Nagoya International School (NIS) has been immersed in activities to implement the International Baccalaureate (IB) Primary Years Programme (PYP) after fully integrating the IB Diploma Programme for the high school.
The implementation of the PYP is a fundamental shift in the school’s view of the student and their learning, as it encourages a more collaborative and holistic approach to educating the whole child and their diverse abilities in the primary years.
Adults of the future will need to know how to learn from their experiences, how to reflect on their learning, and how to use that learning to have a role in affecting their local and global communities. This requires students to nurture not only a traditional sense of “intelligence,” but also a wide variety of abilities and “other intelligences” — or “multiple intelligences” — that better reflect the diversity of human abilities.
The concept of “multiple intelligence” was first introduced by Howard Gardner, who divided the traditional notion of a singular intelligence into eight intelligences, or eight “smarts,” as follows: Word Smart, Body Smart, Math Smart, Nature Smart, Art/Space Smart, People Smart, Music Smart, and Self Smart.
The first “unit of inquiry” of the NIS year for the grade 2 students was based on Gardner’s theory and the different learning styles we all have. Students decided which “Smart” they wanted to present, brainstormed ideas, wrote their scripts, practised, and then videotaped.
The video was shown during an assembly, and was a great success. The ending “bloopers” section was a big hit with the rest of the students.
Was the video perfect? Well, it was a bit rough around the edges, a bit messy. But this holistic approach to learning can look messy. More importantly, though, it was authentic — the students learned about multiple intelligences, and chose how to have their knowledge assessed, through the making of a video. No traditional multiple-choice-based quiz at the end of a unit could have the same impact as this did.
The adults at NIS hope to continue this dialogue on multiple “Smarts” to continue their own learning and to provide an important model for the leaders of tomorrow; but the grade 2 students are already doing a better job of modeling it!
— ERIK OLSON-KIKUCHI
