Howard Gardner is one of those people that get most of my engines running when I engage with his thinking. You may not know this, but I spent just over 10 years working in a community and youth development context. This was the foundation (people development and trends around young people) that has me where I am today. It was a great experience and it’s done me very well, in being able to contribute to ‘the war on talent‘ and understanding and commentating on how social media is impacting how we communicate and engage with each other.

I like Gardner for a number of reasons:

  • He’s counter-culture (we need another view on people development and growth)
  • He makes allowances for individuality (we need a framework that allows us see that we’re not all the same)
  • When he speaks it connects with my experience of the people I have engaged with (we need some less conceptual and more practical understanding of ourselves)
  • He’s respected and recommended by people who are leading the evolution (revolution) in human development and understanding.
  • The creator of Star Wars rates him (this one should speak for itself : )

I found this interview with Howard Gardner (you can view it below) on Edutopia. It comes from the George Lucas Educational Foundation.

The George Lucas Educational Foundation was created to address this issue. Our vision is of a new world of learning. A place where kids and parents, teachers and administrators, policy makers and the people they serve, all are empowered to change education for the better. A place where schools have access to the same invaluable technology as businesses and universities — where innovation is the rule, not the exception. A place where children become lifelong learners and develop the technical, cultural, and interpersonal skills to succeed in the twenty-first century. A place of inspiration, aspiration, and an urgent belief that improving education improves the world we live in.

If you have 8 minutes, have a look. If you haven’t ever been exposed to Howard Gardner’s thinking then be prepared to be shaken a little, perhaps ever stirred.

And if you have some extra cash lying around, let me know? I know some others, myself included, who’d love to put it to good use to significantly influence education in South Africa towards a Howard Gardner et al way of operating.