逐年因家長教育選擇而配合政策進行國中小增班,但校舍空間有限,現況實已嚴重影響實驗教育辦學空間與品質。 

基金會與學校多年來持續向宜蘭縣政府反應,有關家長對慈心華德福實驗就讀選擇需求的倍增,因增班導致學校空間愈益窘迫的困境,然時至今日,問題仍未獲完善的解決,高中校區需得向蘇澳國中借用教室,並由本基金會全額負擔整修費用;接續將以在原校區增蓋校舍因應增班學生上課空間的問題,但補助新建的空間量體仍然無法符合實際需要。高中校區與本校相隔數公里,除不利校務行政的整合外,在跨年段的教育課程與學生互動上都產生困難,若教育基本法賦予家長教育選擇權,如何在不影響辦學空間與品質的前提下,提供孩子就讀慈心華德福學校的機會,這一直是近年來基金會及學校不斷努力也希望縣府能協助解決的難題。 

宜蘭是教育與學習的沃土,人智學教育基金會與慈心華德福實驗高中辦學初衷亦始終如一,我們誠摯希望不論是體制內的學校或是各類體制外的實驗教育,都能在這片沃土上扎根並開展出屬於自己獨特的繁花枝葉,慈心願意與宜蘭所有教育伙伴及各類學校攜手共好,我們以開放的心,樂意接受善意的互動來繼續對話與發展。 

也祈請所有關心宜蘭實驗教育發展的先進,在理解慈心華德福學校辦學情況的基礎上,一起為此困境難題找到解方。

2018年5月14日 星期一

蘋論:歹戲拖棚的台大 2018/05/15



蘋論:歹戲拖棚的台大

5504
出版時間:2018/05/15

上周六的台大臨時校務會議,在校內外均出現質疑校方行政不中立的聲浪下召開,結果證明不但不願採納不同意見,也不願認真討論法律上可行的方案,最後作出的決議,當晚立即被教育部以「在台大臨時校務會議表現其自主期待後,應即依法行政,督促遴委會依主管機關教育部的意見,處理校長遴選相關事宜」的公開宣示,將球踢回台大。這場會議再度展現台大校務會議缺乏解決問題的能力,所以教育部可堅持其適法性監督立場,以免這種自治方式,為3萬多名師生的真正權益,帶來更多難以預期的災難,甚至讓台大為台灣高等教育的長遠發展立下違法濫權的負面示範。

為何不願徹底檢視

台大代理校長主動要求召開臨時校務會議,但會中不僅未事先提供校方檢討報告,充分揭露必要資訊,說明教育部要求重啟遴選所涉及的各種行政缺失,更未針對法律救濟之得失與勝敗可能性,以及因此延宕新校長產生與就任時間等重要事項進行慎重評估,在面對校務會議代表提出上述質疑時,還以時間匆促所以無法提出法律與風險評估報告為藉口,不斷搪塞敷衍。試問:既然時間匆促,何必急著召開會議,為何不先作好事前功課再開會?在不願充分揭露事實和法律相關資訊以供徹底檢視,正反意見也未能充分表達討論的情況下,作成明知會讓教育部相應不理的決議,除了浪費國家資源之外,究竟意義何在? 
更糟糕的是,校務代表在資訊不明、利弊不清、法律現狀與風險高低渾然不知的情形下,通過要求上級機關盡速聘任校長這種毫無法律拘束力的決議,教育部自然不會改變立場。因此,與其說這是場想解決台大眼前危機的會議,不如說是場情緒動員大會;這從不同處室的說法和主張彼此互有矛盾的現象即可得知。幾位教師代表甚至一方面強調自己不懂法律,卻又自行解釋公文、函示和法律條文的內容,完全不管在場學生代表和其他教師代表試圖解說法律爭議。於是,社會大眾發現,台大雖是學術重鎮,校務會議卻是個不尊重專業且無法論理的團體。 
姑且不論管中閔公開要求總統介入解決遴選爭議,反而違背其大學自治主張;台大至今依然不願面對現實,積極處理因重要資訊不揭露導致利益迴避無從處理之重大遴選瑕疵,卻選擇用校務會議票數優勢的手法來掩飾重大疏失,實已自陷困境。根據專業法律判斷,台大遴選程序出現重大瑕疵,教育部怎可能背棄法治國家的基本要求,去尊重為有違法之虞的程序背書的校務會議決議? 

