Kinesthetic Intelligence -- and Kinesthetic

Kinesthetic Intelligence -- and Kinesthetic Learning for Every Child

Most educators are aware that there are different styles of learning. However, this does not mean that they are equally aware of each different style or are equally good at honoring each style of learning. Teachers seem to be able to integrate visual and auditory styles of learning with relative ease. This should not be surprising given that both visual and auditory elements have been a part of traditional pedagogical techniques for decades. However, teachers are probably less likely to include a full range of kinesthetic learning tools. Again, this should not be surprising given that learning-through-movement is something that is in many ways alien to traditional teaching and classroom-management techniques. Indeed, a glimpse into most classrooms (especially for younger children) will probably result in a view of a teacher trying to get her or his students to sit still. Of course, not all movement by students is conducive to learning. But a focus on controlling the physicality of students can in many cases block the most appropriate style of learning.

The concept of different learning styles is largely based on Howard Gardner's 1993 book on multiple intelligence -- although the recognition that people can be differentiated according to learning style (as well as along an incredibly large array of vectors) has been recognized in less codified ways for centuries. An excellent summary of Gardner's concept of learning style comes from Dunn & Dunn (1992), who defined learning style as the manner in which each student or learner "begins to concentrate on, process and remember new and difficult information" (p. 2). Their definition rightly emphasizes that learning style is important primarily in the context of learning difficult material. Learning something relatively trivial -- such as a new phone number that one has to recall for only a few minutes, or how to use a new dishwasher -- do not require us to use any significant part of intelligence. Such low-level learning is relatively consistent from individual to individual.

Gremli's (1996) definition of learning style is similar: "an individual's learning style is the way that person begins to process, internalize and concentrate on new material" (p. 24). This inclusion of the way in which a person internalizes information is a key element of learning style because it references the way in which a person creates cognitive models or schema. Schema -- roughly the ways in which we internally organize the realm of our knowledge -- are a fundamental aspect of our total selves.

The fact that the way in which we are most comfortable or most inclined to take in information affects our internalization of it then our learning style can be seen to be one of the most vital aspects of the ways in which the environment shapes who we are. (This is not to say that learning style is determined solely by environment: There is no reason to believe that it is not both genetically and environmentally determined, as is almost every aspect of human nature.) Gremli argues that "every person has a learning style -- it is an individual as a finger-print" (1996, p. 24). Something so powerful, and absolutely unique, cannot be ignored if one is intent on honoring the whole person.

Kinesthetic intelligence is the name given to the quality of learning by carrying out physical movement (Hatch & Gardner, 1999). This is the dominant learning style for some children -- as well as adults, of course. It is vital to remember that kinesthetic intelligence or kinesthetic learning is the dominant learning style for some people but never the only learning style. All people combine different types of learning styles, blending kinesthetic learning with auditory and visual. However, the very different percentages of different learning style makes a substantial difference in terms of overall learning possibilities. One way of visualizing this is to think about a pie chart: Some people will have nearly all of the 360 degrees colored in for kinesthetic with only a tiny slice colored in for visual and auditory. Others will have the reverse of this. And still others will have their "learning pie" nearly equally divided.

Or -- to pick a more kinesthetic simile -- we might think about learning styles in terms of a triple-threat athlete, one who plays tennis, runs track, and also plays volleyball. Some athletes might play all of these sports equally well, but most will be at least somewhat better at one or two of them.

