Educational Psychology—Limitations and Possibilities

Robert J. Sternberg 209
Herein rests the possibility to move students toward the development of a critical literacy where
they begin to deconstruct information and use their indigenous knowledge to construct and question
the meanings, power differentials, and perspectives of the information that they encounter.
Movement toward critical literacy is essential if we are to embrace the idea that the demonstration
of successful intelligence necessarily involves the extent to which individuals leverage all of their
abilities, by utilizing their strengths and correcting or compensating for their weaknesses, to
achieve particular goals within the contexts of their everyday real worlds. To successfully utilize
their intelligence for purposive navigation through everyday life, individuals need to be able to
critically read the world in which they live. Within the context applying Sternberg’s model to
pedagogy, the goal should not only be to maximize the cognitive skills of students through a
recognition of the plurality of their intelligence but to also give them new opportunities to think
critically about the society in which they exist so that their education empowers them to transform
the structures rather than conform to it. Interestingly, Sternberg’s own early educational
experiences can be understood within this context. He was a student academically condemned by
traditional models of intelligence testing that labeled him as an underperformer or unintelligent.
However, rather than conform to the circumstance of the stigmatizing label, he challenged it by
engaging in efforts to acquire the knowledge to deconstruct the theoretical models that were foundational
to the creation of the circumstance, and constructing an alternative theoretical model.
Sternberg’s work was informed by information and knowledge generated from his childhood
experiences with intelligence.
Another important element of the Triarchic Theory of Intelligence is the way in which it focuses
not only on the deficiencies, but also on the assets, of skills and abilities of successful intelligence.
As we consider the extent to which many American youth, who have not fared well under our
current pedagogical models that privilege an analytical approach, are demotivated and alienated
from the learning process, Sternberg’s paradigm can be incredibly helpful in constructing new and
more effective models of schooling to alter this circumstance. Through his theoretical framework,
there is an acknowledgement that students have a wide range of intellectual assets, even if they
coexist with deficiencies that need to be addressed. This asset-based approach can be an important
motivator for students who have historically experienced overwhelming failure in the traditional
modalities of schooling. A deliberately active recognition and embrace of students’ analytical,
creative, and practical abilities can be incredibly empowering, particularly when their creative
and practical abilities have been overlooked by our traditional approaches to pedagogy.
In addition to the motivational benefits that can be gained by students who are pedagogically
engaged in a learning process imbued with a Triarchic approach, there are also opportunities to
enhance academic performance. Learning triarchically allows students encode material in three
different frameworks, which consequently strengthens and increases the ways in which students
are able to retrieve and utilize such information. In his research studies of the model, Sternberg
has documented performance gains across all three domains for students who previously had
been recording poor academic performance. “Students who have studied triarchically excel in
their performance not only on tests measuring analytical, creative, and practical achievement, but
also on multiple-choice tests that require little more than memorizing the material. Moreover,
students who formerly were not achieving at high levels start achieving at high levels when they
are taught triarchically” (Sternberg et al., 2001). Sternberg and his colleagues also found that
the Triarchic model gave teachers an opportunity to employ a greater variety of pedagogical
approaches to deliver particular academic content, which is an important motivator for them as
well. Just as students can be moved toward a critical literacy, perhaps teachers simultaneously
can be moved toward critical pedagogy as they are empowered to engage their own knowledge
and skills, outside of those dictated by prescribed and scripted curricula, in the facilitation of
learning within their school spaces.