表決再多次也沒用

既然教育部已經否定原先遴選結果對於聘任與否的參考價值,台大若不重啟遴選,對教育部來說自然沒有正確的遴選結果可供參考,也就不會透過聘任讓台大產生新校長,校務會議再作成無數次要求聘任的決議也徒勞無功,台大校方則仍有行政責任。這種拖棚歹戲的處理方式,若不是有政治鬥爭的算計,就是視《憲法》與法律對國立大學必須落實公共任務的課責為無物了,實在可惜。 

2018年5月13日 星期日

Harvard scholar Howard Gardner reflects on his life and work


CAMPUS & COMMUNITY


‘The greatest gift you can have is a good education, one that isn’t strictly professional’


In a life of multiple pursuits, Howard Gardner has remained a student above all else

Life stories from Drew Faust, Annette Gordon-Reed, Martin Karplus, Steven Pinker, E.O. Wilson, and many more, in the Experience series.
In the late 1970s and early ’80s, after he had worked with brain-damaged hospital patients and healthy schoolchildren, Howard Gardner developed a theory that changed the way people study intelligence and transformed the fields of psychology and education.
With his “theory of multiple intelligences,” Gardner challenged the notion of a singular entity of mind, mostly genetic, and instead put forward the idea that all of us possess different types of intelligences, including linguistic, spatial, and musical.
Gardner, a 1981 MacArthur “genius” fellow, would branch out to write books and formulate ideas in a range of other fields, including ethics. He is the John H. and Elisabeth A. Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and an adjunct professor of psychology and senior director of Project Zero.
Q: Can you tell me about your childhood?
A: I grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania. It was once a booming anthracite coal town, but by the time I was born, in the early 1940s, it was already becoming a depressed area. I had an uneventful childhood; probably the biggest impact came from events that my parents had gone through.
Hilde and Ralph were German Jews who grew up early in the 20th century and expected to spend the rest of their lives in Germany. They lived like middle-class bourgeoisie until Hitler came to power in 1933. In 1934, they moved to Italy to escape Hitler, and in 1935 they had a child named Erich.
They were making a life for themselves in Italy, but when Hitler made a pact with Mussolini, they decided they’d better move back to Germany and try to flee the continent. From 1936 through 1938, my father made several trips back and forth to the United States from Germany, trying to get people to sign an affidavit so that the family could move to America and not be considered a financial burden on the state. Finally, in 1938, my father secured the needed affidavit. My mother and Erich, then age 3, who were effectively being held hostage by the Germans, were allowed to travel with my father to the United States.
The family arrived in New York City with literally $5 in their pockets on Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, when many of their relatives were injured or killed. They had made it here in the nick of time. And then, in 1943, when my mother was pregnant with me, their 8-year-old son Erich died in a tragic sleigh-riding accident. My parents told me, when I was much older, that if my mother hadn’t been pregnant with me, they would have killed themselves because they had effectively lost everything.
Q: I read that you grew up not knowing you had a brother.
A: In those days, most parents didn’t tell kids things that upset them and that might upset their children. My parents never talked about the Holocaust, and although there were photographs of my brother around the house, they’d say that he was a kid from the neighborhood. At that time it wasn’t understood that children almost always figure things out, one way or the other, and children suspect when something is being withheld from them. I had always wondered why my parents displayed a photograph of a child from the neighborhood.
When I was 10 or 11, I found some clippings about his death. My major reaction was annoyance at the fact that my parents hadn’t told me about something so important in their lives. Now, of course, I understand they probably couldn’ttalk about it. Just as with the Holocaust, it was so complicated. There were so many relatives and friends who didn’t escape in time and were killed. But somehow not being apprised of something so important within the nuclear family was a source of disappointment or irritation. But I don’t recall an explosion.
Q: Can you tell me about your parents? Did they put a lot of pressure on you?
A: My parents didn’t have higher education, but they were very successful. My father was the co-owner of a company that sold stoves and ovens. His father had died when he was 16, and that meant he had to take over his father’s company. That’s why he couldn’t go to college. My mother was training to be a kindergarten teacher, but when they left Germany for the first time, everything stopped.
