Howard Gardner

The countries who do the best in international comparisons, whether it's Finland or Japan, Denmark or Singapore, do well because they have professional teachers who are respected, and they also have family and community which support learning.

As history unfolds, as cultures evolve, of course the intelligences which they value change.

Anything that is worth teaching can be presented in many different ways. These multiple ways can make use of our multiple intelligences.

On the basis of research in several disciplines, including the study of how human capacities are represented in the brain, I developed the idea that each of us has a number of relatively independent mental faculties, which can be termed our 'multiple intelligences.'

It's absolutely clear to me that Obama has enormous intrapersonal intelligence. His book, 'Dreams from My Father,' is an amazing book, and it's obvious to everybody he has lots of intrapersonal intelligence.

While I've worked on many topics and written many books, I have not abandoned my interest in multiple intelligences.

I need to add that my work on multiple intelligences received a huge boost in 1995 when Daniel Goleman published his book on emotional intelligence. I am often confused with Dan. Initially, though Dan and I are longtime friends, this confusion irritated me.

My belief in why America has been doing so well up to now is that we have been propelled by our immigrants and our encouragement of technical innovation and, indeed, creativity across the board.

The accumulation and cross-generational transmission of wealth in the United States has gone way too far. When a young hedge-fund manager can take home a sum reminiscent of the gross national product of a small country, something is askew.

If we want to have good workers and good citizens, we need to create common spaces in which individuals can talk about the moral and ethical dilemmas that they have faced and how they resolve them.

The biggest communities in which young people now reside are online communities.

I favor a system where students in publicly funded institutions make a commitment: if they do well in the private sector, they will revert a certain percentage of their income to the education sector; and if they devote some years to public service, their debt will be forgiven.