THE GEMUN DELEGATES

Let us find ways to bring a sense of joy and meaning to everything the children do.  Otherwise we are wasting a vast reservoir of potential that this dynamic duo triggers.

Preparations for Global Elementary Model United Nations, headed up by Nina, require lots of research, appreciation for world problems, thoughtful solution seeking, and clear articulation. Nina brings in lots of resources and media to spark lively discussions through the year and invite the delegates' ideas.

The Teaching Story, this year, Journey to the Acropolis: A Story of Ancient Greece, and a trip to the Greek Orthodox Church Spring Festival helped acquaint the students with the history, the heroes, the foods, the myths and legends, the culture.

Some children have strong nudges from their parents, but the idea is for them to choose to attend Global Elementary Model United Nations and read their resolutions.

Excitement and apprehension grow apace as the children complete their Resolutions for a self-chosen topic. Children who are more apprehensive or younger, can choose to be pages. This group learns about the proceedings through osmosis as they retrieve and deliver delegate notes sent between the committees.

Group Mural-Making, to combine artistic thumbnails representative of Greek Culture in one piece of art, provides a way for the delegates to relax and paint together. Sometimes this year they even broke into song while they were painting. Their sweet clear voices brought tears to my eyes.  To watch the artistic collaboration unfold day by day is always a wonderful experience.

Oksana, their art teacher and passionate proponent of the Banner of Peace, orchestrated the group much like the leader of an orchestra. She gestured upward, “How about clouds here?” She gestured across the Mural, “How about a Greek Orthodox Church here?” She pointed to the central Banner of Peace. “Who will sketch the person that is holding the Banner?” The painters freely added their own touches, while there was always someone eager to fulfill Oksana’s suggestions.

The last weeks the two Ambassadors prepared their speeches to give to an audience of over four-hundred delegates representing many countries.

On Friday at Brook Haven College the delegates dress in costume to add to the authentic flavor of the day in which they role-play as Greek delegates. GEMUN (Global Elementary Model United Nations) offers the children role-playing at its finest. In their committees such as ECOSOC, UNEP, and UNESCO, the children read their resolutions, caucus, amend, defend, and vote.

On Saturday, during committee breaks, the children enjoy each other’s displays in the main hall. Ours included the mural along with a table display. By the end of Saturday after the award ceremony for outstanding delegates, and introduction of next year’s Secretary General, tiredness enters the children’s exuberance.

Rich and varied experience, including you may recall from my last blog, the Greek plays, have brought living vibrant opportunities for intellectual, creative and social growth to the children - individually and collectively.  The feed back through the years has been that these times are treasured and memorable milestones in children’s lives.

Learning at its best stimulates growth through joy, for joy is a special wisdom.

JOURNEY TO THE ACROPOLIS

Recently I heard of a little girl who tries to hard in her school to do the assigned tasks well, to please the teacher – to do EVERYTHING RIGHT. Yet, for the third or forth time, the awards at the assembly went to others.

When the assembly was over, her teacher said, “Now I don’t want to see any tears.”

So she didn’t. The little girl went into the bathroom to weep tears of let down and grief, and a sense of betrayal.

This makes me want to cry too. Sadly, our society deems competition for these awards necessary to motivate groups of children. A relatively small number wins. The majority feels less than, inadequate.

There are other ways to motivate that are more effective, kinder and include EVERYONE in the rewards. And by rewards I don’t mean extrinsic rewards like certificates, trinkets and being singled out for public recognition, etc. Such rewards are for training animals, not for reaching the hearts and minds of human children.

Children have great dignity, self-discipline and intrinsic (inner) motivation when they are treated as if they have such capacity. 

There are many more effective, kinder ways to motivate individuals and groups. The following is an example of one way.

At the Living Ethics School we blend fact and fiction in stories, the way indigenous peoples teach their children. This is to heighten the children’s interest in learning various topics. Our recent unit entitled Journey to the Acropolis pivoted on a 10 lesson teaching story that lasted 5 wks. The carefully researched stories interwove facts of Ancient Greece, accounts of famous historical characters, and Greek Mythology. The children painted while listening to the lessons to foster open, receptive brains, while creatively engaged.

At no point was the goal a quiz, a test, a grade, and/or awards for the best whatevers. Our main goal is to support a life long love of learning through joy in learning.

The children really liked the inclusion of the mythology. Before the lessons had even finished they were suggesting plays and clamoring for the parts they wanted to perform.

They helped the teacher brainstorm and begin rough drafts for the plays. Then the teacher fine tuned them. (Initiative, recall, planning, collaboration.) 

The plays performed by the various ages in elementary and upper elementary included:  

The Naming of Athens (Zeus had to choose between naming the new city after Posiedon or Athena).

The Minotaur (The brave Theseus, with the help of Princess Ariadne, found his way through the labyrinth to face down and kill the dreaded Minotaur.)

Helen And the Trojan War

Jason and the Argonauts

The Journeys of Odysseus

Sometimes two or more people wanted the same part. The teacher deftly stayed out of this, so the group assigned student judges to choose. The judges agreed to judge based on acting ability rather than personal friendship or popularity. (Ethics, self-government)

Practicing the plays required lots of reading, memorization and tiresome repetition. Some young first timers didn’t make it all the way through. They needed to see the performances at Presentation Night to be more motivated to persevere next opportunity.  (The pay off for perseverance – the performance.)