Hilde was a remarkable woman. She never had a paid job as far as I know, but she was a very dedicated public servant in Scranton. She was a leader in many organizations and she was chosen as the woman of the year in the city. She was what author Malcolm Gladwell calls a “connector,” someone who is oriented to the world and connects people with others whom they would like to or ought to meet. And even though I’m much less social and much more of an introvert than my mother, I also am a connector.
And my father, Ralph, during wartime and thereafter, he was like the general of an army without weapons. There were surviving relatives and friends and associates all over the world, in a kind of a diaspora, and it was my father’s job, because he was the youngest and most capable person, to keep track of where everybody was and to help out in whatever way was possible. Whenever people came to the United States, they’d stay at our home.
He was a very shrewd businessman, to the extent that when he was 58, he was able to retire, with his three partners, who were his cousins. I got some business sense from my father and also from my maternal grandfather, who was a hops merchant and who miraculously was able to relaunch his business after World War II.
Q: What kind of child were you?
A: I think that even without the event of a sibling who died tragically, which in essence I was a replacement for, it was very clear to me that, being the oldest of 15 or 20 cousins, there was a lot riding on me to become successful. I was lucky to be the proverbial bright Jewish kid. I was very accomplished in school. I was an early reader and writer, and when I was in second grade, I produced a newspaper. I don’t think anybody cared about it — just like now I blog and I don’t think anybody cares about it. I did not concern myself with whether I had readers. The fun was writing a newspaper, setting the type, and watching the pages emerge from the simple printer.
My family was oriented toward achievement, putting a lot of eggs in the firstborn’s basket. But because my parents themselves didn’t have higher education, they didn’t try to maneuver me to do A rather than B. They trusted my judgment on many matters.
Howard Gardner plays the piano.
Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer
Q: You were a serious piano player and a Boy Scout.
A: Until I was 12, playing piano was a very important part of my day. When I was 12, I had a fateful conversation with one of my piano teachers. He said, “Well, I taught you all I can teach you. And now you have to go to New York and you need to practice three hours a day.” I made a decision that I didn’t want to schlep to New York or practice three hours a day, and so I quit. In high school and graduate school, I’d teach piano. I didn’t have any training, but I was good enough to be able to teach a few students.
I was an Eagle Scout at quite a young age. What is interesting about that is that I’m not particularly athletic or outdoorsy — I didn’t particularly like summer camp although I went for seven years. But I was an achiever in the sense that I wanted to do what was required of me. I was also a champion marcher. I knew how to follow orders. This is also a theme throughout my life.
I wanted to prove I could do something even if I really didn’t want to do it. As a youth, I was the proverbial future lawyer because I was the Jewish boy who hated the sight of blood. Everybody said to me that I was going to be a lawyer, so I assumed that’s what I’d be. And when I went to college, that’s what I assumed I’d be. But I took pre-med courses, and as late as my junior year, I went to Stanford to talk to the admissions director — not because I wanted to become a doctor, or, for that matter, a lawyer, but because I wanted to tell my parents and the world I could do that if I wanted to.
Q: What were your impressions when you first came to Harvard, in 1961?
A: When I came to Harvard College, I met plenty of people who knew more than I did. In everything I did, including playing the piano, there were people better than I was, and that was good. You shouldn’t think that because you are a big fish in Scranton, that’s going to happen indefinitely. But what I remember is that, in my very first week at Harvard, I stood on the steps of Widener Library and I felt the whole world was open to me. Harvard gave me chances to pursue my curiosity, my appetite for new knowledge. And I guess — I’ve never put it this way before — I didn’t think that there was anything holding me back. That’s a wonderful feeling.
