Chapter Twelve: MI and Cognitive Skills

Chapter twelve of Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom addressed one of the largest and most threatening problems that the U.S. education systems are facing today: students' inability to have higher thinking and problem solving. Students today do not understand why they are learning something, nor do they understand why something happens. Rote learning and memorization is the primary way that students think and learn. Because all students are doing is memorizing, they learn nothing and can remember nothing after they have taken a test. Students do not truly learn the information. If students are promoted by their teachers to uncover why they are learning certain materials, children will construct meaningful information. As a teacher, I need to be able to encourage my students to use the intelligences as guides to uncovering meaningful knowledge that does have an influence in their everyday lives. If students do not know why they are learning something and do not understand the importance of it, they will ask themselves, "Why should I do this? What's the point? I'm not ever going to use it again." I want my students to be able to construct meaning in their knowledge so that after a test is taken, they can come away from it with the ability to apply the material in different situations. If teachers are unable to ask thought-provoking questions that inspire students to go deeper into their thinking, then our education system will keep breeding learners who are unable to apply knowledge because they're too busy attempting to memorize information.