Gardner's own description of this amalgamation of different types of intelligence emphasizes the way in which this model was a significant break from what had come before:

In the heyday of the psychometric and behaviorist eras, it was generally believed that intelligence was a single entity that was inherited; and that human beings - initially a blank slate - could be trained to learn anything, provided that it was presented in an appropriate way. Nowadays an increasing number of researchers believe precisely the opposite; that there exists a multitude of intelligences, quite independent of each other; that each intelligence has its own strengths and constraints; that the mind is far from unencumbered at birth; and that it is unexpectedly difficult to teach things that go against early 'naive' theories of that challenge the natural lines of force within an intelligence and its matching domains. (Gardner, 1993, p. xxiii)

I should note before proceeding in my definition of kinesthetic intelligence that some researchers and educators divide learning and teaching styles into more than these three categories, although these are the most common and I would argue that they are sufficient. Like the three hues of the color spectrum that can be combined to form all other colors, these three learning styles, I believe, can be combined to form all learning styles. So, for example, some researchers predicate a "linguistic" or "verbal" style of learning. I certainly acknowledge that many people are attracted to words and find delight in both reading and writing. However, a believe that an attraction to language is in fact a combination of primarily visual and auditory learning. (There is also in all probability a kinesthetic element involved in an attraction to language, for speaking and, to a lesser extent, reading involve physicality as well.)

Likewise, what researchers and educators refer to as "logical" (or sometimes "mathematical" learning) seems to me also to be a combination of primarily visual and auditory learning styles. Other learning styles -- such solitary and social learning styles -- seem to be more properly understood within the context of personality trait analysis rather than primarily as a part of learning style. (Although it does seem possible that primarily visual learners are more likely to be solitary learners while auditory and kinesthetic learners are more likely to learn in a group.)

The Kinesthetic Learner and Kinesthetic Learning

Not all kinesthetic learners are the same, of course, but there are general attributes of a kinesthetic learner that are common. These traits can be used by an educator to assess (or diagnose, in some sense) a person as a kinesthetic learner. (A person could also diagnose herself or himself as a kinesthetic learner by noting the following traits or inclinations.) (The following description of kinesthetic learning and intelligence is summarized from all of Gardner's writings cited in the bibliography.) People whose predominant method of learning and processing information tend to have the following traits:

People with kinesthetic intelligence tend to be more physically active. Moreover, they to need to change physical activities more frequently than people with other forms of multiple intelligence. So while a visual learner might be perfectly happy to spend all of her time at the gym on the treadmill, a kinesthetic learner will probably move from treadmill, to elliptical machine, to lap pool.

Kinesthetic learners tend to speak with their hands more than other types of learners. (It is important to note, however, that the extent to which a person speaks with one's hands is also culturally determined in large measure: While some cultures approve -- and even encourage -- speaking with one's hands [anyone who has ever had a dinner with an Italian family has probably experienced this]. There are also differences between genders: In Muslim cultures women are often less likely to speak with their hands than are men. Culture affects each one of us in broad and pervasive ways, including our learning styles. I will take this subject up again below.

Kinesthetic learners are much more likely to remember things that they have done, or even things that they have seen other people doing than things that were said or seen.

Kinesthetic learners generally enjoy manipulating or tinkering with things and tend to appreciate the physical qualities of materials (such as the differences in texture between different kinds of wood). They also tend to be attracted to activities in which materials are transformed in some way, such as cooking.

Kinesthetic learners are generally good at both movement that involves the entire body (such as surfing) as well as activities that require find motor skills (such as playing the piano).

Are more encouraged by praise that is delivered physically rather than verbally -- such as by a handshake or a pat on the back rather than by a verbal "good job."

Kinesthetic learners also tend to absorb information when given a great deal of tactile stimulation. I will explore this in greater detail below.

Kinesthetic learners are generally better at expressing themselves in concrete ways. This includes expressing emotions. When kinesthetic learners interact with people who are primarily visual learners there may be significant gaps between the two in how emotions are expressed and understood. For example a kinesthetic learner might offer to change the spark plugs in her boyfriend's car while he (a visual learner) might well prefer to have gotten a card with a romantic poem in it from her.

It should be easy to see from this brief overview of the traits of a kinesthetic learner why students with this learning style can find it so difficult to learn in a traditional classroom that privileges visual learning and sitting quietly at one's desk. Teachers who do not understand that some students truly cannot learn at their best when they are sitting still for long periods of time will misinterpret the natural physicality of kinesthetic learners as disobedient or even having learning disabilities.

