A dream of eight intelligences

Hello everyone,

If you don't mind, I will wax philosophical about education.

In the ideal educational environment, students would begin early being trained in all of the eight modalities of intelligence: language, math, spatial, musical, kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and nature; and all modalities would be treated equally.

In an ideal school, everyone would be helped to high standards in all facets of their selves. Certainly, those with learning disabilities (in any of the eight intelligences) would receive additional intervention, and those with severe disabilities would be given alternative curricula, but everyone would be developed fully in all their intelligences.

By all means, allow those who excel to stand out. I don't see any problem with that. Let them be leaders and mentors (which will help to develop their interpersonal intelligence). But recognize excellence equally in the full spectrum of possible achievement.

Recognize as well that, just as everyone can learn to read and do math, everyone can learn music, design, sports, diplomacy, self-reflection, and how to grow a garden. We can all sing, play instruments, paint, dance, speak second languages, and be kind and gentle to people and animals. We can all learn technology, biology, physics, carpentry, and how to work together.

Those things must be treated equally from the beginning;.

The truth is, right now everything but the barest essentials of reading, writing, and arithmetic are almost all of what are valued in our school system.

I'm not sure what practical value this has in your classrooms right now. Probably none--especially in the face of budget cuts and our continued struggles to meet benchmarks in only two of the eight intelligences.

But I think that, maybe being aware of a powerful inter-relation among the intelligences may be helpful. Maybe our students will be so inspired by our teaching that some of them will grow up and make education what it really ought to be--the training and development of a complete human being, who is then able to continue that training and development independently.

It's a dream, I know. But it's mine, and I like it.

Jeff Combe