Q: What courses had a big influence on you?
A: I may have audited more courses than anyone in the history of Harvard College! I took or audited all kinds of courses, but I followed my own path. I wanted to show that I could do medicine or law.
I thought I’d become a history major. I took history courses during my freshman year. As a 19-year-old, I was fascinated by the Crusades and the Industrial Revolution, but I didn’t care about how historians wrote about it. And so when the history tutorial in sophomore year was focused on historiography, I got cold feet.
I was also interested in psychology. I had a very insightful teacher who said to me, “You seem to be interested in psychology and sociology; you should major in social relations.” Nobody below a certain age knows what the field of “social relations” is, but it was a major, a concentration — a combination of sociology, anthropology, and psychology. It was developed at Harvard after World War II, and the founders of that field were still alive and teaching when I was a freshman. It didn’t have much prestige, in part because it was seen as an easy major.
But I was interested in it. I majored in soc-rel, and literally I never took a psychology course but I knew that I was interested in social science. And that’s exactly what I became. I’m a social scientist, quantitative and qualitative, but from my work over the last few decades, you wouldn’t know whether I studied sociology, anthropology, or psychology.
At first I thought I’d study clinical psychology as a graduate student, but I went to England on a fellowship and before I had packed my bags, by chance I met Jerome Bruner, a renowned and charismatic psychologist. I became interested in cognitive psychology. Bruner also introduced me to my future wife, Judy Krieger, who was coming to graduate school as a psychologist. On our honeymoon, in June 1966, we went to Geneva to meet Jean Piaget, the Swiss psychologist. By that time, I wanted to do cognitive developmental psychology in the Piaget-Bruner tradition.
Q: Tell me more about your studies and your research, and how they led you to become interested in the human mind.
Howard Gardner at age 45.
Gardner is pictured in 1988, five years after the publication of “Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences.” 
Courtesy of Howard Gardner
A: I took an unusual career path. Shortly after I commenced graduate studies in developmental psychology, I began to work as a research assistant at Project Zero, a just-launched research organization in education created by a brilliant philosopher, Nelson Goodman. While at Project Zero, I began to do studies of children’s artistic development. Piaget had focused on the development of scientific thinking, and so I decided instead to focus on the development of artistic thinking, doing studies with kids and the arts. Thus were combined my interests in human development and my interests in music and other art forms.
After receiving a doctorate in developmental psychology, I got a post-doctoral fellowship to work at the Boston Veterans Administration Hospital, where I saw brain-damaged patients. I was inspired by a great teacher, Norman Geschwind, a neurologist who said we could learn about the mind from studying brain damage.
And so, every day, almost by chance, I’d be working at the VA with brain-damaged patients in the morning, and in the afternoon I’d be doing studies with kids at Project Zero. This was a really transformative experience. Seeing dozens of brain-damaged patients, I realized that the notion of intellect being one thing didn’t make any sense. The first thing that strikes you about brain damage is that it is quite selective. Some patients had lost their language abilities but they were very musical or vice versa. I also worked with kids, and some of them were good in writing, others were good in drawing, and some others in dancing or painting. And people can be very good in music but they can’t write a coherent sentence — or vice versa.
All these experiences chipped away at the notion of intelligence as being one, singular, even though I never thought about it explicitly. And then the dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education asked me to co-direct a “project on human potential.” I had already outlined my third book, directed at the general reader, called “Kinds of Minds.” I was going to write about the different kinds of minds that I observed at the VA hospital and in my encounters with children. (By then, Judy and I had three of our own: Kerith, Jay, and Andrew.)
