How to Take Education Out of the Land of Oz

Step 1: Find Some Courage

Become a lion! Education needs a paradigm shift and it takes courage to initiate improved methods when the present system is an ineffective one for students.

Step 2: Find Some Patience

It takes lots of patience to wait for the results of this investment. Use the courage and patience you have today to learn the SOI way of teaching those intellectual abilities that underlie learning curriculum. Though they may not pay off as a return on your investment until students have left the school, you will see improved academics within six months.

Step 3: Get Some Facts

It is necessary to have student scores on the twenty-six abilities required for mastery of curriculum. You will also need to know the student’s best intellectual learning style for teaching. A student’s learning style is his yellow brick road, i.e., what kind of information does he handle most easily? Is he or she a figural, symbolic, or semantic learner?

Step 4

A.  Identify needs and strengths of the group and then program accordingly.
B. Identify needs and strengths of each individual and then program accordingly.

Step 5 

Demand students’ rights to have scheduled lessons that include teaching of abilities for developing their intelligence.

Step 6: Balance the Students

• If high in figural, maintain, but teach symbolic and semantic
• If high in symbolic, maintain, but teach figural and semantic
• If high in semantic, maintain, but teach symbolic and figural

Step 7 

Schedule time and opportunities to use abilities learned.

Step 8 

Introduce the idea of keeping of a journal. Encourage curiosity, dignity, imagination, freedom of opinions with open discussions to promote communication.

Summary

Educating students’ intellectual abilities requires a different design for curriculum. The understanding of how intelligence is related to learning and education also requires a major conceptual change and paradigm shift. You can accomplish both of these things.

• It takes courage.
• It takes patience, but what a product you will have produced! Children whose intelligence is well balanced. Children who, upon becoming adults, easily  comprehend, remember, and evaluate accurately. Adults who are good workers can also enrich their lives by being as creatively divergent as they so desire.  Children who understand their own intelligence become adults who understand their own intellectual patterns. It is easier to build children’s minds than to repair adults.

This article, written by Dr. Mary Meeker, was originally published in our SOI newsletter.