This week the Head of our children’s school held meetings with small groups of parents, and it was eye-opening for me. First of all, I left in tears of gratitude for this woman and the school she founded back when I was just graduating high school! I already was in love with the diverse array of creative and gentle kids who attend the school, and the teachers who love teaching in this environment and remain to do so. But I’m not actually writing to sing the praises of the school (as thrilled as I am). I’m writing to share the idea of multiple intelligences, which I learned more about and applied to my own experience, this week. I am not a mom who reads a lot about childhood development, so for some of you this may not be new news. For the rest of us… this is cool stuff!
Remember when you were a kid and you were either one of the ‘smart’ kids, one of the ‘not-so-smart’ kids, or one of the ‘in-between/normal/not so interesting’ kids? In my elementary system I fell into the latter category. This was where the readers and creative types landed. The math/science kids were in category 1, and those with special needs were in category 2 and frequently tortured by their classmates. If I grew up with you and this is not your recollection of our school system, I apologize and ask you to grant me some latitude – it is definitely the feeling I had in those days. It wasn’t until I picked up the violin and showed some promise in music that any real skill was acknowledged, and for many of my high school teachers (not all), this meant they didn’t really bother with me… I was headed to music school anyway (so we all thought, but that’s another story for another time).
Back to my point. The idea of multiple intelligences is life changing! It does NOT (as our Head of School pointed out) mean we tell our kids they are brilliant – rather, we encourage and congratulate intention and initiative (or ‘hard work’). What it DOES do is give parents and the kids themselves an early start in comprehending their unique abilities, and an appreciation of the diverse styles and skills of others. I love this for the impact it has on the community of children, and I really love it for what it brings to a family. Because, guess what, when my family of four chose each of our top 3 intelligences (individually), we barely had anything in common! Think how many years of frustration we just saved ourselves as parents…. Duh, they are NOT like us!
I am a bit of a personality test wonk, so this stuff has always been fun for me. You might enjoy it too – have your family pick their top three from the intelligences listed below, and see what your family skill set looks like. Certainly makes for interesting dinnertime conversation.
- Skill for the arts. (Artistic Intelligence)
- Skill for music. (Musical Intelligence)
- The ability to get things done through others. (Interpersonal Intelligence)
- Common sense, an ability to recognize what needs to be done and what can be. (Practical Intelligence)
- Self-awareness and self-control, persistence, zeal, and self-motivation. (Emotional Intelligence)
- An aptitude for sensing and seeing what is not immediately obvious. (Intuitive Intelligence)
- Skill of athletes. (Athletic Intelligence)
- An ability to see patterns in things. (Spatial Intelligence)
- A facility with languages. (Linguistic Intelligence)
- Being at ease with numbers of all sorts. (Numerate Intelligence)
- The ability to reason and conceptualize. (Analytic Intelligence)
- The know-it-all facility of the encyclopedia. (Factual Intelligence)
For more on this topic, I was recommended the book “The Hungry Spirit” by Charles Handy, in particular his chapter titled ‘A proper education.’ The originator of the theory of multiple intelligences is Howard Gardner.
