MI- Chapter 9

This chapter discussed the idea of an MI school and a traditional school. Students come to school not just in order to learn, as is the obvious reason, but to be “provided with experiences that activate and develop all of their intelligences.” It is important to remember no matter what setting a teacher and students might be in, that there will always be a mixture of every learning style and ability. Most schools, known as the traditional school setting, neglect a handful of the intelligences, including: bodily-kinesthetic, naturalist, interpersonal, musical, and spatial. MI schools are a different learning environment and experience. Although MI schools do not specifically exist as MI schools, many schools at this point in time are being built to cater to the different multiple intelligences or the learning types/styles of each student. These schools involve the opportunity for students to further their interests in vocational wants- meaning every job type that a “traditional” classroom setting is not conducive to. These schools give the students the ability to be hands on and base their learning directly on real life.

The other part of establishing an MI school would be the different types of staff members. There would need to be an assessment specialist: a person to assess the current and developing strengths, challenges, and interests of all eight multiple intelligences for each student, a student-curriculum broker: a person who can bridge the gap between the gifts of the students and their abilities along with the resources that the school offers, and the school-community broker: a person who can bridge the gap between the students’ abilities and the resources available within the wider community. At an MI school there are important factors that create this functional and creative learning environment. Having instruction every day that involves all eight intelligences, having school wide themes: “animal patterns, changes in time and space, environmental focus”, etc, “pods”: learning groups that are individually selected based on interests, the flow room: rooms designed to activate a different intelligence each time, a community resource committee: a group of community members that help to provide programs for students that are based on the school themes, and heterogeneous mixed-aged grouping: students of every ability level in one room. All of these factors contribute to what makes a difference to the lives of those students who simply can not learn in a traditional manner.

Hopefully MI schools are the future of our education system catering to those students who need “different” types of learning. This way of teaching children may cut out the “this is boring” or the “why do I need to learn this” or even the “I hate school” responses from so many children. As a future teacher I hope that all students can have opportunities that will foster not only their knowledge and understanding but their passions in life.