How are You Smart?

In about the last 20 years, a new thinking has developed regarding education and learning. Spearheaded by Howard Gardner in his book titled “Frames of Mind: The theory of Multiple Intelligences”, it presents the human mind as being capable of learning in various ways.

The theory of Multiple Intelligences (MI) hinges on the notion that our scientific understanding of intelligence is always changing, and that each child is different with his or her own distinctive, and possibly changing, profile of intelligences. It proposes that people use at least seven relatively autonomous intellectual capacities – each with its own distinctive mode of thinking – to approach problems and create products. The seven intelligences proposed are linguistic, musical, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal and intra-personal intelligences.

The implication here is that if a teacher wants every child in the class to learn, instruction must be packaged and presented in different modes such that different children will learn different things in different ways. For example, in preparing a lesson in history the teacher may introduce the topic in class and then take the children on a field trip to the museum, a famous historical site that pertains to that lesson, or to a monument of some great personality related to that history. Following this trip, the student may then be encouraged to re-write the history in the way they understand it, act that section of history, or present it dramatically, poetically or graphically, through a piece of art or broadcast it, depending on the age of the children.

Children, who are then programmed to learn through different means, would, at the end of a lesson like that, have learnt something concrete, because several learning strategies have been applied instead of just classroom teaching. Imagine that this has to be done for most topics in most subjects, to facilitate students’ individual learning styles.

Given this background, it does not take too much to find the answer to the question of why teachers are reluctant to implement the Multiple Intelligences theory in classroom settings, even though several trials have proved the application of the Multiple Intelligences to be beneficial to students and to have produced excellent results. It demands a lot of work and creativity, and sensitivity to the age of the student.

Most teaching curricular is structured in such a way that teachers are often under pressure to cover content areas and prepare the students for some form of state or standardized achievement test, within a specified period of time. So teachers experience a strong dilemma where quality and certainty of learning, inevitably gets sacrificed for content.

In third world economies like Jamaica, trying to keep up with a rapid changing technological world, the challenge of sustaining the education system is difficult enough. Trying to personalize lessons in a class with over 50 children may be asking too much of a teacher who is preoccupied with trying to keep his/her class under some form of control, while trying to see that some form of learning takes place.

The analogy of why the theory of Multiple Intelligence is not so generously accepted, could lead one to a parallel; that of relationships among nations – especially the rich north and the usually poor south. Is it possible that like the theory of Multiple Intelligences, our way of seeing, learning, solving problems and developing products are different? If mutual respect can be developed for one another’s world view, will there be significant improvement in the way we value the contributions made by others, rather than seeing only the world of technological advancement as being valid for this age?

How do we encourage our children to know that there are different ways of knowing and different ways of expressing that which we know, to the degree that tolerance becomes a part of our everyday life? This might contribute significantly to understanding racial and religious differences, as well as differences in world economies and strategies for implementing policies. Our demographics, socio-economic challenges, aspirations, and realities are different, just as intelligences are different. However, if some learn one way and others another way, what is the bottom line? Learning takes place – differentially, of course, but it does take place.

Maybe instead of asking “how smart are you?” we really should be asking “how are you smart?” I believe that if this is done for individuals as well as nations of the world, a new understanding and respect would be born; one that could transform relationships for a better world. Is it then possible that the teachers following Howard Gardner’s ideas are not just contributing to education but to improved understanding of relationships amongst nations of the world? I wonder.