Cultural Whiplash

I've written something about the Tattooed Man by Herbert Kohl. The chapter is well-written, and certainly brings back memories of childhood and the love I had for writing during journal time, as well as experiencing professional live performances as eye-opening. I have to view the world with some sense of hope. My philosophy is that it's better by far to create than destroy. Ironically, when I write, I tend to write fiction or fantasy. The paragraph that I can most closely identify with is the one that begins on page 58 and ends on page 59. "Live music, and especially that particular concert, was beautiful beyond all expectation." (Kohl, page 58) This sentence alone brings back memories of elementary school, and going to Ashland, Oregon to view Shakespeare at the theatre, or a concert at the Peter Britt Festival. Or, as I was fortunate in this regard, watching my parents and grandmother play the piano at the concert hall in Yreka, and turning the pages in the sh...

I am not very familiar with the Multiple Intelligences, but I have encountered them in various ways over the years. The main way was through tests designed to indicate a career path. These kind of tests are great for indicating jobs that you might like. Willingham has truly opened my eyes in a number of regards. The biggest eye-opener for me, which makes perfect sense, is that there is no evidence that applying modalities when teaching individuals based on their professed preference has any benefits. I think the most important problem with modality approaches is the assumption that modality can be applied successfully based on the individual without regard to what is being taught. Teaching someone with a visual preference using a visual modality will not bear more fruit than the usual teaching techniques. Another problem is that modality approaches assume that children learn best in only one way, and that we have to specialize instruction for each individual student. Willingham...