The prefrontal lobes were firing, the creative juices flowing, opportunities for cooperation numerous, as the children designed backdrops, costumes and props. (Their eyes were bright, their behavior focused and self-disciplined as they worked together.)

The performance, being akin to their own pretend play, was a source of enjoyment and interior reward for the narrators, set designers and cast. (Joy)

The attentiveness and appreciative applause of the audience was a way to include ALL in the many rewards of this process. (Attentiveness, support, and appreciation – great motivators from parents and teachers.)

No tests. No grades. No award assemblies. No woeful tears due to being overlooked. Just children engaged in self-challenges they naturally take on. The secret is to treat them with respect for the high potentials that reside in the heart of each child, eager and ready for expression.

JOY IS A SPECIAL WISDOM.

THE MAY FESTIVAL

Joyful festivity, planning, preparation and hard work are strung together aspects of a whole, like pearls on a necklace.

An Intelligence deep inside each of us resonates to this truth. When we witness the purposeful labors and beauty of completion we feel a profound response. But experiencing it takes us to the Unified Field of work/play where Joy is a Special Wisdom.

The greatest cluster of endorphin transmitters in the human body is in the pre-frontal lobes where we generate new ideas and elaborate on them. This forebrain, is the orchestrator of the whole brain, calling on various centers' contributions to planning, design, creation, innovation, collaboration, etc. for completion of some project.

The only conclusion we can draw from the brain research of the past decade is that the way to activate our children’s greatest intelligence is by firing those endorphin transmitters through meaningful engagement that brings them joy.

The May Festival the other day was like the pearl necklace. The children had to work hard for three weeks to learn the patterns of the Maypole dance. The first weeks Nina had them practice dancing the patterns without the ribbons in the shade. But the last 7 days they held the ribbons of the May pole practicing several complex patterns.

By then the temperature had climbed and the hot sun beat down on them. But many remembered the process from the previous year, and had learned it was worth it. Some of the newer and younger ones stayed away the first days. Too much work. Too hot. And they couldn’t yet anticipate the end result.

We figured out a way to make even the practice days festive. We found the largest metal bowl we own and filled it with cold water, including a tray of ice cubes. Then we rolled up 20 white hand towels and soaked them in the icy cold water.

As the hot sun beat down on their heads, the dancers could see the metal bowl that awaited them on the picnic table in the shade. They danced on, shouting to the preparer of the bowl, “You are my favorite person today!”

When Nina ended the practice sessions, the dancers became runners through the prairie, and with a great shout headed for the bowl. Then there were exclamations of pleasure as they drenched their heads, faces and necks in the cool water.

The ones who didn’t practice were given towels also, but they didn’t enjoy them half as much. By the final sessions, even the reluctant younger ones were drawn in to the work/play process.

Of course, the real completion of the pearl necklace came Saturday, when they performed the dance to the rousing Irish music for an appreciative audience.

Next year the ones that hung back at first, will very likely realize that hot, tiring practices, cool wet towels, and rewarding performances go together.

The time has come to insert into our halls of learning the lost knowledge that truly rewarding human expression is both challenging and Joyful: For Joy is a special wisdom.

THE CORN PLANTERS

Planting gardens and trees touches a resounding chord in the body/heart/mind/soul symphony that is us – an expression of our connectedness to Earth and the Kingdom of Plants. The growing number of community and backyard gardens reflects a deep yearning in people living in cities. There are many layers to the beneficial effects when families and communities tend gardens.

The family value of planting, tending and harvesting a garden is more than the sum of its parts. One aspect is the research that often precedes and accompanies growing organic produce for the nutritional advantages. Another value is the joy of turning dirt into soil filled with organic matter that feeds the organisms that feed the plants. Then there’s the shared enjoyment of planting seeds and/or seedlings and watching them grow. The excitement over fruitage follows this, with the anticipation of the day of picking the ripe vegetable or fruit. And finally, it’s deeply satisfying to know that you are feeding your body, and your family’s bodies the best, the freshest, the most nutritious food you can offer.

But, as I said, the value of the process is greater than the sum of its parts. The book Hotevilla by Thomas Mails and the Hopi Elder Dan Evehema hold important clues as to this overarching benefit, especially for modern families living in modern neighborhoods. The painter E.A. Burbank, named “Many Brushes” by the Hopi, admired their industriousness and declared he had “never known a more charming, hospitable, and peace-loving people.”

Farming among the Hopi was the domain of the men and boys. The farms were handed down from generation to generation and were the joint property of the people of the village. From a young age the boys accompanied their fathers for the planting of the corn. They learned to offer heartfelt prayers for this, the first among a series of sacred steps. 

Because of the sandstorms the farmers had to build mound fortifications to protect the tender plants. Additional threats came from crows and ground rats waiting for a chance to eat the corn stalks. The farmers had to take turns standing as sentinels or waiting all day long in an adjacent hut watching for invaders.