Q: That was the material for “Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences,” which came out in 1983.
A: I have never been able to reconstruct when I made the fateful decision not to call these abilities, talents, or gifts, but rather to call them “intelligences.” Because if I had called them anything else, I would not be well known in different corners of the world and journalists like you wouldn’t come to interview me. It was picking the word “intelligence” and pluralizing it.
Almost every computer program underlines the word intelligences because it’s supposed to be singular, not plural. My computer has learned it’s plural when I use it. But by coining “multiple intelligences,” I picked a fight with the Mensa crowd, and with psychologists like Richard Herrnstein, who wrote that IQ is largely inherited and that status in life and work is largely determined by IQ. That’s also what shifted me from being a standard experimental psychologist to becoming more interested in education. And my career can be divided loosely into three foci: psychology, education, and now ethics.
Q: Your theory of multiple intelligences was embraced by educators but not by psychologists. Did that surprise you?
A: Psychologists have a certain way of studying intelligence. They have a certain notion of what intelligence means and how to test for it. I was kind of a bull in a china shop when I came out with my theory. Psychologists never liked my ideas. Educators found that it spoke to them, and I became a kind of modest celebrity in education. Accordingly, I’ve become more like an “educationalist,” a word favored by the British.
Howard Gardner.
Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer
Q: According to your theory, people have different kinds of intelligences: linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal. Which do you have?
A: I’m a perfectly good student so I have the requisite linguistic and logical intelligences. I definitely have a lot of musical intelligence. As for interpersonal intelligence, the ability to communicate effectively and empathize with others, I quip that I’m still working on it. I wouldn’t call myself wise, but at age 74, I’m much more able to give people the advice they need or want to hear than I was 20 or 30 years ago. I have good intrapersonal intelligence because I always had a sense of what sort of things I could do particularly well and what sort of things I couldn’t. That doesn’t mean I didn’t do things that I couldn’t do well, but I realized I had to work harder at them.
I’m quite sure I would perform below average in kinesthetic intelligence, the ability to excel in physical activities such as dance or sports. I blame my parents to some extent because they were very protective of me, having lost their firstborn in a freak accident. I didn’t know how to ride a bike until I was in college because they didn’t want to lose a second child. Whatever bodily-kinesthetic intelligence I may have had was completely quashed, except for drilling, soldier style, because I could follow commands, and digital dexterity, from decades of typing and playing the piano. I don’t have much spatial intelligence, but now with various GPS systems, that can happily be supplemented with technology. That is true about any intelligence.
I also think that personal intelligences are easier to keep improving than logical-mathematical intelligence and musical intelligence, both of which are better off if you start early. That’s why we have prodigies in those areas.
I should mention that my teacher in the realm of giftedness and prodigiousness — and much else! — is my second wife, Ellen Winner, whom I met at Project Zero. We fell in love, were married in 1982, our son Benjamin was born in 1985, and we recently celebrated our 35th anniversary.
Q: Later on, you added to the list of intelligences. Will experts find more in the future?
A: I don’t think that human intelligence has changed, but there may be ones that I just haven’t studied. There are two other candidate intelligences that I’ve written about. One is “pedagogical,” being able to teach, because we’re the only species that teaches, and as young as 2 or 3, kids can already teach. And the second I call “existential,” a big word, for the ability to raise and ponder interesting questions, which as far as we know no other species can do.
As a scholar, I have lost interest in multiple intelligences even though 80 percent of my mail is still about it. Ninety percent of my speaking invitations are about multiple intelligences and I maintain a website.
