Turning Points and Choices

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Honorary doctorate acceptance speech by Prof. Howard Gardner November 17, 2009 at Sofia University, “St. Kliment Ohridski”, Bulgaria. Prof. Gardner reflects upon the importance of making good and meaningful choices, and of the meaning and importance of ethics to his work.

We are living in a time of great flux, of great change, of great discontinuity. We call this, 'the period of globalization.' And there are both good and bad aspects of this flux, this change. And I don't need to spell them out to anyone who lives in this country. And in times of great change, it's important that we have some moments of continuity, some anchoring, in the past. I'm very fortunate to be alive, because my parents were Jewish, lived in Germany, and were fortunate enough to escape to the United States, when many relatives were not so fortunate. And I grew up in the United States at a time when it was peaceful, affluent, and the only limitations were your own limitations. The society did not impose strong limitations on you. I was fortunate enough to be admitted to Harvard. And I've been there for almost 50 years. I studied psychology and other social sciences and I was on a path to become a professor and teach psychology until I became as old as I am today. But then the first three things happened that changed the course of my professional life. When I was a student in psychology there was no interest in the brain. Psychology was a black box, the brain inside. Nobody looked inside the box to see what the brain was like. But I met a famous neurological researcher. His name was Geshwind. And I talked with him for many hours. And I became convinced that I should put psychology aside and study the brain and the nervous system by working with patients who had strokes or other kinds of brain trauma. And so for 20 years, I worked part-time in a hospital with brain-damaged patients and learned a lot about the mind which I could never have learned just by studying psychology. And the study of the brain was what made it possible for me to develop the theory of multiple intelligences, which is the [my] work that's best known. So I wrote about multiple intelligences and the ideas became widely known in education. still very controversial in psychology. And I was very pleased that so many people knew and talked about and changed their educational approach because of Multiple Intelligences Theory But then came the second changing point for me in my professional life. I got a letter from a colleague in Australia, and he said, "Your ideas are being used here. And you will not like how they are being used." So I looked at what was happening in Australia. And my colleague was absolutely correct. I did not like what people were doing. The worst thing was this: They had a list of all of the racial and ethnic groups in Australia And which intelligences each group had. And which ones they lacked. It was very reminiscent of what happened in early in the twentieth century in Germany and elsewhere, where there was eugenics And each race was described as being distinctive. And so I went on television in Australia and I said, "I don't like this program. It is pseudoscience. It's not based on research, and I do not support it." And happily, they stopped using the program. So why was this a second turning point for me? Until then, I said, 'I'm a scholar. I'm a researcher. I can make discoveries, but I have no responsibility for how they're used. My job stops when I write my papers and my books. But then I realized that if I didn't take responsibility, for how my ideas were used, I couldn't expect anyone else. So I began to think about, I began to do some new work. So in1994, 15 years ago, with some close colleagues, I began to study, what we called 'good work.' Good work has three properties, three qualities. It is technically excellent, highly expert, highly disciplined. And secondly, it is personally engaging, meaningful, people want to do the work. And third of all, it is carried out ethically, responsibly. That means that the worker Is always thinking about how his work will affect other people, and tries to make it so that it affects other people positively and not negatively. So if I wanted to do good work, I used to think I just had to be excellent and to be engaged. But I learned that if I wanted to do good work, I had to be concerned about the uses that other people made with my work. So that was the second change. From just developing ideas, and writing about them, to taking responsibility for how they were used. The third change took place five years ago, As a result of the study we did of good work. We had been studying American young people. From the age of 15 to 30. And they understood what good work is. And many of them admired people that were excellent and engaged and ethical. But, there was a big 'but.' They told us, 'Some day, we are rich and famous, and important, we will be good workers. But we're too ambitious, And so we are not going to be ethical. So we're going to cut corners and cheat and compromise, Until we become wealthy and important. And then we will transform and become good workers and hire good workers.' I did not blame the young people. I blamed my generation, the older people. Because obviously, we didn't set the right example. And we didn't provide the proper models. So their selfishness is our fault. It's not their fault. And so the third change was this: I began to work with young people. In secondary school, at the University, at their first jobs, which are so important. The first job is so important. The goal is to help them to reflect on the difficult decisions you have to make as a worker and as a citizen. And not wait until you're much older, but to begin to take responsibility when you're still young and active. So far, this work is primarily in the United States. But we have set up a website: 'Good Work Tool Kit.' And we're hoping that people from all over the world, will interested in these issues, will communicate. First in English, but we hope in other languages also. We live at the first time in human history where people from all over the world, who are encountering the same challenges can be easily in touch with one and other via the digital media. I was just in Italy, at a conference on good citizenship, and there were people from 300 cities, from all over the world, gathered to discuss these issues. They meet only once a year, but they are in regular contact via the Internet. Nobody knows, at this point, how the new digital media will ultimately be used. The web, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Second Life, EBay, Google, Amazon. There are at least three possibilities. One is that the big corporations, IBM, Disney, Fox, Will take them over, as they have taken over many other media. Second, people will use these without interference, but mostly to gossip, or to buy and sell things. So it just becomes another feature of the consumer society. But the third possibility, is that people will use the new media to try to bring about positive changes in the world. That's a possibility also. The land mine treaty, Would never have been signed without the Internet. And nobody would have known about the street riots after the election in Iran, If it hadn't been for Youtube. The media are just a tool, like a pencil, you can use a pencil to write beautiful sonnets or to poke somebody's eye out. I talk about three turning points in my own life. Where I took a road that I did not expect to take. The decision to study the brain, although all of my professors said, 'Don't do it.' The decisions to take responsibility for the uses of my work. Even though most of us professors would prefer just to be professors. And then to work with young people so maybe they wouldn't make some of the mistakes that my generation has made. And this last decision was made, when I was older than everybody else in this room. So it's not too late to make decisions like this. During this talk I've been thinking about a movie. It's a movie from 50 years ago called Wild Strawberries, by Ingmar Bergman, the greatest filmmaker of the twentieth century. It's about an old professor, even older than me, named Dr. Borg. He is getting an honor like me, and he uses it as a catalyst to think back about his own life, and the decisions he made, some of which he would make differently, but trying to put his life together. So I thank you for allowing me to try to reflect on my own life. Because part of the University is to help us make sense of the past. But the University must prepare you for the future, which we cannot know in any detail. And so this afternoon, I will talk a little bit about where I think my own work has been and where I will go in whatever time I have left. And so, I thank you for your attention. And I will add one Latin phrase: ״Ave atque vale" (Hail and Farewell)

www.multipleintelligencesoasis.org www.howardgardner.com www.thegoodproject.orgProf. Howard Gardner

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