7 Types of Smart: Discover & Develop Your Multiple Intelligences - Boost Learning & Career Success

Dr. Armstrong's "Seven Kinds of Smart" is written and researched by The Teacher who really gets it: A person is unique and has uniquely different ways of learning. Each person has his/her own style of accessing and absorbing information. The diifferent senses use different learning tools for each, or a combination of each. Dr. Armstrong is The Teacher who developed these approaches to teaching and learning. Dr. Armstrong's book is very readable: enjoyable, clear, easy-to-follow, interesting. You aren't aware that you are being taught. It is vastly superior to the Howard Gartner writings on the same subject. Dr. Armstrong identifies SEVEN different pathways: Verbal, logical, spatial, musical, touch/kinesthetics, interpersonal, intrapersonal. Peter Drucker, the famous economist, who taught at the Claremont Colleges, wrote in one of his last books that he first determined whether his listener, student or recipient of his communications learned by audio or visual means in receiving information (slightly different from the verbal and musical classifications of intelligences Dr. Armstrong identifies), before trying to communicate with that person. He felt you could not communicate with someone unless you first made this determination. For instance, does your boss "get" your message from something written, i.e. is he/she eye-minded; or does he/she "get" your message best if you speak to him, i.e. is he audio-oriented"; or does he get it best if he is watching you and having things demonstrated to him, i.e. is he/she touch or tactile oriented? Dr. Armstrong helps the reader to understand his/her own best learning pathways and how to use each effectively. He also suggests ways to support our weaker pathways. I view learning and communicating as a multi-pathway experience, not just a one-pathway activity. For instance, I view doing art work as requiring visual, spatial and touch/tactile intelligences. Dr. Armstrong developed his theories of learning as a teacher in Fresno, California. They are sound techniques for learning, teaching, parenting, marketing, and general communication. I recommmend this book as an essential part of understanding how the human mind works, develops and receives new knowledge. It is a wonderful tool for showing us on how to learn new skills and abilities so that we remain mentally young and agile.