When father returned home from the fields he often picked up his toddler to sing corn-planting songs and dance the gentle rhythms with his child in his arms.

When the corn matured all the children witnessed the next stages of food production, which the women and girls managed. By pulverizing the grain between two stones they ground the corn into a fine meal. Then the women and teen girls made “piki” together. After mixing the cornmeal with water and lye, they cooked the tortilla-like flat bread over a flat stone with a fire underneath. Stomachs surely rumbled as they smelled the bread, which they had all helped generate, cooking

Droughts taught the Hopi to store enough grain for two years.

Many children could name the herbs and their medicinal value with authority that approached that of the adults.

Have you gleaned all the life-lessons, all the intrinsic motivation, all the industrious sharing whole families can experience by planting, tending , harvesting, cooking and eating food they have nurtured from seed to fruit in their family plot?

Most of us are really glad to own labor-saving devices. However, in modern homes neighborhoods, there is very little for children to do. In many households their primary escape from boredom is a device that holds the body and mind captive for extended periods of time.

Today our idea of children’s household chores has devolved mainly into clean-up, something that many of us view as a tiresome, unpleasant addendum to an enjoyable activity. Do we want our children to perceive work as unpleasant and only entertainment as innately satisfying?

The health benefits of garden prep, tending and harvesting include healthful workouts that surpass gym routines in multilayered benefits. A family garden offers at least one shared household labor that can involve high-interest and participation in a process that is ongoing for a several months. Gardens can bring families together in labor that is meaningful and purposeful and therefore innately satisfying.

Although we may not hold ceremonial dances, as do the Hopi, to celebrate the harvest, gardens offer each family a reason to joyfully celebrate, each in their own way, the bountiful gifts of a Living, Generous World.  Such Joy is a Special Wisdom.

NATURE INTELLIGENCE

Nature intelligence is the Eighth of the Multiple Intelligences, which Howard Gardner added a few years after his book Multiple Intelligence was published.

Still a few years after that the book Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv was published.

I loved that book, which confirmed what we were already seeing by providing children wild spaces to play here at the Living Ethics School. If you’ve been reading my blog since last year, you know that I have returned to this topic and quoted Richard Louv repeatedly.

Nature is the Great Teacher of children. Her wild spaces are their Natural Habitat. She offers an optimal space for the cultivation of imagination, multiple intelligence, conflict resolution, collaborative construction projects, optimal emotional/mental/mind/body health. Every day as the staff of the Living Ethics School watches our children happily engaged in nature, we know that this time, outside the classroom, away from phonics and multiplication tables, is optimal time for the children fullest development.

The Children’s Village is a place to haul logs, tires, planks, freshly cut branches, ply wood, rope, etc. for construction purposes.

It’s also a place for disagreements that require conflict resolution, sometimes mediation and other times group meetings to brainstorm to reach a consensus on property rights, and rules and regulations – just like in the real world.

For over thirty years I’ve observed the morphing populations. In the years we had mostly boys, the tree houses and cleared out spaces under trees enclosed by vines and shrubs became mostly forts. The would-be warriors stored itchy bombs (Sycamore seed balls) and spear grass from the prairie to attack hapless passerbys.

Those are the same years the kids dug a hole enlarging it month by month until it would fit several children waist deep. The added value of the big hole was that it would fill with water and several were sure to ‘accidently’ fall in during a heavy rain.

In the years we had a balance of girls and boys, the Children’s village became towns with banks, hotels, a post office, shops for selling knitted crafts and beaded jewelry, clay or paper money, a newsletter, police, and election campaigns for mayors.

More recently with a mostly female population, along with household construction, miscellaneous pans, small bowls and other containers along with utensils have been  spirited outside for baking purposes. Nearby teachers are rounded up to sit in their kitchens or resturants and sample their dishes.

We watch them strolling in pairs around the fields, chasing each other, climbing trees, hammering, sawing, stomping in low lying muddy areas and know that each child’s emotional/mind/body/spirit complex is being exercised for vibrant health and stimulation of the Mutltiple Intelligences. Sometimes hidden tree limbs comfort wounded feelings until someone comes to offer empathy.

We see all this and its tremendous value to children and grieve about a society that has lost sight of childhood – especially the importance of children playing daily in wild spaces.

The fact is all the intelligences count. The consideration of these various keys to uniquely individual children; of what types of activities they initiate on their own in a dynamic environment; of what activities bring them joy; of what type of environment makes them want to come to school; of empathic respectful treatment under the guidance of caring adults; of time for them to create, to invent, to play and be children – this is not fluff. This fullness of childhood is the foundation for the full stature of adulthood.

There are no effective make-up exercises in adulthood for childhood lost. To postpone consideration for these humane considerations, the appreciation for the whole being while still a child, until adulthood, is often too late. And it’s costly for the thousands who have to spend time in therapy because of childhoods lost and miserable adult live stuck in soulless jobs that make good money.

The current mania for driving children faster and faster, harder and harder, for longer hours a day (homework), testing them more and more, judging, grading their efforts is not making them more intelligent. The only way to do that is to tap the nature-endowed intelligence in the attractive, vibrant ways that engage a child’s attention naturally. In dynamic, child friendly environments children are interiorly motivated to learn, without exterior motivators like rewards and grades.

