Of Learning Styles and Multiple Intelligences, and Ants

The ants found themselves in a disturbing situation today. One of my more curious students was holding the ant habitat in his hands, carefully looking them over for a few minutes, like he usually does when he first comes into my classroom. Accustomed to him doing this, I fixed my attention on the other kids in the classroom, and talked about a writing prompt we had just begun the day before. From the corner of my eye I caught a movement that was too animated to ignore, and turned my head to see what the student was doing. I couldn’t move toward him fast enough.

He was turning the ant farm over and over again like a wheel, spinning it slowly, watching the ants adjust to the change of orientation with each turn. I noticed a ball of gel rolling about at the bottom of the habitat. That’s when I realized it was upside down completely, and the ants were tumbling about within the tunnels.

I refrained from yelling, for this student would have had a significant emotional reaction, and he would have been angry with himself far greater than was appropriate or necessary. I approached him quickly, but calmly, saying his name, and “No, don’t turn the habitat upside down like that. The ants don’t like it when you do that. It makes them…” I started to say, but he finished it for me. “Crazy. It makes them crazy.”

“I was going to say dizzy, but crazy might be a good word to describe it. Just don’t do that anymore, okay?” He apologized immediately, and said he didn’t know. I hadn’t told him not to do it. It was true. I had only told him to handle it carefully, and not to open it. I think he had a misunderstanding of the word carefully.

He let me take the habitat and put it safely back in the shadows of the highest bookshelf above my desk. His breathing had become more rapid. I could tell he was starting to get upset because he had done something wrong, but I assured him with the tone of my voice, that the ants would be okay this time. I knew he wouldn’t do it again now that he knew. He agreed, and his breaths slowed down to a more normal rate.

The other students in the room were very calm and kind about it. We don’t talk about learning disabilities in the classroom, but the kids seem to know and understand when one of them doesn’t grasp something that‘s being taught. They don’t laugh at each other when one of them makes a mistake. I think they have this awareness because they know each of us is weak at something. Every one of us. We try to help them find out what their talents are, whatever area it may be found in.

However, we do talk about their strengths. We encourage them to do better in what they are good at, whether it is academic, physical, creative, social, or a combination of areas. We understand that kids have different learning styles. Some are auditory learners (learn best through listening, like to read out loud), some are visual learners (need to see lots of images and printed materials), and some are tactile/kinesthetic learners (learn better with hands-on approach, need lots of activity and exploration). We attempt to include in our daily activities something for each of these learning styles to better reach them all.

Teachers know that their kids may have extraordinary, intuitive skills in intrapersonal and interpersonal relationships. Or a student might be musically inclined, or kinesthetically gifted. Certainly there are the brilliant math students and the amazing spellers, and some kids have a memory for facts and figures. The multiple intelligences theory of Howard Gardner is embraced by those of us who teach in the classroom because we recognize the varied abilities of kids at the same age. Parents, too, see it among their own off-spring. One child is an artist, another a writer, another a musician, another a math genius, each talented in their own way although they all grew up in the same house with the same parents.

The student who was turning the habitat upside down was studying the effects of his action upon the ants, without any concern for the welfare of the ants. Even a child with mental limitations that label him educably and mentally disabled has a level of intelligence that allows him to learn, and a talent for something.

This boy likes to read about insects and other animals. When you tell him the name of an insect, he remembers it as well as anyone with an interest in bugs. One day, last year, I found him bent over, intently staring at the lower part of a tree trunk while all the other students were listening and watching a man, dressed in colonial times-clothing, loaded and fired his musket. I wondered what the student was looking at, and sure enough, there was the largest preying mantis I had ever seen crawling around the trunk. The student never tried to hurt it, or pick it up, or disturb it in any way. In fact, when I told him I would take a picture of it for him, he was quite happy, and continued watching the insect as it slowly made its way up the trunk. I know of other boys his age, who have little regard for other living creatures, particular the six-legged kind, who would have knocked it off the trunk and stepped on it just because they could.

The school year is off to a great start, and I and my colleagues are beginning to feel the magnitude of what we must accomplish in one year. For now, testing pressures are weeks away, but we know it is something we must do. Our focus for now is on the kids’ learning, and learning how to learn. We are thinking about the questions we ask our kids, pushing for the deeper, higher level thinking we want them to become accustomed to. To do that, we must ask questions of ourselves regarding the world and our place in it, and the universe around us.

And since it is getting late and I don’t have time to continue along this line of thinking, I’m going to close this entry with a link to Venus and Jupiter, which can be seen tonight. I didn’t see it, but maybe you did?