As teachers, we are well aware and well-versed in Howard Gardener’s theory of seven intelligences….or are we? Going through a comprehensive teacher education program at SUNY Geneseo, I was told in most of my education classes about how individuals learn in multiple ways, and we as future teachers need to understand how to tap into all the multiple modalities. However, what I’ve always wondered since age twenty was: How am I going to teach this way if I’ve never been taught this way myself? By no means did I mean that I cannot teach in a different way than the way I was taught as a Catholic school student (where we saw the backs of our nuns more than the front). But how was I supposed to tap into ‘multiple intelligences’ if I only read about these seven types from a college textbook? Ten years later, I am still asking the same question.
So it came as no surprise to me when I read that the guru himself, Dr. Howard Gardner, did not believe educators were using his theory of multiple intelligences appropriately. Of course we’re not! We keep getting hit with buzzwords such as “differentiated instruction” and “multi-sensory”, but do not know exactly how to make sense out it all. What we do know what to make sense of is: No Child Left Behind. Teach to the test, administer tests, compare results so teachers know what to do the following year in order to get better results. It’s a sick cycle, and this type of curriculum does not allow for room to support the multiple intelligences theory.
Sorry, Dr. Gardner---not here, not yet.
In the meantime, the education system tries to ‘fit in’ this theory by teaching teachers how to create the ‘differentiated classroom’, where we must meet the levels of all our students all the time. How is this even possible? Yes, we have come a long way from the one-room schoolhouse, but we have a longer way to go. Dr. Gardner and other notable psychologists are correct in their findings about other intelligences, but we need to figure out how to appropriately implement their conclusions.
