It was an 8th grade English class, but the day's lesson was not on literature. The class took a multiple intelligence quiz to help pinpoint their learning styles.
In case you're not familiar, there are 8 types, and each has its own strengths and weaknesses. Most of us have more than one dominant type. While most of you have probably heard of some of this before, these students were largely new to the concept. So, after they took the quiz, we discussed various aspects of each type.
We got to intrapersonal. As with all of them, I had one student read the description...
"Oh, these are the freaks."
The girl who said this had been difficult all period. She was roaming the room at the tardy bell, and seemed oblivious to my attempts to get her to participate in the class.
Me: "So, I'm a freak? Gee, thanks."
She at least had the decency to act chagrined. Not that she tried to backtrack the statement or anything.
Sigh.
Not that I know I'm intrapersonal. It's not usually what pops up when I take these things (and I didn't take this one as I was busy taking care of the class), but there are some aspects that I identify with. I identify with many aspects of most of the categories, though. And I'm sure there were some students in the class who were largely intrapersonal, so there was no way I was going to let that statement pass without challenging it.
But now I wonder what intelligence she was dominate in. Hmmm...
Edit: The links should take you to the various intelligences if you're interested in learning more about them. And I just found this self-assessment that takes 5 minutes (and rated me just about how I'd expect).
