Multiple Intelligences

Lots of talk with not enough action.... that is my idea where MI is right now.... how do we implement it? Why would we implement it? In the good ole days....

In the good ole days, not everyone stayed in school and there were plenty of jobs available without a high school education. Therefore those who stayed fit the mold of "educable". Now we have the philosophy of no child left behind. Actually that has been my philosphy for my entire 31 years of teaching. There were still a few students that slipped through the cracks. Luckily, I seemed to have overall success. I didn't fully understand why until 10 years ago when I was diagnosed with ADD!

Now it is actually fun at conferences when parents lower their voices and confide that their child has ADD because I can say that I do too and it is not a roadblock. In fact, I think many of the young people who have attention problems may have them because we are not engaging them in the way they learn best. Our objective is to have young people with many strategies for learning as well as using both sides of the brain.

So I have activities to engage, encourage, and develop the multiple intelligences and can share how to use simple techniques to bring out the best in our students. For example, one charter school wanted to develop the corn field they had into an area to promote the naturalist among other intelligences. They did not know how to engage K-5th graders in this project. Once it was simplified for them... it was easy and fun, even for teachers who were not comfortable with taking kids outside to "learn".

I have been sharing ideas at various conferences through out the state...MSTA, MDSTA, MAEOE, and the Michigan AEYC. Although my focus has been mainly science,the techniques can be applied to any subject matter and just naturally integrate with other subjects anyway. That is why I am fortunate to be a science "edutainer" who is listed in the Michigan Arts and Humanities Touring Directory (2006-2009)