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Apart from the fields of intelligences mentioned above, there are many other new skills required to perform various activities in the present world. The mismatch between the demand for skills and the supply of talented workers has become one of the prime concerns in the world of work.
If the economies are to become competitive in the global situation, countries need people with a range of diverse talents. The fast-changing technology renders present skills obsolete tomorrow. In order to face this social and economic challenge we need to develop our young generation to acquire new skills and talents anticipated by the future world. In the identification and development of children’s skills, education sector has to play a key and a dominating role.
Under the traditional system of education, identification of children’s inherent talents is not considered as an important area of education. The assumption was that all children have the same set of intellectual abilities including learning skills, potentials and understanding capacity. Based on this assumption, teaching and learning techniques, examination methods and assessment tests are applied universally for all students disregarding strengths, weaknesses and levels of abilities of individual students.
Under this system, the teacher plays a vital role in the teaching learning process. The students are passive players listening to what is stated by the teacher. Intelligence is measured based on evaluation of academic performance of students. Those who excel in academic performance are considered the most intelligent persons. Students who cannot show academic brilliances were treated as less intelligent or unwise. Later on methods called IQ test and Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) which analyses students’ mathematical, grammatical, reading and vocabulary abilities were added to assess the intellectual skills. However, none of these techniques helped identifying children’s hidden talents and developing existing talents into full scale for them to become the masters of their own intelligences.
Multiple Intelligences (MI)
It was observed that the limitations existed in the classroom teaching/learning methods and assessment procedure hamper the discovery of different potentials possessed by individual students. Evaluating children by mere academic performance is not realistic, but children should be assessed by what they are talented for. Many children with specific skills failed to come forward since they are not good academic performers. Similarly, the word intelligence covers a limited scope of human abilities.
Apart from language, mathematics and science spheres no new areas of intelligences were known to education field. Psychologists and educationists had reservations on the conventional system and started thinking along these lines. In this background different other theories were introduced and came into practice.
Multiple Intelligences (MI) is one such widely accepted theory introduced by the prominent psychologist Howard Gardner in his book titled ‘Frames of Mind – The Theory of Multiple Intelligences’ in 1983. According to Gardner, children possess not only one form of intelligence but more than one. Some people have many forms of intelligences and they all remain equally strong. They are the ones who later will become world renowned personalities. Different people have varying set of intelligences and level of such intelligences also differs from person to person.
Gardner states that their mind sets are different and accordingly, they learn, understand and perform in different ways. Educationists and trainers must be able to bring such skills out, guide and direct students so that they develop the most appropriate career opportunities for them.
Nine key intelligences
Gardner identifies nine key intelligences that human beings possess.
1. Linguistic intelligence – Those who possess linguistic intelligence have a greater ability to express ideas, arguments and stories clearly and perfectly using language. Language is the most important tool they use in their profession. They are easily able to convince and make others educated using language in different ways. People with linguistic intelligence become writers, poem composers, and orators.
Logical mathematical intelligence – Some people are able to understand the principles and formation of systems. They can perform complex and difficult calculations and look at things through logical and scientific angles. These people are smart working with numbers and quantities and tend to support their arguments with logical examples and statistics. Mathematicians and logicians are examples for this category of intelligence
2.Musical rhythmic intelligence – Those who are gifted with musical rhythmic intelligence are music lovers and sensitive to rhymes, sounds, melodies and patterns. They prefer playing musical instruments, singing and related activities. They observe a rhyme or a pattern in anything. Singers and musicians are cited as ideal examples.
3.Kinaesthetic intelligence – Kinaesthetic intelligence refers to using the people’s body or parts of the body; hands, legs, facial expressions etc to perform different activities such as swimming, dancing, sports etc. Dancers, actors, sportsmen and athletes show their talents and make others enjoy by means of the body or parts of the body. They are also good in motor skills and willing to learn things through movements and experiments.
4.Spatial intelligence – People with spatial intelligence can visualise the space in their minds. They have the mental ability to solve spatial problems of navigation. Ability to identify directions, interpreting maps, charts and graphs are other characteristics. Sailors, airplane pilots, artists and architects are examples for individuals of this caliber..
5.Naturalistic intelligence – Individuals with naturalistic intelligence are fond of Natural environment. They enjoy the beauties of natural flora and fauna, rivers, mountains and valleys. These people tend to preserve environmental properties and keen to study about environment. Gardeners, environmentalists and biologists can be cited as professional areas preferred by them.
6.Intra personal intelligence – This form of intelligence refers to one’s ability to understand his/her own characteristics, behaviour, interests and ideologies. He knows his strengths and weaknesses. People of this calibre try to manage his activities according to his capacity and try to gain the best.
7.Interpersonal intelligence – People with interpersonal intelligence can understand other people’s ideas, ways of behaviour and thinking pattern, etc. They are capable of developing relationships with others and working with different individuals as a team. They are said to be people friendly and showing leadership qualities.
8.Existentialist intelligence – This form of intelligence is also referred as cosmic or spiritual intelligence. They are keen and concerned with ultimate life issues; existence of life, death and where is humanity heading to, etc. They are also able to understand others and the world around them. Philosophers, theologians, life coaches are some examples for this calibre of individuals.