There is some evidence that teachers may misdiagnose a kinesthetic learning style as a form of ADHD or ADD, since children with these learning disabilities also usually have problems sitting still for a long period of times. However, of course, kinesthetic learning and ADHD are very different in etiology as well as in appropriate response. It is therefore essential that the two are distinguished from each other.

Labeling a child as having ADHD as opposed to being a kinesthetic learner not only can result in the wrong pedagogical approach but can also result in significant stigmatization of the child given that ADHD is identified as a learning disability -- rather than as a special form of learning ability. For this reason along with many others it is essential that educators learn to recognize and honor kinesthetic styles of learning. Gardner's model provides a straightforward and intuitive way of doing so.

... The theory validates educators' everyday experience: students think and learn in many different ways. It also provides educators with a conceptual framework for organizing and reflecting on curriculum assessment and pedagogical practices. In turn, this reflection has led many educators to develop new approaches that might better meet the needs of the range of learners in their classrooms. (Kornhaber, 2001, p. 276)

It should be clear that there are important reasons why teachers should both recognize this style of learning (and more generally the presence of multiple learning styles and forms of intelligence) while also resisting them. With the many tasks (and even burdens) that teachers must carry in today's classroom, the requirement that teachers present every piece of information in a range of different styles may seem simply the final straw. Gardner himself understood how his paradigm might well be seen by educators.

At first blush, this diagnosis would appear to sound a death knell for formal education. It is hard to teach one intelligence; what if there are seven? It is hard to enough to teach even when anything can be taught; what to do if there are distinct limits and strong constraints on human cognition and learning? (Gardner, 1993, p. xxiii)

Gardner cautioned that teachers did not have to adopt his ideas without modifying them, acknowledging that his brief was psychology rather than education, and that while educators could in some cases find themselves guided by psychological research, psychologists are not (or should not) be mandated or dictating pedagogical policy. Rather, research such as his that helps educators (as well as students and their parents) better understand cognitive processes "merely helps one to understand the conditions within which education takes place" (Gardner, 1993, p. xxiii).

While not demanding that schools institute his ideas and his model, Gardner was clearly interested in having teachers use his ideas and so wanted to reassure teachers that his ideas could make their work easier, more intuitive, and more rewarding rather than the reverse. He wrote:

Seven kinds of intelligence would allow seven ways to teach, rather than one. And powerful constraints that exist in the mind can be mobilized to introduce a particular concept (or whole system of thinking) in a way that children are most likely to learn it and least likely to distort it. Paradoxically, constraints can be suggestive and ultimately freeing. (Gardner, 1993, p. xxiv)

Whether this is true or not is debatable. Certainly, it seems that Gardner himself believed it, and his argument is not -- on the surface -- clearly false. However, there are so many things that a teacher must keep track of in a classroom that it is also arguable that having to breakdown each fact and idea into its different parts so that it can be conveyed to a range of different types of learners makes the task of teaching impossibly complicated.

Despite the enthusiasm in management circles for the wonder of multitasking, most of us have the personal experience of knowing that when we simultaneously add additional tasks to our plate then we tend to do each one of them less well. This is no less true of teaching than of any other job. Teachers, naturally overwhelmed by the idea of what they need to do, are perfectly likely to shift toward modes of teaching (and thus of learning) that are easiest to perform within a traditional classroom program. Unfortunately for kinesthetic learners, kinesthetic intelligence is the type of learner that is most likely to be omitted given the fact that it is least like the most traditional form of teaching.

Brain Activity of Different Learning Styles

One of the most fascinating aspects of learning style is the underlying brain chemistry and functionality of learning. This is also one of the most overlooked aspects of learning style, probably because most researchers and educators who are focused on the topic are not neurologists and so do not have the expertise (or perhaps even the interest) to explore the neurological issues involved. However, there are distinct differences in how the brain processes different types of information -- i.e. information that enters the brain in different ways. These differences can be relatively easily detected through a variety of brain-scanning techniques that are non-invasive and safe for the patient.

