The problem with Gardner

Today actually gave me a lot of material to work with.

1) Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences.
2) What I hope to be a series of the economics of urban poverty... based on anecdotal studies.
3) The problem of the electricity going out in a classroom with 8" windows.
4) The reason the U.S. has to stay in Iraq is because if we leave half the population of Iraq might be wiped out.

Each of these will be covered in turn... maybe. Or maybe I'll have new material.

Since it came first though, I'd like to share my thoughts on Howard Gardner (not to be confused with Phil Garner):

In essence Howard Gardner believed that all children have some natural ability, and that the traditional school curriculum does not allow all children to foster what he believes is their natural intellegence. Children are encouraged to learn based on their strengths and tricked into learning based by sliding the curriculum into something that a child is particularly interested in... art, music, intrapersonal relationships...

Bored yet? I thought so. Allow me to tell you how primary schoolish this is and how impractical in our current school system. We are given curriculum to teach, tests for the kids to pass, and sometimes we are even told exactly how it is we are going to teach these precious children this curriculum... none of which includes art or music. I have over a hundred kids, I'm lucky to know anything about them... and a struggling kid, well, odds are they have their own kettle of fish to deal with and they don't have the time to spend composing a symphony on the Great Depression or creating a painting of the beaches of Normandy. I'm secondary education in a public school... I'm convinced some of these children can't read, how does letting them paint a picture help them? Are we lying to them if we tell them that they only need to use their gifts?

Anyhoo, that isn't funny so I thought I'd share my experience with multiple intellegence in high school. Likely caused by some sort of sick inservice they made poor Mrs. Hatfield attend.

My junior year of high school I was asked to read Huck Finn. I don't remember having to take a test, though it is possible. I remember the project though. We could do "anything we liked" as long as it had to do with Huck Finn. Among others these were the results:

FIVE MEN COOKING
Five of my classmates wrote a full length southern cooking show (which I actually watched three times given that they kept talking my teachers into showing it in class). In it Mark, Matt, Ben, Matt, and Ben filmed a cooking show in the vain of Emeril where we learned how to: make fried chicken which came in a red and white box, how to make Jiffy cornbread, how to make mashed potatoes (which came in a red and white styrofoam container) and how to toss a salad. It was informative and helped me understand Huck Finn better.

HUCK & JIM'S TOTALLY AWESOME RAFT TRIP
Another video was made in which James Watt (skinny little white kid) played Jim and Tre Lawson (pretty big black kid) played Huck. There was no sound, they acted like they were on a raft. Huck fell off the raft onto his lawn. Jim saved him. The end. It was very informative and helped me understand Huck Finn better.

APPLE STACK CAKE
My project (with my friend Neil) was to make an apple stack cake. It is a traditional Appalachian dessert (yeah I know Huck Finn wasn't in East Tennessee) which my grandmother used to make. The goal is have as many layers as possible and have the whole thing come out flat. It is yummy and difficult. I made mine. I had 18 layers but it wasn't flat. Neil - dyslexic Neil - who couldn't spell to save his life typed the recipe. We got a hundred. I made good cake. I learned a lot about Huck Finn.

Such was my English education. Which explains why I think Aunt Polly's name is Nancy, but definitely not Ruth.

I also turned Julius Caesar into a Dragnet episode while I was on a lot of pain killers for my wisdom teeth. I did an autopsy report and everything. I put a tin foil hat on a Troll to prove to the world I'd read Edith Hamilton's Mythology. I used a Mr. Potato Head doll for Hero of a Thousand Faces; I dressed in Beatnik black for a reading of The Waste Land. We got extra points for bringing in a stoplight.

Funny thing is I actually did read all those books... and more... the only one I skipped was The Awakening. Someone walks out into the sea or something.