3104. More on Educating for Life


 
I’d like to share with you about multiple intelligences, because they’re applied at some friends of mine’s schools. However I’ve also found a lot of criticism about that issue, you know. Multiple intelligences… multiplying the concerns and problems maybe, maybe not. It's up to the way you implement the theory, and frankly my friends do it nice.
Look, do whatever you think wiser both out of the classroom and inside the classroom, and work as a team too.
It was a nice (some people say not reliable…) theory by American psychologist Howard Gardner toward the beginnings of the 1980s. Some other experts prefer to talk about mental habits and skills, but there would not be seven or even eight different kinds of intelligences, you know.
I also prefer to talk about multiple ways of learning and multiple learning styles and the like, you know. In the Web you can find quite a lot in favor and against. Philosophically it points at a problem, as I said someway: eight intelligences...
I assume my friends with their schools apply that principle in a nice way, with their feet on land and not building up air castles, as we say in Spanish, basically.
As far as I’ve found along my career as a teacher I’ve encountered the fact that each student is different and unique, and that’s it... And we teachers have to put in our dear students’ shoes and be prone to help them and motivate them as well.
Ok, let’s focus on a single idea or premise: I’m finding out about this theory and practice… and oh, I can see different learning styles to which you’ve got to apply your teaching abilities. Hey, each student is unique, and there’re two principles you’ve got to apply: love them with love of benevolence and try to motivate them for them to seize their own learning pathways – all of which is what my friends are doing ultimately (plus other nice adequate things: they’re aces at teaching!).
And if you have mixed-ability classes (as everyone has, as a matter of fact…) combine different kinds of activities in classes plus make high-achievers help low-achievers. Is it okay? I’ll write further about this point, in case any of those nice friends would write any comment... / Photo from: fishing3 Svino Stugby

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