MUED 350 Chapter 2 Points of Interest

My apologies for being tardy with this assignment, this week has been a little hectic for me. However "Music In Childhood" took me back to my days in Educational Psychology. With the names of Vygotsky and Piaget as well as Bandura being used, it was a little hard not to get nostalgic.

Three points that struck a chord with me were Gardener's Theory of Multiple Intelligences. I have been intrigued by this theory for many reasons. First of all Gardener's theory claims that an individual may possess more than one type of intelligence. This means that a person can be intelligent in many ways such as musically, mathematically, and spatially. This is a very cool way to look at the intelligence of humans and fascinates me.

I have a theory of my own that fits into this model of multiple intelligence. I believe that intelligence is the skill to adapt and modify new and old material to fit present and trying situations. This definition of mine stems from a few observations that I have made.

Sometimes people can be very good at moving their bodies, like being talented at a sport, but they cannot perform well once pressure is on or the sun casts shadows. I feel as though Gardner's theory can only be used if this is taken into account. I do agree with there being many different form of intelligence, but it must be known that being 'unintelligent' at on means being 'unintelligent' at others.

The second point of interest that I found was the three learning modalities; aural, kinesthetic, and visual. a Although it was simple to understand it makes so much sense to me. I find it very interesting when a student is able to connect the three modalities together. Watch the "aha" moment on a child's face is a precious moment. I think I appreciated this section because of how much that moment means to me.

The last interest point was the Myers, Briggs, McCaulley, and Most personality traits. There are 8 traits that can be compared in four groups of two. Introversion/Extroversion, Sensing/Intuition, Thinking/Feeling, and Judging/Perceiving. After a person decides what trait they identify more with, they can then find out what type of personality they are. Then they can compare their personality with others that have also taken this test.

While I do not ultimately agree with this specific personality labeling, I still like to see what I am. I actually took this test not to long ago (my girlfriend suggested it), and I had a lot of trouble identifying what I am. I feel that a lot of people have this problem. Not everyone is a strict extrovert or introvert, as well as a judge versus a 'perceiver'. While the end results of a more extensive test that uses these characteristics may be helpful, this specific one (Myers, Briggs, McCaulley, and Most) may be misleading.

Although these points stuck out to me, this chapter was a nice refresher to the many different ways that children may learn and mature. We may never know the exact way that children learn, but it will always be important for teachers to be there to guide them on their journey.