Education can be improved

Intelligence is perfectly well distributed among the people of our society. Some people may have higher IQ’s than others, but overall it evens out in other types of intelligence, abilities and skills.
Howard Gardner talks about 9 different kinds of intelligence (naturalist, musical, logical, existential, interpersonal, bodily-kinesthetic, linguistic, intrapersonal and spatial). Another person might categorize the different types of intelligence in a different way (see note at the end of this article).
Regardless of the prior categorization, all the people are different, but we tend to generalize in order to understand the environment where we live. One of the fundamental principles of Huna (Hawaiian philosophy) remarks that "all systems are arbitrary", meaning that all systems have been invented by the human being as a means to understand nature.
The above sounds very interesting and theoretical, but there is a catastrophic consequence, the education in our schools is based on these generalizations. If the child falls out of the averages in a certain topic, he is considered a rebel or dumb, either way the rest of his life will be affected by the lack of success in the early stages of his life, with social and economic implications, including crime.
I agree that we need to generalize and categorize in order to understand our surroundings and transfer knowledge, but the teaching/learning methods should be based on the strengths and weaknesses of each individual; the important person is the student, not the professor. I feel that our system of education is designed to make the professor’s work easier, underestimating the fact that we are molding the persons who will run our society tomorrow. Today, the future president is at school, but also the money launderer, the child molester, the serial killer, the teacher, the lawyer, and each and every one of them are important. It is up to us whether they grow up to build or destroy our society.
It is not fair to point out the problem without a solution, for this reason I suggest the following knowledge transfer process:
1. The teacher must speak clearly and simply, without convoluted words,
2. The teacher must keep the attention of his student at all times, with changes in the volume of the voice, practical interaction, live examples, positive attitude and an informal language.
3. The listener must put energy into understanding the concepts. If the student doesn’t want to learn, there is no way he will learn. It’s the professor’s responsibility to identify the field of knowledge and method in which the student will perceive the information, through any of his five senses (hearing, sight, smell, tact and taste).
4. The student must live (experience) the concepts in order to be able to understand them.
5. The student must relive the experience several times, so he can internalize the concepts and make them part of his life.
This teaching process is a generalization, but can be applied to every person, knowing all of us are different.
Final Note: In a personal matter, I wish to share the following types of intelligence which makes sense to me:
1. Memory: Ability to reproduce things and events experienced in the past.
2. Emotional intelligence: Ability to perceive a situation in an objective manner, with no involvement of ego, insecurities or personal fears.
3. Social Intelligence: Ability to cause a good impression to other people.
4. Logical Intelligence: Ability to interrelate variables.
5. Artistic intelligence: Ability to manifest internal ideas and emotions through elements of the surroundings, and can be perceived by any of the 5 senses.
6. Sportive Intelligence: Ability to coordinate the own body parts and relate them with the surroundings.
7. Sensibility: Ability to perceive and construe one’s own, and other people’s, emotions and feelings.

Sergio Gonzalez
www.costaricacontable.com