Multiple Intelligences Newsletter, Vol 35, No 2
June 21, 2026
Greetings MI Fans,
The theory of Multiple Intelligences is a statement about human potential. Pragmatically based, it stems from how people solve problems and create problems that are valued in a culture. As revelatory and profound as it was in 1983 when Frames of Mind was published, MI is even more relevant today when AI is looming over our shoulders.
I am not anti-MI. My opinions about it supplanting student learning and eliminating jobs plus my concerns about its impact on the environment are moot because AI is coming. And it’s coming quickly. This newsletter features some of my thoughts about this as well as a couple of articles that address the Musical Intelligence. The first is about a humanities class that has been developed by the Connecticut Department of Education in conjunction Steven Van Zandt’s nonprofit, Teach Rock. The class “explores United States history through the artists and sounds that shaped it.” Here it is: CT launches new high school elective that combines music and history. The second article is about how to develop students’ social emotional learning – their Success Skills – in music class. Few readers will be music teachers but the article is a good reminder that Success Skill can be taught through every intelligence: SEL in Music Class: 5 Tips for Teachers | Edutopia
Finally, is it ever too late to learn? No! In fact, in an article, “You Just Might Be A Late Bloomer” (June 26, 2024 Atlantic), David Brooks refers to a comment Daniel Pink made in his book Drive: “Epstein notes that many of the most successful scientists have had diverse interests, and especially in different kinds of performing: Nobel Prize winners are 22 times more likely to spend large chunks of time as an amateur actor, musician, magician, or other type of performer than non-Nobel-winning scientists are”: You Might Be a Late Bloomer – The Atlantic. Yes, regardless of our age, there’s still hope!
Thanks for your belief in MI. And apologies for the infrequency of this year’s Intelligence Connections. I will be back on track in 2026-2027. As always, I would be delighted to hear from you. I welcome your questions and feedback!
TOM
Thomas R. Hoerr, PhD
MI Network
trhoerr@aol.com
AI & MI
How does it feel when a pet dies? Why do some people look negatively at those who are different than themselves? How can you support a colleague who is experiencing trauma? If you pose those questions to Chat GPT, you will receive a reasonable and likely accurate response. Here’s what Chat GPT says when asked about losing a pet: “Losing a pet can be a deeply emotional experience, often comparable to losing a family member or close friend. People may feel intense grief, sadness, and emptiness, as pets often provide companionship, love, and comfort. The bond shared with a pet is unique and deeply personal, making their loss particularly difficult to process. Memories of time spent together can be bittersweet, bringing both comfort and further sorrow. Everyone grieves differently, and it’s important to allow oneself the time and space to mourn the loss.”
That’s certainly accurate but it doesn’t capture how we truly feel. AI can peruse thousands of pages and proffer a conventional response, but that’s different than when someone experiences a situation and reacts emotionally and intellectually. Not only are those real and personal experiences going to be more specific and effective, we also will grow from them. These personal interactions will probably include some discomfort and pain and those are integral to growth. So despite all that AI offers today and will offer tomorrow, it cannot replace our humanity.
I’ve been thinking a lot about AI. It’s not as if I choose to do this. Each day an aspect of AI is a topic in one or more of the news feeds and email alerts that I receive, and rarely does a newspaper lack a mention of AI. The pervasiveness of AI is equaled only by the speed at which it is evolving. I’m particularly aware of this because I am writing a book, The 2nd Edition of the Formative Five, which will be published early in 2027, and of course I addressed AI. Well, just as of course it seems that each time I reviewed what I wrote about AI, I needed to update it.
I knew that I needed to know more about AI so I was pleased to be invited to speak at a conference, “Learning Sciences: The Science of Learning in an AI-Driven, Multi-Intelligent World,” sponsored by the Singapore Principals Academy. The conference featured quite a few keynote speakers with AI expertise far exceeding mine. I was delighted to see “Multi-Intelligent World” listed in the title and my presentation was titled “Empowering Minds With AI & MI,” but I was the exception, because most of the speakers focused exclusively on AI.
There were far too many wise insights from the two days to be presented here, but a few themes emerged. First, Dr Randa Grob-Zakhary, the Founder and CEO of Education.Org, put AI in perspective. She explained how it is simply another step in humans using tools to help solve problems. From using rocks as protection and weapons to mastering horses, to inventing the printing press, to capturing electricity and creating computers, our species has benefited from expanding our problem-solving through tools.
Second, no surprise, while AI offers many capabilities, educators need to limit use of AI so that students do not become overly reliant on it. That’s no easy task because AI is alluring in its verisimilitude and ease of use. You could go to the gym and use a form of AI to lift weights and while the weights would go up and down, you wouldn’t be getting stronger; indeed, your use of AI would weaken you over time. Yes, it’s the same with scholastic arenas, too. AI can produce a reasonably well-written response to an assignment, but the student who used AI to do this has not grown. AI makes tasks easy, but growth does not come from ease.
Third, we need to help our students learn how to use AI in beneficial ways. That’s not easy and it begins with educators learning how to use AI. That’s not easy either. Steven C. Pan, Director, Learning Sciences Laboratory of the National University of Singapore, shared data showing when AI can be helpful in students learning content, and when it is not. Yow Wei Quin, of the Singapore University of Technology and Design, talked about computers as social actors (CASA). She asked, “Whose knowledge do we learn to trust and why?” She made the case that AI earns trust because it’s so reliable (and I add, but not always valid). AI does well with providing summaries of content and immediate feedback on student work. AI can give responses which appear to do that but they lack depth and are unable to evolve and react as we do in a real situation. AI it cannot help students learn the importance of motivation and grit, build relationships, appreciate culture, or address ethical issues.
As noted, my voice was different because I spoke directly to the value of using MI to help educate. Schools are typically designed to offer success to students with strong linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligences, I said, and students with strengths in the other intelligences typically do not fare as well. I asked these school leaders to consider the students in their schools who are strong musically, bodily-kinesthetically, spatially, or with the naturalist intelligence and how they might increase their probability of success. How could pedagogy and curriculum meet their strengths?
The bulk of my presentation focused on the importance of the Personal Intelligences, Interpersonal (knowing and understanding others) and Intrapersonal (knowing and understanding yourself). I stated that while I believe that these intelligences have always been key to success, this is even more the case in an AI world. I concluded by focusing on empathy – one of my Formative Five success skills – and made the case that leadership is all about relationships so good leaders must have strong Personal Intelligences. (For what it’s worth, many people in the audience smiled and nodded when I said this.)
What about YOU and your MI?
Exercising our non-dominant intelligences is beneficial. It works against us becoming narrower as we age and we just might develop a new interest or hobby. I’m linguistic but am not comfortable with poetry; indeed, I often don’t get it. But at the top of my to-read pile is a poetry book, Dog Show by Billy Collins, so I am going to practice what I preach. How about you?