Limitations of traditional teaching

It has always been a known fact among teachers that some students perform better than others in certain subjects.

Johnny is not too good at maths. Mary does not do well in languages, she does much better in the sciences. This kind of talk is quite common at teacher gatherings, parents days and any other venue where the educational welfare of students is discussed.

It was generally left at that and everybody felt impotent in the face of what was considered to be an inexplinable fact of life. However nowadays with the help of Howard Gardner, a cognitive psychologist, we are in a position to throw some light on this conundrum.

Gardner's Multiple Intelligence Theory (MIT) says that man has seven mental abilities or intelligences. Although all human beings have seven intelligences "we do not have the same strength in each intelligence area and we do not have the same amalgam of intelligences."

The first two intelligences as posited in Frames of Mind are the linguistic and logical-mathematical - the two that have been given the most prominence in schools. Linguistic intelligence is usually found in high degrees among lawyers, writers, poets and all those who show a high sensitivity to the spoken and written language.

Logical-mathematical intelligence involves the capacity to analyse problems logically, carry out mathematical operations, and investigate issues scientifically. This intelligence is mostly exploited by mathematicians, logicians and scientists.

Although the next three intelligences are particularly notable in the arts, one can apply them to other uses. These three intelligences are the musical, bodily kinaesthetic and the spatial.

Musical intelligence entails skill in performance, composition and appreciation of musical patterns. Musical intelligence allows people to create, communicate, and understand meanings made out of sound. While composers and instrumentalists clearly exhibit this intelligence, so do the students who seem particularly attracted by the birds singing outside the classroom window or who constantly tap out intricate rhythms on the desk with their pencils.

Bodily-kinaesthetic intelligence allows individuals to use all or part of the body to create products or solve problems. Athletes, surgeons, dancers, choreographers and crafts people all use bodily-kinaesthetic intelligence. The capacity is also evident in students who relish gym class and school dances, who prefer to carry out class projects by making models rather than writing reports, and who toss crumpled paper with frequency and accuracy into wastebaskets across the room.

Spatial intelligence makes it possible for people to perceive visual or spatial information, to transform this information, and to recreate visual images from memory. Well-developed spatial capacities are needed for architects, sculptors and engineers. The students who turn first to the graphs, charts and pictures in their textbooks, who fill the blank space around their notes with intricate patterns are also using their spatial intelligence. While usually tied to the visual modality, individuals who are visually impaired can also exercise spatial intelligence to a high level.

The final two intelligences in Gardner's original list are what he terms the personal intelligences. Interpersonal intelligence enables individuals to recognise and make distinctions about others' feelings and intentions. Teachers, parents, politicians, psychologists and sales persons rely on interpersonal intelligence. Students exhibit this intelligence when they thrive on small-group work, when they notice and react to the moods of their friends and classmates, and when they tactfully convince the teacher of their need for extra time to complete the homework assignment.

Intrapersonal intelligence helps individuals to distinguish among their own feelings, to build accurate mental models of themselves, and to draw on these models to make decisions about their lives.

Although it is difficult to assess who has this capacity and to what degree, evidence can be sought in students' uses of their other intelligences - how well they seem to be capitalising on their strengths, how cognisant they are of their weaknesses, and how thoughtful they are about the decisions and choices they make.

Gardner goes on to say that most school systems take into consideration only two of the seven intelligences - the linguistic and the logical/mathematical. Anyone who does not perform well in these two areas is doomed to failure. In Malta this is more so because our educational system is very exam-oriented and dependent on the linguistic and numerical systems.

Although MIT may not help much students who are part of systems as found in Malta, except maybe by providing an explanation of variances in students' performance, it does set one thinking about the kind of teaching that goes on in our schools.

Gardner's theory posits an individual approach to learning. Each student has his/her amalgam of intelligences and the teacher has to find ways of exploiting each one. In other words, the teacher cannot use the same curriculum for all students, the same methods of teaching and the same 'standardised' methods of assessment. He/she cannot adopt a system where paying attention to individual differences is at best a luxury, at worst a dangerous deviation from essential educational priorities.

In Malta, thanks to the National Minimum Curriculum, teacher training and the policies of the education ministry, one is starting to see a shift towards placing the learner at the centre of the school's raison d'être. This move, if taken to its logical conclusion, would lead to a reorientation of the different forces that bear upon the school.

From Gardner's standpoint, the changes that would have to be made would represent a radical shift in our concept of a school and schooling. As far back as 1982, Ferguson was already discussing the kinds of changes that would need to be made if emphasis was really going to be placed on the nature of learning rather than on methods of instruction as is the case at present. For Fergusson, learning is kindled in the mind of the individual while all the other elements such as schools, teachers, literacy, maths, achievement are merely important peripherals to it. They are elements of the educational structure, which he contrasts with the all-important learning structure.

In conclusion, it is worthwhile noting that the Maltese National Minimum Curriculum embraces many of the phrases found on the right hand side of the above table. The 15 principles on which the whole document is based all reflect an emphasis on the individual-centred school rich in assessment of individual abilities and proclivities.

It seeks to match individuals not only to curricular areas, but also to particular ways of teaching those subjects. Principle nine page 37 in "Creating the future together" says it all when talking about assessment: "These modes (formative) of assessment do not discriminate among students. On the contrary their purpose is to indicate the stage at which students had started their present stage of learning and the stage or stages they can reach in their individual process of educational development." These words should be the guiding light of every educationalist, teacher training programme and school.