Among the primary differences in the brain's processing of different types of information are the following, as detailed by Jensen (2008):

The brain processes visually based information in the occipital lobes (which are located in the back of the brain). This is one of the areas that assesses spatial information. Thus visual information can be seen to feed into both verbal and mathematical reasoning.

The brain processes information coded in auditory ways in the temporal lobes. Music is processed in this part of the brain, as well as speech and ambient sounds.

Kinesthetic or physically based information is processed for the most part in the cerebellum and the motor cortex. The motor cortex is located in the rear of the frontal lobes, the area of the brain responsible for processing visual information. This suggests a connection between visual and kinesthetic intelligence, which should not be surprising since kinesthetic learners often have the ability (and the inclination) to visualize a physical movement (such as a forehand in tennis) before they actually do it.

Neurological research such as this reminds us that there are what we might call nonnegotiable aspects to learning style, for different individuals have subtly different brain structures. While certain types of cognition and other forms of mental activity take place in the same overall structures from person to person (with some exceptions such as in the aftermath of trauma), there are small differences in the ways in which each person's brain assigns different types of mental processes to different sub-sections of the brain. Thus there are real, physiological reasons why different individuals learn in different ways.

It should be noted, however, that while our brains are wired in certain ways because of our genetics and our interactions with the environment, our brains are highly plastic -- much more so than was thought just a few years ago. We can change the way we interact with the world in neurological terms. Our brains can adapt in dramatic ways. This does not mean that people who are kinesthetic learners should try to change themselves so that they resemble the kind of learner (i.e. visual or secondarily auditory) that schools have traditionally been designed to teach. Rather, that each one of us, regardless of our primary learning style, can strengthen all of the ways in which we can learn.

A Kinesthetically Intelligent Classroom

Having established in the previous section that there are distinct styles of learning and that one of the primary -- but probably the most often neglected one -- styles of learning is kinesthetic learning, I now turn to ways in which kinesthetic learners can be helped to prosper in the educational process. There are a number of ways in which kinesthetic learners can optimize their time inside the classroom. (Of course, there are ways in which all types of learners can also optimize their learning opportunities outside the classroom as well. But learning outside the classroom tends to be relatively much easier for kinesthetic learners since they are much freer to move about and to explore the world tactilely when they are outside the classroom than in it.)

Teachers -- as well as school administrators, parents, and even sometimes kinesthetic learners themselves -- may sometimes think about kinesthetic learning in a very limited way. (They may even see kinesthetic learning as a form of learning disability, something that limits a child's ability to learn rather than enhancing her or his ability to learn in particular ways.) Teachers may have had experience (often significant experience) of kinesthetic learners who wander around the classroom, or -- if they do stay in their seats -- fidget constantly, thus limiting not only their own learning potential (for while fidgeting is a natural response for a kinesthetic learner whose needs are not being met, it is not a useful strategy for learning) but also distract other children and prevent them from learning to their top potential.

If teachers conceptualize kinesthetic learning only in (false) terms of a student's needing to move her or his body then it is unlikely that the teacher will be able to connect the student to her or his optimal learning strategies. Teachers who have seen a child wandering around the classroom may associate the idea of kinesthetic learning with random motion (as indeed wandering and fidgeting tend to be) and may not understand that kinesthetic learners may fall back on random movements when they are not given the option of more productive (and more satisfying and enjoyable) forms of movement that are legitimate forms of learning.

