Building a Community that Includes All Learners

One way to engage all students and ensure that they feel valued within a classroom is to provide opportunities for learning that tap into varied intelligences. According to Howard Gardner, "It is of the utmost importance that we recognize and nurture all of the varied human intelligences, and all of the combinations of intelligences." Because this reflects their thinking, the authors plan lessons that embrace more than one way of knowing. As a result, they have worked to "expand their repertoire of techniques, tools, and strategies beyond the typical linguistic and logical ones predominantly used in U.S. classrooms." They incorporate activities that honor multiple intelligences right from the start of their school year. When they offer possibilities within their lessons in this way, they enable students to experience success, which, in turn, encourages them to reach beyond their comfort level at subsequent points during the year. In this article, the authors share a set of lessons that they incorporate to achieve their goals: build community, set the tone for an appreciation of diversity, and tap into various intelligences to foster a sense of competence within their students. (Contains 9 notes.)