In Their Own Way: Discovering and Encouraging Your Child’s Multiple Intelligences, Revised and Updated

In Their Own Way: Discovering and Encouraging Your Child’s Multiple Intelligences, Revised and Updated

The Classic Best-Seller On How Children Learn Differently.

Does your child have a favorite subject, activity, or hobby? Children learn in multiple ways, and educator Thomas Armstrong has shown hundreds of thousands of parents and teachers how to locate those unique areas in each of our children where learning and creativity seem to flow with special vigor.

In this fully updated classic on multiple intelligences, Armstrong sheds new light on the "eight ways to bloom," or the eight kinds of "multiple intelligences." While everyone possesses all eight intelligences, Armstrong delineates how to discover your child's particular areas of strength among them.

The book shatters the conventional wisdom that brands our students as "underachievers," "unmotivated," or as suffering from "learning disabilities," "attention deficit hyperactivity disorder," or other "learning diseases." Armstrong explains how these flawed labels often overlook students who are in possession of a distinctive combination of multiple intelligences, and demonstrates how to help them acquire knowledge and skills according to their sometimes extraordinary aptitudes.

Filled with resources for the home and classroom, this new edition of In Their Own Way offers inspiration for every learning situation.

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About the Book

In Their Own Way was the first parenting book to highlight the importance of addressing a child’s multiple intelligences.  First published in 1987, it was revised and updated in 2000, adding an additional intelligence (the naturalist) to the original list of seven intelligences.

The theory of multiple intelligences was developed in 1983 by Dr. Howard Gardner, professor of education at Harvard University. It suggests that the traditional notion of intelligence, based on I.Q. testing, is far too limited. Instead, Dr. Gardner proposes eight different intelligences to account for a broader range of human potential in children and adults. These intelligences are:

  • Linguistic intelligence (“word smart”)
  • Logical-mathematical intelligence (“number/reasoning smart”)
  • Spatial intelligence (“picture smart”)
  • Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligence (“body smart”)
  • Musical intelligence (“music smart”)
  • Interpersonal intelligence (“people smart”)
  • Intrapersonal intelligence (“self smart”)
  • Naturalist intelligence (“nature smart”)

Dr. Gardner says that our schools and culture focus most of their attention on linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligence. We esteem the highly articulate or logical people of our culture. However, Dr. Gardner says that we should also place equal attention on individuals who show gifts in the other intelligences: the artists, architects, musicians, naturalists, designers, dancers, therapists, entrepreneurs, and others who enrich the world in which we live. Unfortunately, many children who have these gifts don’t receive much reinforcement for them in school. Many of these kids, in fact, end up being labeled “learning disabled,” “ADD (attention deficit disorder,” or simply underachievers, when their unique ways of thinking and learning aren’t addressed by a heavily linguistic or logical-mathematical classroom.

The theory of multiple intelligences proposes a major transformation in the way our schools are run. It suggests that teachers be trained to present their lessons in a wide variety of ways using music, cooperative learning, art activities, role play, multimedia, field trips, inner reflection, and much more (see Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom, 4th ed.). The good news is that the theory of multiple intelligences has grabbed the attention of many educators around the country, and hundreds of schools are currently using its philosophy to redesign the way it educates children. The bad news is that there are thousands of schools still out there that teach in the same old dull way, through dry lectures, and boring worksheets and textbooks. The challenge is to get this information out to many more teachers, school administrators, and others who work with children, so that each child has the opportunity to learn in ways harmonious with their unique minds (see In Their Own Way).

The theory of multiple intelligences also has strong implications for adult learning and development. Many adults find themselves in jobs that do not make optimal use of their most highly developed intelligences (for example, the highly bodily-kinesthetic individual who is stuck in a linguistic or logical desk-job when he or she would be much happier in a job where they could move around, such as a recreational leader, a forest ranger, or physical therapist). The theory of multiple intelligences gives adults a whole new way to look at their lives, examining potentials that they left behind in their childhood (such as a love for art or drama) but now have the opportunity to develop through courses, hobbies, or other programs of self-development (see 7 Kinds of Smart).