One of the reasons that teachers (and others, including parents) may find it difficult to serve the needs of kinesthetic learners is that there are no strict definitions of what a kinesthetic learner is and no clearly established tests that allow an educator (or anyone else) to identify one. (This should not be surprising in light of what I have said above -- that each person has a unique mixture of learning styles and that all people have some tendencies toward kinesthetic learning.) Gardner himself recognized the complexity of testing for and identifying different styles of learning:

I once thought it possible to create a set of tests of each intelligence - an intelligence-fair version to be sure - and then simply to determine the correlation between the scores on the several tests. I now believe that this can only be accomplished if someone developed several measures for each intelligence and then made sure that people were comfortable in dealing with the materials and methods used to measure each intelligence. (Gardner, 1999, p.1998)

The difficulties inherent in defining exactly what portion of different types of intelligence different students have offers a teacher two different possibilities: either to retreat from the task altogether or not to allow one to worry overly about exact definitions. If a teacher remembers, or acknowledges, that all children have at least some mastery of all learning styles then it will in all likelihood become easier for her or him to design exercises (and an overall classroom atmosphere) that benefits the kinesthetic learning aspects of all children. In this way the primarily kinesthetic learners will benefit by being able to rely on their dominant learning style while children with other dominant learning styles will have their own kinesthetic intelligence strengthened. Considered from this angle, providing activities that include potential for each type of learner can be seen as benefiting all the students rather than requiring the teacher to do additional work for those students who are primarily kinesthetic learners.

General Considerations for Kinesthetic Learners

As noted above, kinesthetic learners learn by doing rather than by watching. But this fact tends to obscure the complex relationship of kinesthetic intelligence by suggesting that kinesthetic learners are somehow less sophisticated than other kinds of learners, prone to flapping about the place. In fact, kinesthetic learning is as sophisticated and complex as any other learning modality or preferences; it is also a myth that kinesthetic learners use primarily (or even exclusively) their larger muscles. Kinesthetic learners are highly skilled at fine motor control and can learn through all kinds of movement -- whether guided by large or fine motor control or both. It is also essential to remember that mental and physical skills and methods of learning are not entirely distinct from each other. There is also the tendency to frame kinesthetic learning as less sophisticated than other modes. Of course, it is not in any way unsophisticated. The determinant of the complexity of a form of learning is the intelligence of the being doing the learning, which means that all human learning styles are as complicated as the human brain.

Specific Activities for Kinesthetic Learners

One arena in which kinesthetic learners can shine is learning that incorporates computer technology. This might seem counterintuitive because a child sitting in front of a computer is often held up as the epitome of passive learning -- or simply of passivity. But if one observes a child learning through technology one can see that technology can in fact be highly interactive in precisely the way that kinesthetic learners can benefit from. While computer use is not aerobic in the way that running a marathon is, of course, it remains an activity that requires kinesthetic awareness and some educators have found that using computers and other technological devices -- such as appropriate video games -- can be highly effective accompaniments to kinesthetic learning.

Of course, many computer games would not be appropriate for classroom learning, either because they are merely entertaining (such as Tetris, although arguably one might learn something about geometry from this game) or because they are violent. However, there are a number of games designed specifically for educational purposes. The following is a very brief overview of some of the possibilities:

… programs that combine kinesthetic activity with the development of analytical thinking are Broderbund's "Science Toolkit" and IBM's "Personal Science Lab." The student creates physical or scientific experiments, the results of which are analyzed and displayed on a computer screen. These are just the beginning of a whole new series of computer programs that are connected to physical activities.

Some computer simulations enable students to experience events seldom encountered in everyday life. Observing and responding to nuclear plant malfunctions, emergence of new life forms, operation of different vehicles or machines, or the passage of geological epochs provide students with enriched classroom experiences.

"Electronic field trips." may not involve the physical body, yet students feel as if they are actually exploring the depths of the sea or the inside of a volcano as they accompany researchers in areas where very few can go. Recently, classrooms of students, linked electronically to explorers investigating the tectonic plates in the depths of the Mediterranean, were able to communicate with the scientists, ask questions, or request the viewing of areas or objects more closely. The students were almost there.

