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People's First experience of the system
is often profoundly
alienating this isn't the fault of their
teachers but of the system itself which
assesses US for a particular kind of
intelligence we pass or fail on
ridiculously narrow
criteria I was lucky at school because I
had the kind of intelligence they were
looking for linear analytical
hyperlexic it was only after leaving
school that I realized in other respects
I was a complete
dummy I Stumble over cognitive tasks
that other people can perform in their
sleep I have a close friend who I see as
a
genius he can listen to an engine even
on the phone and tell you the problem is
a particular
bearing he has a remarkable spatial
navigational intelligence and even
professional mechanics wonder how on
Earth he can do it but he was deemed a
total failure at
school he was confronted with tests that
didn't fit the way his mind
worked I expect you've come across
plenty of people like
this people you know are
bright but they're bright in the wrong
way they're bright in the way that isn't
being a
essed the truth is that there are lots
of different
intelligences and we shouldn't be
surprised during The evolutionary phase
of our history a group of people will be
more likely to survive if its different
members saw the world in different
ways some people could make excellent
tools some people could hunt very well
some people were good at looking out for
danger some people were good at
strategizing how to to get through a
Long Winter some people could tell the
stories that would inform the Next
Generation we needed a load of different
intelligences in order to
survive nowadays we are treated as if
only one kind of intelligence is valid
anyone with a different intelligence is
deemed
stupid the way we are schooled compounds
this
alienation how did we get to the point
that we believe the best way of
schooling children is to sit them behind
a desk and insist they keep still
children keeping still that's difficult
for anyone but especially for kids with
a roaming navigational
mind I've done some volunteering with an
adventure learning charity and the first
time I took a group of these children
out we were Rock pooling on the shore
most of the kids had never seen the sea
before never visited the countryside
before and there was one kid who just
stood out he was
brilliant he was there at my shoulder
all the time whenever I said what's this
or why is it this color he would Hazard
a guess and they were always interesting
answers he was finding things catching
things picking things up and after a
couple of hours I said to his teacher
that kid is a genius she said him he's
bottom of the
class if a kid like that is failing it
is not the kid's fault the fault is with
the system as I say I don't blame the
teachers because they have to teach to
the system plenty of teachers
desperately want to do creative things
with their children to discover their
different
intelligences but they are forbidden to
do
so if an intelligent child fails a test
designed to assess a different kind of
intelligence they become alienated not
just from school but from the system as
a whole the D danger is that they then
become alienated from public
life alienated from
society eventually alienated from
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themselves
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oh
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that