(Based on an article by Howard Gardner, published in 'The Psychologist', October 2003.)
From the fact that psychometric intelligence (or 'IQ') may be hard to change one can draw two conclusions, either that we should not bother to try to change it (we can't!), or that we should make every effort we can to change it by even a small amount. Throughout the world governments now see education as the key to success in the 'new economy' based on information and knowledge. India has introduced ambitious plans to raise educational standards and produces around 2 million graduates each year (admittedly a small proportion of the total population), while the UK government aims to have 50 percent of people aged 18-30 in higher education by 2010 (in Finland the figure is already 70 percent).
Why bother to educate people to this extent? There are plenty of people who oppose it, who see education as being 'dumbed down' as a result and who claim that many of the courses designed to attract students as being 'Mickey Mouse' in character and unlikely to produce top quality graduates. One reason for educating people to this extent is to prepare people for life in a world that has changed dramatically through the process of globalisation, and individuals now need in particular:
These points are made in numerous other works, many of them listed and discussed on other pages on this site.
Education, however, evolves slowly and many of the courses in our universities are the same ones that were taught decades ago and their style of delivery has changed little. The scholarly disciplines, however, are among the most important inventions of humankind, the capacities to think mathematically, scientifically, historically or artistically represent enormous human achievements. It is very difficult to think in a disciplined way and we should not throw away this achievement in any re-designing of education. It is far easier to teach factual material at a superficial level than to teach methods of thought and to probe deeply into difficult issues and questions.
We need, therefore, to identify the most crucial areas of thought in a discipline and focus on that: depth trumps breadth. Second, students must be challenged to use their knowledge to solve new puzzles and problems and to avoid the cultivation of 'inert knowledge'. Third, considering the barrage of new knowledge that is accumulating, we must give students the tools to continue to educate themselves when their formal education is at an end.
What the new era of globalisation introduces is the need to think in an interdisciplinary way, drawing on a range of methods and concepts to tackle problems such as poverty, social inequality, terrorism and environmental degradation. The need to think pluralistically, divergently and synergistically can be encouraged by educating people to a higher level and also by introducing new technology. Gardner is known for developing the notion of 'multiple intelligences' and for the suggestion that each individual should be educated according to his or her personal combination of the seven types of intelligence he identifies. Traditionally education has selected individuals with a combination of linguistic and logical intelligence and has largely ignored the rest. Such an approach is possible where each person has a personal tutor but it is also increasingly more feasible in an age where computer software can provide a range of ways of presenting material so that it is more accessible to a wider audience.
Gardner, for example, has made his lectures available on the university (Harvard) intranet so that students can see them in their own time and his class time is freed up for more stimulating and demanding work involving debate, role play, experiments and group work. This approach has been extended into an interdisciplinary framework covering cognitive development, the brain and education (for a similar approach in the UK look closely at the courses offered at Sussex University). Gardner thinks this approach is especially valuable in a world of rapidly expanding knowledge, where interdisciplinary thinkers are needed and where individualised paths of learning are required.