9.A tenth form of intelligence, Emotional intelligence, was added to the list later. Emotional intelligence refers to one’s ability to comprehend his/her own emotions and others’ feelings. He is able to understand, control and interpret emotions. Accordingly the person would plan and manage activities efficiently. Some argue that emotional intelligence can be developed while some researchers state emotional intelligence is a born talent.
The concept of multiple intelligences has gained wider acceptance and popularity among educationists and teachers in developed countries. Gardner has suggested some of the techniques for classroom teaching/learning process and assessment of students to recognise individual student’s abilities and how to develop them. Educationists started implementing the suggestions and making experiments with the new concept followed by effective results.
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka is proud of having satisfactory educational indicators such as 95.6% of literacy rate and around 93.36% enrolment in primary education. Are these positive indicators sufficient? We have the question of students leaving schools with or without OL/AL qualifications. We have concerns on the plight of children who leave schools before reaching OL in the countryside and the estate sector. The state of affairs of these children tells us the inevitable requirement to introduce appropriate modifications into our education system. Such modifications need to address the persistent issues relating to skill development and enhancing the hidden intelligences of children and youth.
The present education system of Sri Lanka is a legacy from our colonial masters. The structure of the system, teaching/learning process and assessment procedure remain more or less similar. Until the recent past, education was limited to four streams. Technical stream has been included recently. There have not been significant modifications in curricula of many subjects in accordance with the developments taken place in other fields. As a result, there is a mismatch between teaching materials and requirements of the present day world of work.
This gap is more conspicuous in arts subjects. Arts graduates do not possess the skills need for the present labour market. Most of them end up with public sector agencies as employees with low productivity. If the specific abilities owned by them are identified at an early stage and developed them, children will lead for the most appropriate career path so that they will become productive individuals in the economy.
The assessment, ranking and promotion of students to next grades are based on examination marks. Students who scored highest are recognised as intelligent. The poor scored students are very unlikely to have bright future. This system affects the self image of poorly ranked students. The lower ranked students may be weak in academic performance but they may have capabilities in so many other fields of intelligences. We do not have alternative methods in evaluating academically poor performing children. The present form of examinations can measure mostly the mathematical, logical and linguistic intelligences and the memory power of students.
Island wide application of centrally arranged examination system is another constraint. Among 10,016 schools in Sri Lanka, there are 350 national schools where better facilities are available. Schools coming under the purview of provincial councils have less attraction of parents. At examinations, it is natural that the children in rural and estate sector schools get poor scores.
Preferential attitudes of society towards prestigious professions and white collar jobs and strong reluctance towards manual work encourage children to run after them rather than perusing in their natural gifts. No one is willing to undertake economic ventures in the fields of business enterprises and self employment by making use of their actual skills. In addition to modifying the education sector, attempts should be made to change these ineffective social attitudes.
Promoting and popularising MIs
There is a trend to initiate programs to promote and popularise the idea of multiple intelligences. ‘Bright Star’ is an attempt monitored by the Ministry of Education Lanka towards this end. This is an island wide program participated by selected talented students in grades 8, 9 and 10 from public schools in all parts of the island.
The program consists of an initial examination followed by a series of assessments based on multiple intelligences. The most talented children with several skills will be identified through rounds of assessments for rewarding. Even though this is an isolated event, it would create awareness among stakeholders and community on the concept. Initiating programs of this nature is encouraging, especially for brilliant students in rural areas to develop their capabilities and come forward.
The Government is highly committed to strengthen the children and youth with skills and knowledge. This can only be prospered if there are strong means within our education system to identify intellectual brilliances of children and help developing their career paths along with those intelligences. New set of policies that can settle the persistent issues in the conventional education system have become necessary.
Areas needing attention
Areas needing attention of policy makers in Sri Lanka are:
1. Necessity for student centred curriculum
2. conventional examination system that does not help identifying and assessing students real skills
3. Appropriate techniques for ranking students
4. School leavers’ lacking skills to find opportunities in the employment market
5. University education that does not have strategies to develop skills
6. Need to minimise the inequalities in facility provision for rural/estate schools
In the journey of Sri Lanka marching forward to become the wonder of Asia, intelligent and skilful workforce is an essential prerequisite. It is our national duty to provide opportunities for the young generation of our country to sharpen their skills and contribute to the future glory of the country through appropriate educational reforms.
Throughout the history, the world has recognised, respected and greatly remembered with gratitude persons who have done heroic acts in so many spheres with their inherent gifts. Rabindranath Tagore for composing poems, Beethoven for music, Leonardo da Vinci for arts, Mother Theresa and Florence Nightingale for helping the helpless and sick and many others with different intellectual abilities who were able to do inventions, present innovative products and initiate new activities for the benefit of the mankind are eternally regarded with great respect by the world.
(The writer is Deputy Minister of Education and Monitoring MP for Ministry of Youth Affairs and Skills Development. He can be reached via [email protected].)
