educational system based on national standards and efficient, cost-effective assessment in the form of multiple choice, number two pencil exams. Against this long-lived convention, though, many researchers, educators, even parents, have expressed reservation that such tests do nothing to judge a student's potential - they merely demonstrate that a child is or is not good at standardized tests. Students should not be judged by what they cannot do, but what they can do, and education should focus on bringing out the individual's potential. Until recently, this view was considered unrealistic, but now Howard Gardners theory of learning and intelligence has finally forced educators and policymakers to reconsider the pedagogical methods of the last century - the theory of Multiple Intelligence’s.Yet I still Believe that this categorization of intelligence’s into the eight or so sub groups is pointing us into the wrong direction. The Theory of Multiple Intelligence’s suggests that our culture and school systems that reflect our culture teach, test, reinforce and reward primarily two kinds of intelligence: verbal/linguistic and logical/mathematical. His theory proposes that there are at least eight other kinds of intelligence that are equally important. They are "languages" that most people speak, and that cut through cultural, educational, and ability differences. They include visual/spatial, bodily/kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal intelligence, and naturalist. Before we had two classifications, which didn’t allow for all of the other potential an individual may exhibit. Now we have eight classifications, which seemingly don’t allow the individual to be categorized in more than one. Yes, you may score highly in more than one classification, but you are still labeled as your highest level of the given intelligence’s. Why limit our students to sub groups. I do not think its possible to labe...