I realize you are not likely to read the hundreds of books I have read on the more humane and enlightened guidance and education of children all the way through high school. That is why I write this blog. To share bits of Tolstoy, Steiner, Montessori, Holt, Gardner and others with you, so that you collectively will take charge and urge others to do the same – to restore childhood to children.

Some of you have opted out of the system by home schooling. You have the precious freedom to recognize and respond to the interests and proclivities of your children each a unique individual even in the same family. However, many of you have no choice but to send your children to a pressure and competition driven school – public or private. Yet, you pay the taxes or tuition for a system that is caught up in a corporate clone escalator that is as mindless as the curriculums it’s pressing on children. Ironically, the system would probably say that much of the pressure comes from the parents themselves!

Your voice matters. If it will not be heard individually, it will be collectively. Let us speak up to defend the right of children to childhood – to play daily in wild nature, to question, to initiate their own explorations, to learn as encouraged, cherished individuals. Think how much such on-fire graduates on intimate terms with their passionate interests could do for humanity!

Think of a world in which the dollar is not the bottom line; in which passion to contribute one’s unique labor and talents for the benefit of the world is the measure of success!

INTRA-PERSONAL INTELLIGENCE

Plato admonished us above all to “Know Thyself.” Yet, commandeering several hours of a child’s day for schoolwork and homework focused on the three R’s leaves little time to play, to dream, to know thyself. Anxious parents, unwittingly escalate this system of hoops and measures that fails to promote the deepest, highest, and most human potentials. These potentials, once awakened lead not to mere jobs or careers, but to lives of passionate involvement with one’s chosen life work; to vocations that are also avocations, i.e. lives replete with joyful fulfillment.

Howard Gardner, author of Multiple Intelligences asserts that along with higher thinking such as the generating and pondering of ideas, and empathy, the frontal lobes play a central role in intrapersonal intelligence.  Whereas, interpersonal intelligence allows one to understand and work with others, intrapersonal intelligence allows one to understand and work with oneself.

My own observation is that those who at least have one empathic role model in childhood are more likely to achieve the intrapersonal intelligence that leads to a soul satisfying vocation. In my case that role model was my mother. To her compassionate, understanding guidance, I attribute knowing from a young age that I wanted to become a teacher, not to constrain their exuberance, but to promote their love of learning.

Yesterday, I had the great joy of witnessing, crowds of awestruck people exclaim over the extraordinary beauty of my life partner’s photography at “Art in Bloom” in Mckinney, Texas.  People came forward to peer behind the photographs and ask if a hidden light source illumined his photos.

Fred discovered his love of photography, and corresponding talent for it, in his fifties. It has been a joy to observe his emergence from a career that simply earned him a living, to this passionate involvement with capturing nature’s beauty with his photography.

People were astonished that this was the 68 year old’s first photography show. When I ponder why this extraordinary talent emerged at all, I credit his close relationship with a very kind and caring mother who accepted him for who he was. Why do I think it took so long for Fred to ‘know his passion’? Because of being pressed into a left-brain, non-creative societal bias and schooling from childhood on. At a loss as to how to develop the soulful expression of a human being, we devalue and negate its power for personal transformation.

According to Kathryn Bensinger, author of The Art of Using your Whole Brain, droves of people end up in the therapist’s office in their forties. Many were told as young adults to put aside foolish dreams and earn degrees for practical professions that would earn them decent wages.  These include people from all walks of life: Accountants who put aside their art at a young age; office managers who long to work with the soil; business professional who would rather be homemakers; house painters who are frustrated writers, and on and on--all miserable; many on the brink of a new beginning based on intra-personal intelligence or self-knowledge.

It takes courage and commitment to allow both children and ourselves to follow the path less traveled. For those of any age, who are awakening to their intrapersonal intelligence, to the inner voice that connects them to their deepest, highest, most meaningful, and therefore joyful modes of self-expression—these true and inspiring words of Goethe offer a guiding light:

COMMITMENT

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy,

The chance to draw back,

Always ineffectiveness.

Concerning acts of initiative and creation,

There is one elementary truth,

The ignorance of which, kills

Countless ideas and splendid plans:

That the moment one definitely commits oneself,

Then providence moves too.

All sorts of things occur to help one

That would never otherwise have occurred.

A whole stream of events issues from the decision,

Raising, in one’s favor all manner

Of unforeseen incidents and meetings

And material assistance which

No one could have dreamt would come their way.

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.

Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.

Begin it now.

                                                                        Johann Wolfgang Goethe

INTERPERSONAL INTELLIGENCE

Howard Gardner describes Interpersonal Intelligence as the ability to understand other people: what motivates them, how they work, and how to work cooperatively with them. Successful salespeople, politicians, teachers, clinicians and religious leaders are all likely to be individuals with high degrees of interpersonal intelligence. (Multiple Intelligences, 1993.)

He also notes that at its core, interpersonal intelligence includes the “capacities to discern and respond appropriately to the moods, temperaments, motivations and desires of other people.”

