Furthermore into this Venture

Intelligence. We all know what it is. We all think we have it. We all DO have intelligence. I thank the fabulous organ; we humans refer to as, the brain. The power within this organ has blossomed humans into a thriving, dominant animal. If you are thinking no duh Brooke, hold your horses, I am going somewhere with all this. What I’d like you to do for a moment is ask yourself these three following questions:  Do you consider yourself an intelligent person? Do other people consider you intelligent? Does society consider you intelligent? You might have a different answer to each of these questions. If so, that is because they are three different questions, each one being measured and affected by the evaluator. In the first question you are the evaluator. The second question your close friends, family, co-workers, and acquaintances are the evaluator. The third question, society is the evaluator. Intelligence is really a variable that can change depending on circumstance. If you find yourself once again, thinking Brooke, I know all this, then uh O, because I have more questions..(I like questions) If you aren't thinking any of that then good :) So, My next question is: Why don’t we teach this to our children? Why doesn’t our society actually value all forms of intelligence? For some reason I can’t help but think of the scene from Forrest Gump right now. When Forrest is standing there telling Ginny “I’m not a smart man”. Why does our culture place the most value in facts, numbers, tests, norms, and diplomas, PhD's, etc?  If you asked any child in America what they think smart means, there is a 95% chance they will respond by telling you someone who gets A’s, someone who gets good scores on  tests, someone who is good with computers, someone who can spell good, someone who can memorize, someone who knows all the multiplication tables, etc. You get my gist; basically all the answers revolve around someone who is book smart. Kids are beginning to think knowledge is somehow inserted into them instead of being created by them self.  The result being kids not realizing they have their own intelligence! Intelligence is becoming scripted.  We are forgetting to look at intelligence holistically. This is where the point of M.I. MaMa comes in! I want to spread the word that intelligence is also musical, artistic, intrapersonal, interpersonal, logical, physical, linguistical, spatial, and environmental.

My pursuit is to look at intelligence from a holistic view, to serve as a resource for moms, teachers, students, and any other human that feels interested and values the creative process of intelligence and knowledge. I see intelligence as multi-faceted, with people having many forms of intelligence being displayed through individual strengths and weaknesses. I have come to this vision from years of experience working with young minds in elementary schools. All the schools I worked at were on the progressive education front…meaning we were not run by the state ,therefore didn’t have to perform state tests…we created our own curriculum and assessed our students using a variety of methods.  This is where Howard Gardner comes into play. Way back in grad school I was exposed to the works of Howard Gardner and his theory of Multiple Intelligences. I will explain his theory in more detail in my next post.  With that said, this theory has always been rooted in my mind and as a new teacher I began applying the notion in my curriculum design and assessment …and to make a really long story short, because of my belief and experiences, as I taught at various schools I slowly became known as the Multiple Intelligence teacher within my small school communities. From the start of the year, my students were exposed to the idea that each human has multiple forms of intelligence. I referred to each form as “smarts” for a kid-friendly language appeal. Each student evaluated his/her “smarts” and continued to as the year progressed. How I introduced each form and my lesson plan design will come in a future posting. When I became a new mom it became a “mission” of mine to teach my little being all about the multiple intelligences as her fresh brain began developing. Of course, in infancy it was pretty much all about exposure, but once toddlerhood hit it can be very hands-on!  I want to share these adventures with all of you and hopefully you can apply them to your own lifestyle. I want to help spread the influence of intelligence and how to nurture each form we have whether it be a strength or weakness for us- no matter what are age is either. We all have the power to learn something new every day!