The comparison of computer-based technologies to field trips is an interesting and important one, because numerous researchers and educators have found that field trips are one of the most effective ways by which to teach kinesthetic learners. Of course, other types of learners can benefit greatly from field trips as well. However, in this era of tight budgets and pressure to use every minute of time in preparation for testing, field trips tend to be few and far between. The use of electronic media can supplement actual field trips in highly effective ways.

Indeed, in some ways they can be even more effective than actual field trips because the information presented during a field trip is ephemeral: While a field trip may be fascinating an educational, it is often the case that students have a difficult time remembering all of the information once they have returned to the classroom. A computer-based program allows the student to return to each part of a program as many times as is necessary to absorb all of the material at his or her own pace.

Glass (2003) describes some innovative approaches in integrating innovative technology and kinesthetic learning modalities.

Under the old system of trade skills education, instruction was delivered largely through kinesthetic methods. Currently, however, secondary and postsecondary trade skills education programs institutions in Australia and elsewhere are changing their educational emphasis from traditional skills to more technology-based skills. This shift raises the question of whether modern theories and technologies are more beneficial than traditional methods in which educators remain in control of content and time. Hybrid instruction, which combines face-to-face classroom instruction with computer-based learning, is one approach to integrating technology into the classroom. Although hybrid instruction allows for flexibility and gives students the opportunity to be more self-directed, it suffers in the application of kinesthetic skills to learning. Several Australian institutions ... are now offering programs that require students to use touch and other senses. Two relevant areas of research are haptics (the experience of touching and manipulating objects or environments) and virtual synesthesia (a neurological condition in which a stimulus in one sense modality is involuntarily elicited in another). SmartRooms, which constitute another way of integrating technology into instruction, have the potential to incorporate kinesthetic learning into theory-based curricula.

"SmartRooms provide a complex, interactive environment that allows users to manipulate various elements so that they can use their bodies to customize their learning experience. While such a setting is especially helpful for kinesthetic learners, it also offers numerous learning possibilities for other kinds of learners as well. This should not be a surprise: While I have been arguing here for ways in which kinesthetic learners must be honored, I have also throughout this paper emphasized the ways in which all styles of learners can benefit from complex learning environments.

Brain Gym: A Highly Flexible Approach

There are two distinct ways through which to approach the process of creating a classroom that is welcoming to the kinesthetic learners. The first one I have touched on above -- creating an environment in which there are fairly specific activities, such as the kinds of computer games that were described above. But there is another approach in which very general activities are made available to students that offer a sort of immersion strategy. An analogy to this two different approaches would be going to the gym and focusing on a single group of muscles or going to the gym and doing a series of stretches that increase overall fitness and allow the student to increase his or her total kinesthetic learning skills while increasing his or her overall confidence and classroom achievement.

One program that takes this latter, more broad-based approach is Brain Gym, which consists of a number of exercises and strategies as well as an overarching philosophy of using physical movement to "turn the brain on." One of these exercises is the "cross crawl," an exercise designed to help "coordinate right and left brain by exercising the information flow between the two hemispheres," a fact that is "useful for spelling, writing, listening, reading and comprehension" (Beare, Brain Gym exercises).

In this exercise a person begins either in a standing or sitting position then puts the right hand on the left knee while raising the right knee. Then the person reverses the exercise and puts the left hand on the right knee as if the person were marching (assuming that the person is doing the standing rather than the sitting version of the exercise (Beare, Brain Gym exercises). One of the reasons that kinesthetic learners may find themselves stymied in a traditional classroom is that relatively few of the exercises that are traditionally offered promote this kind of cross-hemispheric brain flow and neurological activity, which is especially beneficial to kinesthetic learners.

While such exercises have been demonstrated to be effective for kinesthetic learners, there may be some (often significant) resistance on the part of teachers. This is not meant to be a criticism of teachers, nearly all of whom are trying their best to serve the widely varying needs of their students. However, such exercises as the one described above may not look like learning at all to a teacher trained in traditional methods of conveying information through traditional methods. There are a number of ways that such resistance may be overcome. I will discuss this further in the next section.