But all bets are off because this is the first time in history that we’re going to be able to affect the brain directly, to affect genetics directly, and of course, create artificial intelligences, which we either interact with, internalize, or merge with our brains. At present there are many things we can’t imagine because we’re limited by our evolved brains. But with technology, we — or the technology! — might create all sorts of new intelligences. Until 15 years ago, that would have been science fiction, but it’s not science fiction anymore.
Q: More recently, you have said that intelligence is important, but ethics is even more important — that what we do with our intelligence, the purpose, is what matters. Could you expand on this?
A: I am fortunate to have the example of my parents, who were deeply ethical people. They did not do anything unethical; they wouldn’t even consider it.
In my own case, I was pretty judgmental about people who cross lines, and I always have been. I hope that other people tell me when I do so. But ethics was not something I was interested in as a scholar. I became interested in the purpose of our minds and our lives, in how intelligences and morality can work together to yield the kind of persons we admire and the kind of society in which we would like to live.
More generally, as a scholar, I work at Project Zero and honor its motto — we develop ideas and give them a push in the right direction. My competitive advantage has been developing ideas and concepts, but ever since becoming more than an educationalist, my work is not just developing ideas, but trying to think about what to do with the ideas. In fact, through The Good Project, we’ve just embarked on a project to develop some tools to see whether secondary schools are achieving their ethical goals.
Q: You have written more than 20 books. Which one are you most proud of?
A: The one I like the best is called “Creating Minds.” It came out in 1993. I like it because I had the opportunity to study seven great creators in great depth. I love learning about other people’s lives. That is the book I had the most fun doing.
Q: What about the book on multiple intelligences?
A: Well, I’m not really proud of it. It made me a well-known scholar, and it will be on my tombstone, so to speak.
If I have to say which books make me feel proud, it’d have to be where I made the biggest stretch. But there is a problem here. In a way, books are like children. You feel most empathy for the ones that are neglected. I published a book in 2011 called “Truth, Beauty and Goodness Reframed.” It didn’t sell much and most people don’t know about it, but I think it’s incredibly relevant today, and it got a wonderful review by a philosopher, Alan Ryan, in The New York Review of Books. That meant an enormous amount to me.
Now I teach a course called “Truth, Beauty and Goodness: Three Fundamental Educational Values.” After Nov. 8, 2016, the course changed totally. The idea of “truth” as a universal aspiration didn’t work anymore. It became clear that many people are very happy living with a deficient sense of truth — not knowing, not caring. A large part of the population, people who should know better and people who don’t, don’t actually think truth matters, and that changes everything.
Q: I read that you consider Mahatma Gandhi one of your heroes.
A: Gandhi understood that we live in a world where for the first time in human history, someone could destroy the world. That wasn’t true during the Punic Wars or during the Crusades or even the World Wars. As a result of this unprecedented situation, said Gandhi, we have to learn to dispute, argue in a nonviolent way. That’s a very hard lesson to learn, but it inspired Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela, and anybody nowadays who protests injustice in a nonviolent way is really taking a leaf from Gandhi.
I recommend his autobiography, “The Story of My Experiments With Truth.” Gandhi was supercritical of himself. Everything he did, he looked back and criticized and tried to do better. I don’t pretend to compete with him, but I try to learn from what I do wrong and I try to get other people to learn from what they do wrong. That’s how Gandhi lived every day — how could I do better, what can I learn from this? In addition to being an international giant, Gandhi gave us an example of a healthy and practical way to think about and lead your own life.
Howard Gardner with fellow Harvard graduates in 1965.
Gardner, third from left, poses with fellow Harvard graduates in 1965.
 