The example found in his book to portray this interpersonal intelligence is Annie Sullivan, the nearly blind teacher of Helen Keller. The following account is paraphrased from Annie Sullivan: the Miracle Worker. www.biography

Their lessons together often became physical and violent during Helen's frequent moments of frustration. Finally, Annie insisted that Helen move with her into a small cottage on the property so they could, deepen their relationship and maintain focus on communication. After 7 days Annie saw clear evidence that her therapy was working.

“My heart is singing with joy this morning. A miracle has happened! The wild little creature of two weeks ago has been transformed into a gentle child.”

Soon after, Helen's miracle breakthrough occurred at the water pump, when Sullivan poured water on one of Helen's hands while fingerspelling "w-a-t-e-r" in the other. For the first time, Helen made the association between an object and what was spelled in her hand. According to her autobiography, Helen then spent the rest of the day demanding that Sullivan spell out the words for countless other objects.

Interpersonal intelligence is inseparable from Emotional Intelligence, which is the title and subject of the book by Daniel Goleman (Emotional Intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ, 1995.)

A number of studies that have been summarized over the past decade have shown that “there is a highly significant relationship between emotional intelligence and occupational performance. The average predictive validity for these studies is .55, meaning that approximately 30% of occupational performance is based on Emotional Intelligence; and when leader-ship is examined separately from general occupational performance, this figure increases to about 67% meaning that two-thirds of leadership is dependent upon Emotional Intelligence.” (1)

A very important point to emphasize here is that the pre-frontal lobes, the part of the brain that is the mostly ignored orphan of modern schooling, are the seat not only of superior I.Q. (envisioning, idea-generation, invention/creation), but also increased E.Q. (empathy).

To say that Interpersonal Intelligence i.e. Emotional Intelligence is essential for success is tantamount to saying that for optimal skill development in these areas children must be taught, and learn, in ways that best promote these intelligences. In other words: HEART TO HEART.

 I ask you, is it truly likely that schools promote both I.Q. and E.Q. through the press and pressure of drilled abstractions, punctuated with time-consuming discipline and punitive reactions to acting out, chewing gum, and talking in class? As a 45-year veteran of teaching I estimate that very likely 80% of the discipline problems in schools are due to emotional resistance by children to Institutional Autocracies that are bankrupt in both I.Q. and E.Q. (The other 20% can be often be attributed to food toxicity, challenging relationships, and/or hours a day spent staring at media, violent or otherwise.)

Their resistance is simply an outcry to be taught and related to from the heart, for the heart and to the heart. The wonderful correlative statement is that this is also the best way to promote their future success, including potential leadership, in the workplace.

“It is with the heart that one sees rightly: what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

                                                            Antoine de Saint-Exupery,

                                                            The Little Prince

1. [e.g., Bar-On, 1997b, 2004,2006a, 2006b; Bar-On, Handley & Fund, 2006; Han-dley, 1997; Ruderman & Bar-On, 2003], the EQ-i™

MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES: SPATIAL INTELLIGENCE

Spatial intelligence includes both skill in navigation and the ability to visualize an object from various angles.

While today we depend on GPS systems, humanity has historically navigated land and sea without instruments. For example, Howard Gardner discusses the seafaring people of the Carolina Islands.

The navigator must memorize a series of star positions as seen from various islands.  During the trip from island to island he envisions a reference island as it passes under a particular star, and locates the position of the star overhead. From a mental navigation system, he calculates the number of segments completed; the proportion of the trip remaining; and any needed corrections in navigation. The navigator cannot see the islands as he sails along; instead he maps their locations in his mental “picture’ of the journey. (Gardner 1983.)

In the article, “Mind: Recognizing Spatial Intelligence,” (Gretory Park, David Lubinski, Camilla Benbow), Scientific American, Nov. 2, 2010), the authors define spatial ability as “a capacity for mentally generating, rotating, and transforming visual images,” and assert that it is one of the three specific cognitive abilities most important for developing expertise in learning and work settings.

Ninety years ago, Stanford psychologist Lewis Terman began an ambitious search for the brightest kids in California, administering IQ tests to several thousand of children across the state. Those scoring above an IQ of 135 (approximately the top 1 percent of scores) were tracked for further study. There were two young boys, Luis Alvarez and William Shockley, who were among the many who took Terman’s tests but missed the cutoff score. Despite their exclusion from a study of young “geniuses,” both went on to study physics, earn PhDs, and win the Nobel prize. 

The authors question how these two minds, both with great potential for scientific innovation, could slip under the radar of IQ tests? One explanation is that many items on Terman’s Stanford-Binet IQ test, as with many modern assessments, fail to tap into a cognitive ability known as spatial ability.

Modern research on cognitive abilities is revealing that spatial ability, also known as spatial visualization, plays a critical role in engineering and scientific disciplines. Yet more verbally-loaded IQ tests, as well as many popular standardized tests used today, do not adequately measure this trait, especially in those who are most gifted with it.

