Chapters 7,9,13 & 14

These 4 Chapters in MI talked about Multiple Intelligences into deeper understandings.   The chapters talked about how the environments of students should be as customized as the learning should be.  The little things like make your classroom colorful and filled with pictures, makes the spatial experts feel comfortable, or the tone of your voice as a teacher can either engage a musical learner or  disengage them with each sentence.  Another area that the chapters touched on was the idea of customized the whole learning experiences, where the primary focus of the school isn’t testing and standardized assessment, but rather a school that understands that if children embraced themselves as individuals then just imagine how much of their potential they can reach.  With the same thinking in mind of having the children reaching their full potential, another area that was address was the idea of integrating more technology into the classrooms.  This is a subject that I agree with but to some extent.  I have learned about a lot of different tools that technology can bring, but with being an aspiring health educator, I can’t help but think that some of our nation’s biggest health concerns are enhanced by technology.  For example the technological advancement such as the different tools for which farmers gather their crops.  With the bigger machines and the enhanced seeds this country is making a surplus of corn that has seem to makes its way into a lot of the food and drink (corn syrup) that most of us eat on a regular basis, and now feed it to animals that are not design to eat this corn and end up killing them from the inside out. Enough on that subject and on that of cultural differences in the mists of all intelligence.  This is the idea that the culture in which you grow up in may or may not play a factor in the development of one intelligence over another.  The examples in the book where very interesting to find out.  On page 177 the author talks about a culture that originated in the South Sea Islands are more prone to be naturalists and specialist because of the geography of the area.  They are taught at young ages to memorize where the different islands are by the surfaces of different formations and also by the cancellations in the sky. This area also touched upon the natural career paths of the certain intelligences, which in my case pin pointed it exactly. The final area that was mentioned was that of a possible ninth intelligence. This intelligence being existential.  This intelligence is focused on the idea of “the concern with ultimate life issues” (182).  This is discussed throughout the chapter and it perceived to be a hard intelligence to introduce into a classroom because of the ethical and religious concerns.  This is the main reason Howard Gardiner hasn’t officially introduced this intelligence fully, referring to it as a half intelligence making there 8 ½ intelligences instead of just eight.