Noted Harvard educationist Dr Howard Gardner had visited Sujaya School in the city, where his theory of multiple intelligence is being put to practice in the curriculum.
Noted Harvard educationist Dr Howard Gardner had visited Sujaya School in the city, where his theory of multiple intelligence is being put to practice in the curriculum.
As per this theory, the key to getting students to understand important concepts is by recognising their ‘primary’ intelligence and capitalising on it. Gardner, who was in the city last week, holds that human beings have multiple intelligence such as spatial intelligence, linguistic intelligence and more, but are proficient in only one of these. He believes that when this theory gets applied in education, the learning process becomes friendlier for students.
“What we’ve done is adopt the theory of multiple intelligences in our classrooms. It is enforced till the fifth standard, but the skills remain with students through all of their education,” says Priya Krishnan, CEO of Value and Budget Housing Corporation Education Services (VBHC), adding that classrooms are divided into various centres that will appeal to a child’s various intelligences.
“By taking the same theme, we will teach the children through different methods such as spatially, visually or by reading. Every child has a primary intelligence and we try to make children understand concepts by identifying that primary intelligence,” Krishnan said.
However, she added that Gardner was not consulted while introducing the concept last academic year. “We adopted the theory based on research that we had done by ourselves. But Gardner, when he visited last week, seemed impressed with the way we have implemented it.”
Further, Krishnan said teaching a classroom through various methods is not as hard as it is made out ot be. “We have three teachers for a classroom of 25, so it does not pose much trouble,” she said.
With focus being on reaching out to students, does Krishnan believe examinations should also be set according to a student’s primary intelligence? “Examinations are important but isn’t it better to crack an exam after understanding the concepts rather than simply learning it by rote!” she said.
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