Think back to the last time you had to compress large amounts of information into a summary. Maybe when you wrote a short essay about a semester-long project, or when you were giving an elevator pitch that attempts to capture decades of your life accomplishments. Surely, we’ve all been in this situation. The task at hand seems deceptively easy, but there are inherent complexities in this process of simplification.
In this episode of the podcast series, Pulled Up Short, Dean Stanton Wortham is joined by featured guest Howard Gardner and commentator Gabrielle Oliveira. Dr. Howard Gardner is an American developmental psychologist, and is currently an Elisabeth A. Hobbs Research Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He is also an adjunct professor of psychology at Harvard University, senior director of Harvard Project Zero, and has been awarded numerous honors throughout his career. In this specific episode, Gardner reflects on his experiences as a scientist and scholar, and of realizing the complexities inherent in simplicity when sharing his renowned theory of multiple intelligences with a global audience.
Gardner begins by rewinding back to 40 years ago, following the publication of his book, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligence (1983). He recalls being pulled up short when engaging in the process of summarizing 5 years of work, 400-pages, and hundreds of footnotes into a brief blurb. The summary was something along the lines of:
“Most people think intellect is singular. That we have a single computer in our skull; if that computer works well, you’re all set no matter what you’re doing, and if it doesn’t work well, you’re in big trouble no matter what you’re doing. The human intellect is better described as a number of several relatively independent computational devices. Think of them as half a dozen or a dozen separate computers inside our skull. One works with language, another works with music, a third works with spatial orientation, the fourth with bodily movement, a fifth with understanding other people, and so on.”
This description seemed satisfactory in capturing the key ideas of his theory. But to his surprise, the simplified understanding continues to be misinterpreted by many. He has published at least 200 blog posts on his website, hoping to redirect his audience from negative interpretations, and to expand the conversation of how the theory ought to be applied in specific contexts.
So, how should we approach our work without feeling paralyzed by this fear of misinforming through oversimplification? Commentator Gabrielle Oliveria opens up a discussion about this concern. To learn more about how we should grapple with this dilemma, listen now to Episode 1 of Season 2: “What is the complexity in simplicity?”
Pulled Up Short is a podcast that aims to create moments of being “pulled up short”— addressing our assumptions about the world by using our curious minds to facilitate conversation and reflection about various topics. Make sure to follow us on Twitter @PulledUpShort in order to stay connected with our podcast!