·  http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/recognizing-spatial-intel/ - comments

Recently, public schools in Texas agreed to reinstate a mere 10 minutes of recess a day. As an educator for over 40 years, I have watched the ever-growing anxiety over ever-narrowing academic goals reach the point of near hysteria. People, who simply don’t see the brain development that is not being fostered while children sit in chairs 7 hours a day, are naturally unconcerned about excluding childhood pursuits out doors, in nature with the imagination (the inventive, envisioning faculty of the brain) going full tilt,

Does this thin band of focus, to the exclusion of the all-encompassing experiences of childhood, have costly consequences?  Apparently it could. For example a recent large longitudinal study at Duke University, (Wai, Lubinski, Benbow) demonstrated that the participants with relatively strong spatial abilities tended to gravitate towards, and excel in, scientific and technical fields such as the physical sciences, engineering, mathematics and computer science.

All teachers with any freedom to really teach have noticed how most children love activities that invite them to navigate interesting spaces, design three dimensionally and explore hand-held objects. There are countless reasons to restore childhood to children.

LINGUISTIC INTELLIGENCE

At the age of 10, T.S. Eliot created a Magazine called “Fireside. He was the sole contributor, and during three days of winter vacation, created 8 entire issues. Each contained poetry, adventure stories, a gossip column and humor. 

Howard Gardner writes that the gift of language is universal and its development among children is strikingly constant across cultures. Even deaf children invent their own sign language and use it surreptitiously.

My own work with children has convinced me that we hardly understand the surpassing play of intelligence that governs children’s ability to learn language. More than once a three year old who could not speak English upon arrival, became fluent with no special instruction within three months of playing with English speaking children.

The father of Whole Language, Don Holdaway asserts that another aspect of linguistic development, learning to read, draws on these very same processes. If our society would only break free of it’s fear-based rigidity that dictates a child must have such and such skills at such and such an age, we would see the brilliant beauty of this process at work in its own way and in its own time for each child.

Benjamin Franklin learned to be a writer by laboriously copying and recopying articles in The Spectator and other models. Contrary to the expression “born genius,” Franklin stressed “ingenuity,” which included the ability to learn from others. 

[B]eing still a Boy, and suspecting that my Brother would object to printing any Thing of mine in his Paper if he knew it to be mine, I contriv’d to disguise my Hand, and writing an anonymous Paper I put it in at Night under the Door of the Printing-House. It was found in the Morning and communicated to his Writing Friends when they call’d in as usual. They read it, commented on it in my Hearing, and I had the exquisite Pleasure, of finding it met with their Approbation, and that in their different Guesses at the Author none were named but Men of some Character among us for Learning and Ingenuity.

Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography

In Benjamin Franklin’s case, his own Will, his own Initiative to master linguistics skills drove his progress. One of the great challenges in modern education is to recognize and free the unique Individual Will of each and every child for self-expression. Even in our so-call A.P. courses, characterized by a step-up in demands on the intellect, fail to free the caged bird of Individual Will.

When astute thinkers decry the “dumbing down of education,” the sense of loss concerns something beyond the mechanical grasp of the three ‘r’s. It’s not more or the same or even stepped up momentum that is the key to graduating people of heightened culture, who throughout life love literature, and literary self-expression.

The golden key rests in the Individual Will of the Child. Like the heart and imagination, the Will is something to be evoked and nurtured, not suppressed; celebrated for its uniqueness, not overridden by curriculum; its unstoppable momentum given a clear path and fed with tantalizing opportunities from a True Teacher.

Sadly, in the current craze, the Cogs of Control freeze the intuitive/responsive flow of the True Teacher. But a current is building, reminiscent of the springtime flow of the river beneath the ice. Let us join this current and celebrate the development of the Individual Child Will as the source of all worthy literary expression Contrived assignments based on this or that skill, coerce mere trickles compared to the creative torrent of the unified force of the Heart, Imagination and Will.

LOGICAL-MATHEMATICAL INTELLIGENCE

In 1983 Barbara Mclintock won the Nobel Prize for physiology for her work in microbiology. While deductive reasoning is the hallmark of science, her story illustrates an aspect of mathematical intelligence less frequently recognized. As a researcher for Cornell University a particularly illuminating event occurred.

Howard Gardner writes, “In the 1920’s Barbara was faced with a problem: while theory predicted 50 percent pollen sterility in corn, her research assistant (in the “field”) was finding plants that were only 25 to 30 percent sterile. Disturbed by this discrepancy, McClintock left the cornfield and returned to her office where she sat for half an hour thinking.”

In Barbara’s words, “Suddenly, I jumped up and ran back to the field. At the top of the field I shouted, “Eureka, I have it! I know what the 30% sterility is! …"

Since the science department wanted her to write a mathematical proof for this discovery she sat down to write out the calculations. After a series of intricate steps written on a brown paper bag, the results of the equation matched the results she had arrived at instantaneously in the field.

Barbara puzzled over how it was that she actually ‘knew’ in an instant, the solution that required several minutes to work through as an equation. “Why was I so sure?” she asked.

One reason I have loved this example from Multiple Intelligences so much, is because it illustrates similar incidents with children in math class. For many of them, most often boys, any kind of writing is a laborious, loathed process. Yet on more than one occasion the child has called out the answer, which I would not have expected him or her to know without the written steps in an equation.

Gardner addresses this nearly instantaneous process that is little understood, and therefore almost never facilitated in schooling. “It is the archetype of ‘raw intelligence’ or the problem-solving faculty which cuts across domains.”

