Throughout my years as a teacher, I have found that there are not two students who are exactly alike. Every child possesses different strengths and weaknesses and learns in their own unique ways. In 1983, Howard Gardner presented a breakthrough educational theory arguing that intelligence is multi-faceted. Traditionally, a “smart” child was one with strong reading, writing, and mathematical skills. Howard Gardner suggested otherwise. He outlined various intelligences and argued that everyone has these intelligences in different proportions. His theory has taken hold in classrooms across the United States because it helps educators meet the needs of many different types of learners. I believe that all children possess gifts and are smart in their own way. Understanding these gifts helps me to create more personalized and diversified instructional experiences for my students, allowing them to reach greater levels of success.
Gardner's Multiple Intelligences:
VISUAL/SPATIAL - Children who learn best visually and by organizing things spatially. They like to see what you are talking about in order to understand. They enjoy charts, graphs, maps, tables, illustrations, art, puzzles, costumes - anything eye catching.
VERBAL/LINGUISTIC - Children who demonstrate strength in the language arts: speaking, writing, reading, listening. These students tend to be successful in traditional classrooms because their intelligence lends itself to traditional teaching.
MATHEMATICAL/LOGICAL - Children who display an aptitude for numbers, reasoning, and problem solving. This is the other half of the children who typically do well in traditional classrooms where teaching is logically sequenced and students are asked to conform.
BODILY/KINESTHETIC - Children who experience learning best through activity: games, movement, hands-on tasks, building. These children were often labeled "overly active" in traditional classrooms where they were told to sit and be still!
MUSICAL/RHYTHMIC - Children who learn well through songs, patterns, rhythms, instruments, and musical expression. It is easy to overlook children with this intelligence in traditional education.
INTRAPERSONAL - Children who are especially in touch with their own feelings, values, and ideas. They may tend to be more reserved, but they are actually quite intuitive about what they learn and how it relates to themselves.
INTERPERSONAL - Children who are noticeably people oriented and outgoing. They enjoy learning cooperatively in groups or with a partner. These children may have typically been identified as "talkative" or "too concerned about being social" in a traditional setting.
NATURALIST - Children who love the outdoors, animals, field trips, etc. More than this, though, these students love to pick up on subtle differences in meanings. The traditional classroom has not been accommodating to these children.
EXISTENTIALIST - Children who learn in the context of where humankind stands in the "big picture" of existence. They ask "Why are we here?" and "What is our role in the world?" This intelligence is seen in the discipline of philosophy.
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Mrs. Mauceri's Class! Smithtown Central School District
