Cognitive Development and Creativity in a Navajo University Student: An Explorative Case Study using Multiple Intelligence Perspective

Abstract

Intelligence and creativity are concepts used to describe the efforts of human beings to achieve the highest aspirations of the human brain-mind-spirit system.Howard Gardner, intelligence and creativity researcher, applied his Multiple Intelligence theory to case studies of creative masters from seven intelligence domains developing a template for research: Life Course Perspective: A Framework for Creativity Analysis. The framework consists of four sections: Child and Master, Creation of a Work, an Analysis of Creativity, The Creator and the Field, and Fruitful Asynchronicity. This case study uses Gardner's framework in examining cognition and creativity in a Navajo/Dineh university student creating in fine arts and nominated in bodily-kinesthetic and intra-personal intelligence. This explorative case study reveals that he also excels in other intelligence domains: linguistic and spatial. Meta-cognitive interviews with the case study subject, and his notebooks provide the data sources concerning his cognition and his creativity.Indigenous educators and researchers assert that there is a discernible difference in perspectives concerning western science conceptions and Indigenous experience. This research discovered points of resonance as well as tangential trajectories of cultural difference from Gardner's research conclusions. Discoveries in this exploration confirm the importance of culture and zeitgeist in knowledge development, pedagogy, schoolingand the creativity process. Emerging themes emanating from these discoveries areChild of the Holy People, Sacred Geography, and Fruitful Asynchronicity from an Indigenous Perspective.Conclusions from this inductive research support Gardner's framework in the cultural study of cognition and creativity, underscores the value of Multiple Intelligence theory, and provide examples of praxis consonant with Indigenous learning processes for Gifted & Talented Education. The American Indigenous symbiotic and synergetic perspectives are novel in the examination of intelligence and creativity in the American education system. The American Indian perspectives are possibly prophetic as they proceed beyond culture and Gifted education intersecting and informing other fields: psychology, educational anthropology, philosophy, and Indigenous studies both in American populations as well as Indigenous gifted students worldwide.