In Japan, colleagues of Howard Gardner are currently working on research and a course related to Multiple Intelligences theory.
In the summer of 2014, Dr. Itsuro Ikeuchi has published a text with the English title A Cognitive Approach to Education by Harvard Project Zero: Utilizing Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences to Foster Creativity and Human Potential (Tokyo: Toshindo Publishing Co.). This volume (pictured right) is a useful resource for Japanese speakers who would like to learn more about MI theory and the work that is done at Project Zero.
Additionally, the Japanese MI Society is offering a course this academic year at the Tokyo Art Institute on the Impact of Art and Design Thinking. As a greeting to the students enrolled in this course, which will cover MI Theory in depth, Gardner composed the following message to the class:
"I am very pleased to learn about this new course. My interest in psychology and education actually began because of my own interest in the arts. As a young person I was a serious student of piano, a sometime piano teacher, and a fan of several art forms. My doctoral thesis was a study of how young persons perceive style in paintings. It was as a result of this long time interest in the arts , as well as my research in artistic cognition, that I began to develop a criticism of the standard view of intelligence (IQ) and to propose instead a more pluralistic view of the mind, as captured in Multiple Intelligences (MI) theory. And so, from what I know, your course spans two areas that are of great and long-standing interest to me—intelligences and the arts. I hope that you have a wonderful experience and that you’ll let me and others know about how you have benefited.”
We are excited to announce these developments from Japan and look forward to continuing to work with colleagues in that country in the future.