Varieties of Excellence: Identifying and Assessing Children's Talents. A Series on Authentic Assessment and Accountability.

The current wave of school reform, with its emphasis on the learner, affords the opportunity to create environments that can foster excellence. The ability to support the development of excellence is threatened by commonly held beliefs that excellence depends on innate ability and that anyone who works hard enough will succeed, irfespective of the support they receive. This paper, one of a series of essays written for New York State's "Standards of Excellence" project, challenges common beliefs and asserts that: (1) human beings possess a varied array of mental competences, strengths, or "intelligences" that they can combine and call on in different ways to achieve excellence in diverse disciplines; and (2) those who are deemed excellent have developed their competences in meaningful contexts over an extended period of time. Topics discussed include the varieties of potential excellence, broad and narrow views of excellence, conditions for the achievement of excellence. comm.,;ty involvement in the creation of meaningful contexts, teacher involvement in the nurturing of domains of excellence, and forms of curriculum and assessment that engender understanding. Recommendations for schools seeking to support excellence include encouraging and supporting teachers to develop diverse competences through cooperative learning; providing forms of assessment that are fair to those with diverse strengths; and aligning school, family, and community to support the long-term development of individuals' competences. Contains 113 references. (SM) Varieties of Excellence: Identifying and Assessing Children's Talents Mindy Kornhaber Howard Gardner U S. DEPARTMENT Of EDUCATION Once 04 Educatoonal Rmarch and imorOvarrtenf EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) XTn.s documetm has been reimoduced tectittylkt Itom the Deemon or olgaretaltof C, Mt hive bean mad. lo anocove mrooduCflon (lushly Pomls of 41evr or OINntOns 5181110.n 114.1 docu.19141 0 noI turcessergy reofeafrit Whew (JERI posItIon or poi.CY '..* , WA; . (z. , , : aleigialralligagaii0.PaV14-OgiVat,:...=4-.&:M. :,:144::t1!..1.7.';'.4%.4"Sli4a;..t.laiblit44011.11111MMNS Will11111111011MillegieMliMilgitAX14104/CC.V.4=4:4A6r-4;r:=Zrelerk. The National Center for Restructuring Education, Schools, and Teaching (NCREST) was created to document, support, connect, and make lasting the many restructuring efforts going on throughout the nation. NCREST's work builds concrete, detailed knowledge about the intense and difficult efforts undertaken in restructuring schools. This knowledge is used to help others in their attempts at change, to begin to build future education programs for school practitioners, and to promote the policy changes that will nurture and encourage needed structural reforms. The Center brings together the voices of practitioners and researchers, parents and students, policy makers and teacher educators. NCREST is supported by a major grant from the DeWitt Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund. NCREST's work in New York City, through its Center for School Reform, has been supported by the Leon Lowenstein Foundation and the Aaron Diamond Foundation. Other funders have included the Center for Collaborative Education, the Danforth Foundation, the Fund for New York City Public Education, the National Center for Research on Vocational Education, the New York Community Trust, and the Regional Laboratory for Educational Improvement of the Northeast and Islands. Additional copies of this publication nifty be ordered for $8 each. All orders must be prepaid by check or money order payable to NCREST. Contact: NCREST Box 110, Teachers College Columbia University New York, NY 10027 Fax: (212) 678-4170 Varieties of Excellence: Identifying and Assessing Children's Talents Varieties of Excellence: Identifying and Assessing Children's Talents '0 Mindy Kornhaber Howard Gardner Harvard Project Zero