Multiple Intelligences

Hi everyone! And welcome to another entry of my English Didactics blog😊

For this week we have a very interesting topic and in my case, it is not something new: The Multiple Intelligences.

Around five years ago, in my senior year in high school, we learned about this topic and I remember being so excited about it, I think it is really nice that there is a type of intelligence out there that we all have and we can feel better about ourselves that although we may lack knowledge or experience in some areas we are great at other things!

The minute I read what each intelligence was about I knew that the Bodily-Kinesthetic one was my thing, but then I also read about the Linguistic-Verbal and the Musical intelligences. For the project we had to do for my senior year the whole class had to choose the intelligence they were good and prepare some kind of demonstration tho showcase their abilities, I chose the Bodily Kinesthetic and prepared a choreography for the class, I remember it was really nice to see my classmates do what they enjoyed and what they were good at.

Now for the theory part, when, how and who was the person that proposed all of these intelligences?

The author of this theory was the psychologist Howard Gardner, he proposed this theory in 1983 in his book Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. Gardner stated that as human beings we learn through different ways according to what we are good at and rather than having intelligence as a general ability he believed that we all have have different abilities which make us stronger in one or more of the eight intelligences he proposed and actually, there is a ninth intelligence that has showed up over the past few years.

Up next, I will briefly describe all eight to nine intelligences that Gardner proposed back in the day and they are still relevant 40 years later.

1. Visual-Spatial Intelligence: Spatial-oriented, good at visualizing, don't tend to get lost at places, enjoys puzzles, reading, can easily interpret maps, pictures and graphs. Great engineers/architects.

2. Linguistic-Verbal Intelligence: Good at writing or speaking, enjoys reading, can memorize information, persuasive, know how to communicate, great oral expression skills. Great journalists and teachers.

3. Logical-Mathematical Intelligence: Great with numbers, good at applying logic, good problem-solving skills, can solve complex mathematical operations. Great scientists, engineer and accountant.

4. Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence: Great physical control, excellent hand-eye coordination, enjoys creating things manually, good body memory. Great dancers, choreographers, athletes and sculptors.

5. Musical Intelligence: Enjoys singing, good with instruments, remember songs and melodies, great knowledge of musical structures, know how to read music sheets. Great singers, composers and musicians.

6. Interpersonal Intelligence: Extroverts, empaths, good at communicating and understanding others, great at conflict-solving, very good friend, can see situations from different perspectives. Great psychologist, counselor, and politician.

7. Intrapersonal Intelligence: Great self-awareness, enjoys self-exploring, knows well weaknesses and strengths, good at recognizing own emotions. Great philosopher and writer.

8. Naturalistic Intelligence: Enjoys nature, appreciates the environment, good at biology, loves animals, enjoys nature-related activities like camping, hiking and exploring. Great biologist, gardener and farmer.

9. Existential Intelligence: Often makes questions, enjoys reflecting about life and even death , can see situations from an outside perspective, great thinker. Great philosopher, theologian and pastor.

The Naturalistic and Existential Intelligences were the last two to be added to Gardner's theory, although he recieved criticism, up to this date there are people who actually identify with what these two intelligences represent.

On yesterday's class teacher Orlando gave us gave us a photocopy of the "Multiple Intelligences wheel", we had to color the wheel according to how much of each intelligence we had, you can find my results in the picture down below, and as you can see my top intelligences are the Musical and, to my surprise, the Intrapersonal Intelligence, and I am definitely not surprised at how low my score is for the Logical Mathemical Intelligence😆

Overall, I find this to be a very interesting and exciting topic and I just love how the fact that you are not so good at something doesn't mean that you can't be great at other stuff, me for example, I really admire people who have the Logical-Mathematician Intelligence or the Visual-Spatial Intelligence, since these are things that I have struggled with my whole life! But I know that not having fully developed these abilities doesn't make me a bad person and I don't have to feel dumb about it, I know that I can be good at anything  related to movement or melodies, like the Bodily Kinesthetic and Musical Intelligence and for some people it might be the opposite of my case, maybe they can solve an equation in under 5 minutes but they might not be able to memorize a choreography in under 5 minutes, so absolutely no one is better than others! We all have something that we are good at and shine in our own way.

That is it for today's entry, I hope you enjoyed my summary of the topic, thank you so much for reading and stay tuned for next week's entry, bye-bye!👋