One generally very easy way in which teachers can be enlightened about the ways in which kinesthetic activities can be highly beneficial is to incorporate more physical education activities into the school day. This seems to be a relatively straightforward "fix" to the problem of being able to include kinesthetic learners more fully. However, in many school districts fewer and fewer hours per week are being used for physical education. There are a number of reasons for this, but the primary one is that teachers and administrators both feel stressed for time.

With the implementation of the federal No Child Left Behind act and similar state and local frameworks, teachers often feel that they have to dedicate every classroom moment to helping students prepare for the standardized tests that are so powerful in determining everything from whether a school's principal will stay employed to how well a school will rank overall. This federal law has no provision for physical education mandates or even more generally for health or wellness standards. It is very much a reversal of the classical precept of mens sana in corpore sano -- literally a healthy (not sound) mind in a healthy body.

This ranking of schools by test results has significant and widespread consequences for both staff and administrators -- as well as for students who may be subject to significant disruption in their school lives as teachers may get shuffled around or as their parents decide to move their children to a higher performing school.

All this acknowledged, adding physical education to the school day can be incredibly beneficial to the kinesthetic learner -- as well as any child who simply needs moments of physical activity to break up those sections of the school day in which she or he is expected to be still and quiet. Ideally, each school day should be broken up with periods of physical education, but in the absence of this possibility, physical education would ideally be offered at least once a day (Trudeau & Shephard, 2008, p. 10). However, this is quite often not the case, with many students having PE once every couple of weeks or even once a month. Such token efforts are detrimental to all students, but especially to kinesthetic learners.

When physical education can be comprehensively integrated into a school curriculum (even when classroom instruction remains relatively traditional) kinesthetic learners will be much better served. A range of physical education activities -- from track and field to basketball to tennis -- allow for a mixture of fine and gross motor skills while teaching social skills. Moreover, even when physical activities are not directly keyed to a specific learning goal, they provide a sense of validation of the overall school experience that can be fundamentally liberating to a kinesthetic learner who feels out of place in the classroom. (It should be noted that such a connection between a specific learning goal and a specific activity is certainly not the only way in which instruction can be structured.) The generalized benefit should not be seen as in any way an insignificant benefit.

A Deeper and Broader Perspective: Progressive Education Across the Decades

Gardner's concept of multiple intelligences has only been around for a few decades. It has been accepted by many educators and parents -- as well as by children themselves. However, many others (both in the professional educational ranks and in the "lay" world) consider it to be trendy, merely the latest model in a very long series of models about educational strategies. (Bellanca, 1997, p. 14). And to some extent -- and I say this very much as a supporter of the model of multiple intelligences -- this is true. I do not say this as a way to dismiss the validity of this model but rather as a way to acknowledge that Gardner's model (and of course the work of others who have modified and refined Gardner's basic model) is only one way of looking at a fundamental truth about teaching.

We can look at the concept of multiple intelligences as one of the latest chapters in the march of progressive education, a march that has been anything but linear. As is true of any complicated and important story, it is hard to know exactly where to start the story of progressive educational reform, although at least in the United States the story of progressive education must center on the figure of educational reformer John Dewey. But -- and I note this here only in the briefest way -- there have been attempts at educational reform for centuries, probably even millennia (Ravitch, 2000, p. 17.)

To some extent -- and painting here with a very broad brush -- these reforms have attempted to balance "practical" aspects of elevation with what we might call (with an appropriate sense of irony) "book learning." The fact that there is a continual seesawing back and forth of these two possibilities should suggest to us the impossibility of separating (again, painting with a very broad brush) mind and body, or educational exercises and strategies that are aimed primarily at visual and auditory centers of the brain and the body as a whole (and the sectors of the brain that are fundamental to movement and sensation).

