Zigler vs.Gardner free essay sample

The late 1960’s seemed to be the end of one decade and the beginning of a new one; the country was heading into a new direction of politics, still fighting a war in Vietnam, and realizing our education system needs some new rebuilding. In 1969, a very famous singer Frank Sinatra released a song titled â€Å"My Way†, which was about the meaning of how a man’s existence leads him down a path of integrity before he expired and felt his life achieved the goals he was meant to have and behold. When I read the assignment Giving Credit where credit is Due, I have to identify two psychologists and briefly describe their main contributions to their field. One of the psychologists that I have to write about is Howard Garner (Gardner 2003) whose main contribution to the field of Intelligence research development and multiple intelligent theories. Gardner was interested in the social sciences and in 1972 was a founding member of Harvard Project Zero, when he joined project zero as a co-director in that same year. We will write a custom essay sample on Zigler vs.Gardner or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Gardner started a collaborated study on the artistic capacities in children, style sensitivity, and comprehension and understanding of metaphor (Gardner, 1980, 1982). The title of Gardner’s â€Å"My Way† made me think of Frank Sinatra in the sense that he and Gardner did things their way in their life time. Gardner wrote books that affected his identity in psychology. After reading â€Å"My Way†, Gardner felt his most important work and contribution to society was his 20 year extensive research in Neuropsychology studying the right hemisphere of the brain (Gardner 1975). While doing this research on this topic, Gardner was able to write some 60 empirical articles, even on cognitive neuroscience. (e. g. , Gardner, Brownell, Wapner amp; Michelow, 1983). Again, only in the 1960’s were government grants available to him to extend his research and prior to this there was no support or little help for his ‘empirical social sciences’ He had some struggles in his research. Gardner seemed to have some outside interest in education. In the 1980’s, he finally seemed to find a niche and interested educators response to the multiple intelligences theories and the second reason is the social, the concern of the United States in the fairish quality of pre-collegiate education. He also had some struggles and defeats when it came to writing peer reviewed articles and receiving negative feedback, even his grant applications were turned downed. It is quite interesting that he has compared himself to Frank Sinatra and everyone does things their way and even Gardner has received a very distinguished award in 1981, the MacArthur Prize Fellowship. In the conclusion of reading Gardner’s My Way, I really felt that Gardner was happy with his Way of doing research, a career as a psychologist and most important he certainly felt his love and passion for the values he believes in mainstream psychology. He clearly states in the end of his book, He would not go into Psychology again, he would chose Neuroscience, however he has no regrets and for me that clearly states that he will always have the passion for the intellect and the loyalty for the ages to come. The next Psychologist that I must identify and describe in brief is his main contributions is Edward Zigler, Once again, the 1960’s seem to be a decade of change in the United States in so far as education for a start, President Lyndon B. Johnson proposed an idea with the help from Dr. Robert Cooke, asked Edward Zigler to help on the War of Poverty, It seems that Edward Zigler was on his way to becoming a clinical psychologist with a specific field in child development, which is its own specialty, as time progresses, Dr. Zigler, also approaches a new developmental psychopathology area known as mental retardation. Special Education was not established in the 1960’s and new ideas and approaches were on the rise. The office of Children Development: (which is now called Children, Youth amp; Family) in which Zigler would become the official director during the Nixon presidency, (Zigler amp; Muenchow, 1992). In 1964, President Johnson started a committee with a blank sheet and created Project Head Start, members were from a variety of fields from mental health, social work, medicine and a child development, Project Rush Rush is the name Zigler and the insiders called it because it was a rush summer project with no statistics or plans on how to run the program. No means and measures to manipulate the information and how many children should be in the startup program. Project Head Start was an educational necessity for impoverished low income children before they attended elementary school. It was supposed to be in the summer with just 25,000 children and now in 1965, the enrollment exceeded to more half a million had already enrolled. Zigler that that poor children would have better chances of success if given more chances to better their lives, have access to healthy foods, good hygiene and oral care. It is interesting that a scientist such as Zigler goes to Washington, DC and ends up serving his country in a non-traditional way, the educational classes that Zigler sees in helping the parents will hopefully gain some insight in overcoming poverty stricken children. Zigler felt this was a worthy contribution and not an obligation; it was interesting to me that Zigler felt that the policymakers and academic psychologist really came from different worlds and sometimes could not see eye to eye. The office of Head Start is now a federally funded program that promotes school readiness of children to help and promote cognitive and social emotional development, it has now been reported that 18 million children that have walked through the doors of project Head Start and hopefully have excelled into the adults they should be. The resistance that Zigler seems to have had is his misunderstanding of how policymaking is processed and how they also did not know much about child development literature. There are some similarities between Zigler and Gardner such as; both went to Ivy League schools, very well educated, both ended up in education by different circumstances. Both became famous psychologists in their own way, both started their careers in the 1960’s, excelled in research that gave them an understanding of the minds. Zigler concentrated on mental etardation, whereas Gardner liked Neuroscience, one has the absence of a strong mind where as one likes the intricate work of the mind. The environment on the outside plays a role with children who are or can be under developed children whereas professional on the inside use their brains to play a role in the multiple intelligence theories. Their personal lives have crossed in the 1960’s at the peak of decade when new theories and ideas have pl ayed such an important part in our psychologist’s research and expertise.