How to Teach or Learn Anything 8 Different Ways

One of the most remarkable features of the theory of multiple intelligences is how it provides eight different potential pathways to learning. If a teacher is having difficulty reaching a student in the more traditional linguistic or logical ways of instruction, the theory of multiple intelligences suggests several other ways in which the material might be presented to facilitate effective learning. Whether you are a kindergarten teacher, a graduate school instructor, or an adult learner seeking better ways of pursuing self-study on any subject of interest, the same basic guidelines apply. Whatever you are teaching or learning, see how you might connect it with

  • words (linguistic intelligence)
  • numbers or logic (logical-mathematical intelligence)
  • pictures (spatial intelligence)
  • music (musical intelligence)
  • self-reflection (intrapersonal intelligence)
  • a physical experience (bodily-kinesthetic intelligence)
  • a social experience (interpersonal intelligence), and/or
  • an experience in the natural world. (naturalist intelligence)

For example, if you’re teaching or learning about the law of supply and demand in economics, you might read about it (linguistic), study mathematical formulas that express it (logical-mathematical), examine a graphic chart that illustrates the principle (spatial), observe the law in the natural world (naturalist) or in the human world of commerce (interpersonal); examine the law in terms of your own body [e.g. when you supply your body with lots of food, the hunger demand goes down; when there’s very little supply, your stomach’s demand for food goes way up and you get hungry] (bodily-kinesthetic and intrapersonal); and/or write a song (or find an existing song) that demonstrates the law (perhaps Dylan’s “Too Much of Nothing?”).

You don’t have to teach or learn something in all eight ways, just see what the possibilities are, and then decide which particular pathways interest you the most, or seem to be the most effective teaching or learning tools. The theory of multiple intelligences is so intriguing because it expands our horizon of available teaching/learning tools beyond the conventional linguistic and logical methods used in most schools (e.g. lecture, textbooks, writing assignments, formulas, etc.). To get started, put the topic of whatever you’re interested in teaching or learning about in the center of a blank sheet of paper, and draw eight straight lines or “spokes” radiating out from this topic. Label each line with a different intelligence. Then start brainstorming ideas for teaching or learning that topic and write down ideas next to each intelligence (this is a spatial-linguistic approach of brainstorming; you might want to do this in other ways as well, using a tape-recorder, having a group brainstorming session, etc.). Have fun!

To read some of Dr. Armstrong’s 72 blog posts on multiple intelligences, click here. 

Recommended Reading

For general overview and self-help strategies (high school, college, and adult learners):   7 (Seven) Kinds of Smart: Identifying and Developing Your Multiple Intelligences. New York: Plume, 1999.

For K-12 educators:  Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom, 4th Edition Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2018.

For K-12 educators (focus on literacy):  The Multiple Intelligences of Reading and Writing: Making the Words Come Alive  Alexandria, VA:  Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2003.

For parents:  In Their Own Way: Discovering and Encouraging Your Child’s Multiple Intelligences, New York: Tarcher/Perigee, 2000.

For kids (grades four through eight):  You’re Smarter Than You Think: A Kid’s Guide to Multiple Intelligences.  Minneapolis, MN:  Free Spirit, 2014.

For kids (kindergarten through third grade):  Smarts! Everybody’s Got Them.  Minneapolis, MN:  Free Spirit, 2019.

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Author:
Genres: Education, Parenting
Tags: 8 intelligences, childhood, children, children and diet, curriculum, education, Howard Gardner, intelligence, late childhood, learning, learning differences, learning strategies, learning styles, MI theory, middle childhood, multiple intelligences, progressive education, school reform
Publisher: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam
Publication Year: 2000
Length: 304
ASIN: 1585420514
ISBN: 9781585420513
List Price: $15.95
eBook Price: $11.99
Endorsements
''This is a kind, decent, caring book -- that should help parents through their children's schooling years and support children through their growing times.'' - Herb Kohl, author of ''36 Children''
– Herb Kohl
''The impact of the diagnosis of serious illness on adults has been thoroughly documented. Dr. Armstrong makes a valuable contribution to the subject of the harmful effects of inaccurate diagnosis and the subsequent labeling of children.'' - Norman Cousins, author of ''Anatomy of an Illness''
– Norman Cousins
''Thomas Armstrong shows us how to use each student's uniqueness in achieving quality education for all. In Their Own Way is a book to be read by parents and teachers.'' - Laurence J. Peter, Ed.D., author of ''The Peter Principle''
– Laurence J. Peter, Ed.D.
''Thousands of potentially good learners in this country are currently being labeled as learning disabled and treated as such. In Their Own Way provides wonderfully practical advice to parents about how to appreciate and foster every child's unique individuality and way of learning. I recommend it highly.'' - Louise Bates Ames, coauthor of ''Your Child From Five to Ten,'' cofounder of the Gesell Institute of Child Development at Yale University
''Thomas Armstrong has written a positive and wholly constructive work.'' - Howard Gardner, author of ''Frames of Mind''
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