Even as we acknowledge the fact that humans are integrated, even as we insist on pushing past the vestiges of Cartesian dualism, we can understand the reasons behind such a dichotomy in terms of educational strategies. On one hand, there are clearly different sets of needed skills and knowledge sets for people in different careers and as manual labor has in general given way to white-collar work, shifts have occurred to reflect society's different needs for its workers. (This shift is in general entirely distinct from what individuals themselves may need or prevail at.) (Kohn, 1999, pp. 23-4).

There has also been the tendency in educational policy and reform -- as in all fields of human endeavor -- for there to be a pendular effect, with each reform going just a bit too far and thus being met with a push in the exact opposite direction, to be met in turn by a swing back in the first direction (Kohn, 1999, p. 28). Placed in this longer perspective we can see that the current passion for standardized testing and for educational activities that are primarily focused on visual learning as a temporary trajectory. A swing in one direction that will be eventually be balanced by a swing in the opposite direction.

If we assess the current educational culture like this (as one end of a spectrum), it is easier to be more tolerant of its excesses. (A longer perspective on any human activity helps to smooth out the excesses and to make human activity seem much more rational.) And yet there are good reasons not simply to wait out this moment in educational policy. The best of these reasons is simply that each child only has one pass through the educational system, and if she or he is not being served during that time then there is no way in which to provide a remedy for that child. In terms of education, there are no second chances.

We might see this as being analogous to climate change. It may be true that at some point the globe will once again begin to cool down and a very-much future generation will not have to suffer the same effects of global warming that we do. But we must leave the future to the future and tend to our own garden, as Voltaire would say. The same is true for educational reform and the current cohort of students.

Education is Politics By Other Means

The progressive movement in education, which began in the last decades of the nineteenth century, can be seen as antithetical to the kind of education that is based so narrowly on standardized tests. Of course, when progressive education was first popularized it was not seen as an antidote to Republican ideas about accountability in education. It was, however, very explicitly put forward as a response to the very hierarchical educational system of the era, in which upper class boys (and some girls) were educated within a classical curriculum that prepared them for university education and the rest of children were educated to perform manual labor (Hayes, 2006, p. 41).

In this context, teaching that was directed at learning through physical movement was associated with what we now call vocational education. It was very much the stepchild (if even this) of educational policy. In the decades just after the Civil War (as well as in the decades leading up to it), education for the masses was extremely limited and consisted almost entirely of teaching children (mostly boys) to work with their hands. Wealthy families would in no way consider having their children taught how to work with their hands: Part of their class standing resided in the fact that they did not have to learn the kinds of things that they could pay to have other people do for them. (There were of course exceptions to this: Girls were taught to embroider, for example, and boys to shoot.)

This split between learning how to do things with one's hands and body and learning to sit in a classroom and do things only with one's mind (and apologies here for the dualism, but this was a dichotomy believed in at the time) can be seen as a distinct incentive to banish movement-based and tactile-based activity from the classroom. Appealing to the body and not solely the mind was to classify social elite with the lower classes (Cremin, 1962, p. 87). While we are certainly not a class-free society today, most twenty-first century Americans would at least not be open advocates of creating and maintaining an educational system designed to enforce class differences.

The first progressive educational reforms began to reverse this absolute division between the two modes of teaching and learning. This was in part a pedagogical concern, an acknowledgement that we cannot (as learners or as people) be split into two phases. But it was at least as much a political concern: By bringing physicality back into the classroom, educational reformers were trying to make less rigid the boundaries that existed between the classes (Kohl, 1998, p. 61).

John Dewey, who was a psychologist and philosopher -- like his colleague William James -- as well as an educational reformer, sought to make the classroom more experiential in a wide range of ways. He believed that the function of the public school system was to produce citizens. Public schooling was one of the cornerstones of civil society, and education that immersed each child in a challenging atmosphere that planted the skills for critical learning was as important in terms of safeguarding the republic as was expanding the franchise (Boisvert, 1997, p. 31).