Howard Gardner

This fall we wanted to generate a discussion based on Howard Gardner's theory of Multiple Intelligences. We started off the discussion asking the question, "What do we mean by intelligence?" which led to an animated discussion about how everyone has strengths and weaknesses.  We talked about how one goal of The New School is to help children get better in areas they find hard or challenging but to also encourage them to blossom in areas where they excel. Children were given a personal survey which asked them to answer over thirty questions yes/no questions. For example: "I enjoy  indiviudal sports best." "I often have a song or piece of music in my head." "I find it easy to make up stories." or "I am a very social person and like being with other people." After totaling their scores they discovered the higher the totals in each column the stronger their abilities were. A lively discussion followed as children shared whether they were primarily word smart, number/reasoning smart, picture smart, body smart, music smart, people smart, self smart or nature smart. A week later we grouped children according to their areas of strength and asked them to list the ways we help children improve this "smart" at school and to suggest possible careers they might consider. For example the "body smart" children identified gym, basketball, walking, playing socer and dance as things we do at school to get better in these areas and some potential careers might be gym teacher, karate teacher and carpenter.