Southern States - Kerala-Thiruvananthapuram   

Discovering the storehouse of student intelligence

By Our Staff Reporter

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM May 13. What do A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Naseeruddin Shah, Lata Mangeshkhar and Sachin Tendulkar have in common?

"The will to excel and make meaningful contribution to society through their chosen fields," answered participants of `Discover the genius in your child', a multiple intelligence workshop being conducted at the Vailoppilli Samskrithi Bhavan here by `The Hindu-Young World'.

The weeklong workshop, conducted as part of the Newspaper in Education programme, brought together 51 students from 27 city and suburban schools, who were shortlisted from more than 600 applicants.

The aim of the workshop was to help children discover the storehouse of intelligence within themselves and others, derive joy from knowing that they were gifted in their own ways, and enable them to improve their confidence, inter-personal relationships and communication abilities.

In a brainstorming session, the children, divided into five groups, described `intelligence' variously as "the ability to handle desperate and risky things without any sign of panic", "the ability to solve problems efficiently", "thinking in a fast and sensible manner" and "appropriate use of brain power".

Puja Navin, an HR and career consultant who led the workshop, said `intelligence' was all these and more.

She explained the multiple intelligence (MI) theory formulated by the psychologist and educationist, Dr. Howard Garnder, which criticised the traditional notion that there was only one kind of human intelligence that could be assessed by standard psychometric instruments. The MI theory was based on research in fields ranging from psychology to anthropology to biology.

"All individuals have a unique combination of personal intelligence. These include verbal/linguistic, mathematical/logical, visual/spatial, bodily/kinesthetic, musical/rhythmic, inter-personal/intra-personal, natural and existentialist."

There were sessions on music, art and aerobics to illustrate the visual/spatial, musical/rhythmic and bodily/kinaesthetic types of intelligence. They were led by Nandakishore, Satish Babusenan and C.R. Sasikumar.

"Every child has all types of intelligence. Some areas of intelligence are active, while others are not. Awareness and practice were the key to activate the dormant ones. Learning about one intelligence can lead to appreciating another. For instance, a child interested in painting Nature may be prodded to take more interest in biology and zoology. Or a child with mathematical skills may be introduced to the intricacies of percussion art. Such a method of study makes every child a winner," observed Ms. Navin.

The workshop would include language labs, focusing on how to improve word power and writing skills, theatre exercises, field trips, sessions to enhance mathematical skills and group projects.

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