Introducing Dan Willingham

Let me introduce to someone you should know: Daniel Willingham. He is a cognitive scientist who specializes in explaining how his field of study intersects with education. I first discovered his work when doing research on Howard Gardner's popular theory of Multiple Intelligences. Willingham's response was a breath of fresh air in an often over-heated education policy debate. (It also confirms classical teaching methods.)

Willingham can also be found blogging for the Core Knowledge Foundation and in a series of short, must-see videos on YouTube. Parents and students have been sold a pedagogical bill of goods under the banner of "multiple intelligences." One may hope that Daniel Willingham's work will help correct the wide-spread misapplication of Gardner's ideas in classrooms and college-level education programs.

For more on why the theory of Multiple Intelligences actually works against academic achievement, see the first chapter of Charles Murray's recent book Real Education.