Courtesy of Howard Gardner
Q: Can you tell us about regrets?
A: I have tried to be a good husband and a good father but I went through a difficult divorce when I was young, and it caused pain. I regret that. I have tried my best to make up for it. That’s a personal regret.
Professionally, I’ve been fortunate because I came to Harvard many years ago, and I have been able to stay here in various guises. Going to Harvard College, going to a Harvard graduate school, and being on the books for over 55 years, it has been very comfortable for me. There are very few people now my age who have been here their entire lives.
A question I ask myself almost every day is, If I was exactly who I am, would I go into academics today? I have real doubts that I would. And I think it would have been a tragedy for me because I think I’m better suited to do research, teach, mentor, and run a research team than do anything else.
I think there are professional things which I could have done differently and better. And what I tried to do is make amends for it. I’ve tried not to hold grudges. That’s sometimes difficult because you feel you’ve been mistreated, and it’s hard to take responsibility for your own flaws. And you never really know what people think about you.
But I’ve been very moved at the kind and thoughtful things people have said to me. When over 100 of them wrote tributes to me when I turned 70, what really surprised me was that more people wrote about my personal example than about my particular scholarly ideas or books. And that’s not what I would have predicted. We could say that they wrote about “me” rather than about “MI.”
What I tried to give to my doctoral students and to the hundreds of people that have worked with me in Project Zero, over 50 years now, is an example of one way to live a life. It’s about trying to do the right thing and not even think about doing the wrong things. I got that from my parents, and I would like to think that I kept people, besides myself, from doing things which were foolish in retrospect.
I serve on a number of high-profile boards, and I can’t contribute much financially, but sometimes I’m the person who says, Do you have any idea how the rest of the world would think about this? I’m astonished that people don’t think about it. So, yes, I have made lots of mistakes and I’ve possibly hurt some people, but at least I tried to make amends, and I tried to model that as best I can.
Q: What has been the most rewarding part of your academic career?
A: As an academic, you can work in splendid obscurity. But as compensation, as Henry Adams famously said: A teacher never knows when his or her influence stops. There are things I did 30 years ago I completely forgot about, and they crop up again when I hear from students whom I had long forgotten, “Something you said to me when I was taking your course really changed me.” There is nothing like that.
Having been taught by brilliant teachers such as Erik Erikson, David Riesman, Nelson Goodman, and Jerome Bruner was transformative; it was important for me to be part of that lineage. I am who I am because of my teachers, and I want my students and colleagues to know that. When you go to my office, on the wall are photographs of letters from people such as psychologist Jean Piaget and anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss. When I was a graduate student, I wrote about them, and then sent them my essay. And to my amazement both scholars sent me letters on the same day! For me, that sends a strong message to a young student, when two people he greatly admires both take the time to write him a substantive letter.
I’ve been able to write a lot. I wrote three books when I was in graduate school, which was very unusual. I’m more a book person than an article person. A role model is Stephen Jay Gould. He was a great scientist and died at a young age. I admire people who take insights from many different fields and put them together in new ways. That is how I fashion myself. I sense what my competitive advantage is, to use a 21st-century phrase. That’s probably an important thing for anybody who is not a polymathic genius: to figure out what you can do relatively better than other people.
And now, as it turns out, and unexpectedly, I’m doing the biggest study of my life. It’s a huge study of undergraduate education, and it’s likely to take seven years. We’re interviewing 2,000 people, 200 in each of 10 schools, and my colleagues and I are trying to figure out how the different stakeholders at 10 very different colleges think about college education. We’re talking to freshmen, seniors, faculty, administrators, parents, alums, trustees, and recruiters. We’re trying to get a 360-degree picture of how all the different stakeholders think about higher education. The data are mostly collected and we’re now trying to make sense of it. Our initial impressions are beginning to appear in a blog called Life-Long Learning.
Q: If you hadn’t become a psychologist-educator, what would you have been?
A: I think about this a lot. I could have made a living as a mediocre piano player in a bar because I’m good enough and I can play by ear, but I don’t think I would have become a concert pianist. I think I was very shrewd to decide at age 12 that I was going to play just for fun. (And I still do!) It’s conceivable that I could have become a musicologist, somebody who studies music, but I think it was more likely that I would have become an academic, maybe a historian because I like history, possibly a philosopher, possibly a neurobiologist. Those are the things I’m interested in.
I think that if I hadn’t become an academic, I would have become a lawyer. Had I pursued the law, I would have liked to become a judge or a professor, but you can’t count on that. I also could have been a reasonably successful business person. I could have been a management consultant, but I felt very lucky to have picked just the right thing for me, and for not having anybody telling me what to do.
Indeed, I’ve really never had a boss. As a professor I have a dean and a president, but they don’t tell you what to do. Except in 1971, when I applied for a job at Yale (and I didn’t get it), I had never applied for a job.
It’s amazing to go through life, not being born rich, without having to apply for a job, and being able to do what you want. My first and most fervent hope is that young people today would have the chance to do that as well. I worry that may not be a possibility. People have to understand that if you want to have a fulfilling life at work and outside of work, the greatest gift you can have is a good education, one that isn’t strictly professional.
I had 12 friends at Harvard College with whom I was very close. When we graduated in 1965, we all went to a bar — Cronin’s, of blessed memory — and we said, “We should get together in our 25th reunion but one of us will be dead by then.” A few years ago we had our 50th reunion, and everybody is still alive. Out of the 12, 10 did professionally what we wanted to do when we graduated. That is inconceivable now. It was a very different time.
This interview has been edited and condensed.

“In my very first week at Harvard, I stood on the steps of Widener Library and I felt the whole world was open to me.” -- Prof. Howard Gardner
The professor who put forward the idea of multiple intelligences talks about his adventures in learning for the Experience series.
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