There is also a feeling aspect, which remains to be fully appreciated In the chapter titled, “The Way of Science”, in the book, Inevitable Grace, Ferrucci includes, analogy, chance and discipline, but also curiosity and a sense of wonder.

An example of the extraordinary genius that exhibits this full spectrum genius, is Nikola Tesla, who included yet another domain to logical-mathematical intelligence. He cared about humanity, and wished his discoveries to freely improve our lives. Yet more than once, the cunning intelligences of greed and self-interest stole the gifts of this magnanimous intelligence.

We are living through a detour in the human journey, during which our society discounts the value of emotive, evocative, ethical teach/learning in order to cut to the chase. In other words many are held spellbound by a “more, more, faster, faster, sooner, sooner” frenzy of academic info-shoveling and measuring.  

I was so happy when a student handed me an article by Adam Grant in the Dallas Morning News (Sunday, February 28). It’s titled, “Let kids learn to create”.

Many parents take high test scores and participation in A.P. courses as indicators of prodigious intelligence. They equate this superiority in academics with the superior future success that they crave for their child prodigies.

According to Dr. Grant, Professor of Management and Psychology of the University of Pennsylvania, this is simply not true. According to studies, such child prodigies are not the movers and shakers of the future. Though they may prosper financially, as adults they seldom make waves, or offer innovative solutions for their companies. They may perform masterpieces on the piano, but seldom create their own.

It’s time to look deep into the heart and soul of humanity; to reach beyond common goals of status and financial success, toward the potential for greatness that beckons toward higher aspirations, harbingers of true genius.

BODILY KINESTHETIC INTELLIGENCE

Babe Ruth played third base on his team until he was fifteen years old. During one fateful game he repeatedly criticized the pitcher.

Irritated with the young upstart, the coach, Brother Mathias, called out, “Ruth, if you know so much about it, you pitch!”

This took the boy by surprise. Embarrassed because he had never pitched before and didn’t want to make a fool of himself, he refused.

However, Coach Mathias, wanting to teach Babe Ruth a lesson, insisted.

Having no choice the boy stepped to the pitcher’s mound to strike out one batter after another.

Years later Babe Ruth recalled, “The moment I took the pitcher’s mound I knew I was supposed to be a pitcher.” He recalled that it was “natural” for him to strike people out.

According to Howard Gardner in his book Multiple Intelligences Babe Ruth had “Bodily Kinesthetic Intelligence".

As with the musical intelligence exhibited by Menuhin, Babe Ruth’s intelligence arose from a part of the brain that apparently was switched on from birth to facilitate the amazing talent of this child prodigy.

Some readers may be asking what musical and bodily kinesthetic intelligences have to do with the academics children need to learn in school.

Howard Gardner goes beyond pointing out that these special preferences and abilities that people are born with are actual intelligences. In the experience of teachers who are given the freedom to sensitively facilitate the learning of individual children, these favored intelligences are segues into the three R’s. Almost always children are more inclined to read and write about topics related to this preferred internal intelligence. In other words, these intelligences are always connected to heightened interest.

In his book Inevitable Grace, Piero Ferrucci, discusses the awakening of the famous dancer, Isadora Duncan. She was drawn to beauty of any kind, and wished to express similar harmony through movement. The inspiration for the dance for which she became famous arose from gazing in rapt adoration at the Parthenon. To contemplate the sacred proportions of this ancient building was not enough for her. She wished to express such harmony of line and form through dance.

For days, her body remained frozen, unable to dance. In fact, she resolved she would never dance again, until she could express such unparalleled beauty. Finally, when she realized that the columns were not simply straight supports, but represented in concert an undulating, spiraling movement, the inspiration came. Her dance became a form of prayer.

My prime concern is the current and escalating trend to foster fear and anxiety in order to to promote cold homogeneity and regimentation as synonymous with education. It is cultural suicide to assume that the inspiration can be allowed to lead only after a stodgy left-brain route through suppressed childhood. True a few swans will make it through to express innate talents, regardless being under the control of duck consciousness. But how many will bury these and substitute mindless entertainment, addiction to the acquisition of things, and the comfort of a dull, routine existence for transcending potentials lost in the social press for ordinariness.

Genius does not follow the plodding steps of  factual knowledge alone. When Inspiration takes the lead, raises the bar of purposeful endeavor, and employs understanding and talent for its own purposes, then pursues the awakened Genius.

MUSICAL INTELLIGENCE

You’ve probably noticed that among the people you know, you are one of a kind. Far from clones of yourself, your friends and relatives possess greatly varying skills, personalities, interests, preferences, etc. 

Howard Gardner, the Harvard professor who is father of the theory of multiple intelligences (author of the book Multiple Intelligences) asserts that special talents and interests are indicators of a biological imperative that drives the psyche of individuals. Furthermore these biological imperatives are gateways for optimal learning for individual children.  Gardner has concluded that these are distinct intelligences, which are likely to be entry points for the expression of genius.

Beyond this, could it be that a little bit of protégée, that lacked sufficient encouragement as a child, shadows your daily life?

One of those intelligences proposed by Gardner is musical intelligence.

