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Excerpt from Wisdom’s Children by Lin Northrup,
M.ED
Chapter 12 “ Co-creating a Path of Service”
A 21st century learning environment that brings to the light each
child’s innate gifts, will require a total reorganization of our present
educational system. No longer can we have a day that is sliced and diced
into a tight schedule. No longer can we support an inflexible curriculum
that standardizes the individual. To challenge the higher consciousness
of today’s children, we have to let go of an obsessive need to evaluate
students on a narrow range of pre-determined abilities. Freedom,
creativity, trust, openness, cooperation and understanding must take
precedence in order to meet the needs of today’s children. Educating a
child with wisdom and love means revitalizing the learning process by
joining the heart, mind, and body with the spirit of the child. Teachers
cannot continue to be pressured into covering a curriculum. They must be
given the latitude and creative freedom to cover less in order to help
students learn more with greater depth and richness.
One of the ways we can help students open to their innate gifts is to
utilize Gardner’s theory of Multiple Intelligences as a framework for
teaching. Dr. Howard Gardner has described nine intelligences:
verbal-linguistic, logical-mathematical, visual-spatial,
bodily-kinesthetic, musical-rhythmic, interpersonal, intrapersonal,
naturalist and existential. Teachers can empower their students by
exploring the many different ways they can be ‘smart.’ Most schools
reward verbal-linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligence. Students
who shine in other intelligences are often made to feel they lack what
it takes to be a successful student. Dr. Gardner’s model for learning
goes beyond the traditional definitions of intelligence.
I have taught my students about Multiple Intelligences for several years
and communicated regularly to parents so that they could expand their
own thinking about their children. Children intuitively recognize their
strongest and weakest areas of intelligence. In order to help them
utilize their strengths, I asked them if they wanted to choose their own
topics and make videos. They loved the idea. In fourth and fifth grade
children are developing their social skills through cooperative
projects. I felt that video making would encourage them to express their
creative skills and collaborate together.
With their enthusiasm and hearts engaged, they soon took ownership for
their learning. They began by using their right brain ability to
visualize the video as a whole, mind mapping their ideas on the board by
creating a large web of ideas that could be included in the video. Then
they zoomed into their left-brain to break it down step by step. We
discussed nitty-gritty requirements such as time factors, materials,
space, equipment, and responsibilities. Since the children knew their
strongest intelligences, they could honestly discuss what each could
best contribute to the project. They also knew their weaker areas and
discussed what help they would need from each other. If one student was
very good in the Visual-Spatial Intelligence, they would help a
classmate draw posters. If another student was strong in the
Musical-Rhythmic Intelligence, they could contribute ideas for a musical
sound track.
Students soon realized how interdependent they were when it came to
working on their videos. They valued each other’s abilities and
developed a real sense of community. Our goal was to share their
educational videos with parents and classmates. For each presentation,
the children discussed how they used their multiple intelligences to
accomplish their goals. When children are given the opportunity to look
at intelligence and creativity from a broader perspective, they have a
greater appreciation of their abilities and how to apply them. This
self-knowledge lays the groundwork for co-creating their life path.
When children are given choices in their learning, and when learning
truly commands their hearts and minds, self-motivation is high. You feel
the excitement in the air. Projects that incorporate different modes of
intelligence bring forth every skill. Students need to plan, make
decisions, organize, imagine, write, research, use art, music, their
bodies, and cooperate toward an end result. They will have to overcome
obstacles, set realistic goals, and stretch their creativity to the
limit. They will need time. This is one factor that most classroom
teachers feel they do not have. In a regular classroom, a project like
this would engage all students at every level. But the teacher would
need the freedom of time. She would need to be in a school that valued
the multi-dimensional thinking skills of today’s youth and allowed the
creative time necessary for their development. And she would need to
educate parents to view their child’s expanded abilities from a new
perspective.
I presented a workshop for teenagers who attended an alternative program
because they were not succeeding in the regular classes. I only had one
hour, so I chose to focus on creativity and gave them a survey to help
them identify their talents. This bright, but usually apathetic group
came alive. One girl, a senior, was especially excited about her
results, which showed her strong creative thinking and leadership
abilities. She felt she had just re-discovered a missing part of
herself. One class and a simple survey affirmed something she had always
known about herself, but ignored because she was a poor academic
student. Our children shouldn’t be sitting in 12th grade unschooled
about the true nature of their intelligence and abilities. We can choose
to design our schools using a multiple intelligence approach to
learning.
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