Yehudi Menuhin was fortunate in that his parents recognized their son’s powerful reaction to music from the time he was a tiny child. And they had the foresight to take action on his behalf. When Yehudi Menuhin was three years old, his parents smuggled him into the San Francisco Orchestra concerts. So entranced was Yehudi by the sound of Louis Persinger’s violin that he begged his parents to give him a violin for his birthday. Louis Persinger was so impressed by the youngster, that he agreed to comply with Yehudi’s demand that he be his teacher.

Who would have thought that as an adult this musical acumen would even be considered essential for winning a war as evidenced by the following cable received during WWII:

We request that you definitely cancel all arrangements for Menuhin concerts up to and including 13 October. His presence in Europe with fighting troops at this critical juncture of the war is essential in its effect upon their morale and most important. - General Eisenhower cables from Supreme Headquarters.

I have never heard of anyone who didn’t enjoy time spent following this biological imperative in his or her work and play. In the words of Yehudi Menuhin, “Anything that one really wants to do and one loves doing, one must do every day. It should be as easy to the artist and as natural as flying is to a bird. And you can't imagine a bird saying, ‘Well, I’m tired today. I’m not going to fly.’"

There’s much more to fostering adult competence than the verbal/linquistic and mathematical intelligences to which most of schooling has narrowed its focus. Even though we have a one-size-fits-all approach, emphasizing verbal/linguistic and mathematical skills, the human reality points to the need for a plurality of educational approaches, and allowance for multiple roads to success. Surprises abound among renowned geniuses.

Luciano Pavarotti the Italian operatic tenor, who also expanded to popular music, became one of the most successful tenors of all time. During Pavarotti’s brilliant career, he starred in well known operas such as Aida, Boheme, Tosca, and Madame Butterfly. Indeed many consider him to be one of the finest tenors of the 20^th century.

Pavarotti achieved this brilliant career in music despite one skill, the lack of which, his music teachers very likely considered prohibitive of success: he never did master reading musical notes.

True, the examples in this series on Multiple intelligences include child protégées. We mostly tend to think of such people as unusual, rare human beings. Yet how many of the behaviors of these labeled and/or drugged, or simply bored children of today resemble, in their attitudes and behaviors, those of world renowned geniuses when they were children? Almost without fail either parents of an influential relative had the insight and foresight to prioritize the fostering of that genius that became world famous.

Perhaps a suppressed or ignored potential protégée shadows you or someone you know. The more we pay attention to the life stories of geniuses who become household names, the more we discover among such representatives of surpassing talent that their path to success diverged from the system, or at least proceeded outside the closely guarded perimeters of its gatekeepers.

I’m not suggesting we eliminate academia. Just that we widen its corridors – considerably. 

THE TRUE COMMON CORE: Part 6 of 6

The following tale, The Animals That Went to School, is adapted from the original written by George Reavis in 1940. With this version, which extends the setting and ending, I have added my own twist.

Once upon a time a manicured park was cordoned off from a wild life refuge. Over time this caused subtle changes to the attitudes of the animals living in Central Park. A group of animal leaders in this mowed, trimmed, and edged park decided to start a school to produce a well-tamed park crew. The goal of the School Designers was to instill basic skills in park maintenance to be held in common by all the animal offspring and to effectively confine them to the park's parameters. There would be no more escaping of young animals into the neighboring wild life refuge.

The School Designers adopted a curriculum of running, climbing, swimming and flying.  The regime required all of the animals to take classes in all of the subjects in equal measure. That would guarantee that all had exactly the same education.

The duck was excellent at swimming.  In fact, he was better than his instructor.  However, he made only passing marks in flying and was very poor at running.  Since he was so slow in running, he had to do remedial running after school.  This caused his webbed feet to become sore and badly worn, meaning that he dropped to an average mark in swimming.  Fortunately, “average” was acceptable, therefore nobody worried about it – except the duck.

The rabbit started at the top of the class in running, but developed a nervous twitch in his leg muscles because he had so much make-up work to do in swimming.

The flying squirrel was excellent in climbing, but he encountered constant frustration in flying class because his teacher insisted that he learn to fly from the ground up instead of from the treetop down.  The squirrel became a poor climber and developed cramps from overexertion while trying to fly, so he ended up with a C in climbing and a D in flying.

The eagle was a real problem student and was severely disciplined for being a non-conformist.  In climbing class, he repeatedly beat all of the others to the top, only to briefly soar out of control!

Occasionally the duck, rabbit, squirrel or eagle glimpsed the neighboring natural habitat, the Wildlife Refuge, and experienced a deep yearning.

The wary leaders, who had become invested in the Animal School, provided motivational carrots and sticks, but when this didn’t work sufficiently they invented labels, such as ATC (Awkward Tree Climber), IAF (Inadequate Attention to Flying). After School Tutoring proliferated as anxious parents enrolled the children. The medical profession duly supplied drugs to suppress the children’s urge to do anything other than attend their lessons. A steady parade of labels, meds, and test scores was sufficient to enlist the parents’ concerned support to the keep the animals’ focus where it needed to be.

One day, despite all this pressure, something profound stirred in the heart of the duck, the rabbit and the squirrel as each witnessed the eagle simply fly away, never to return …