Dr. Howard Gardner Visits CH-CH

On October 17^th, Chapel Hill-Chauncy Hall School welcomed Dr. Howard Gardner to our campus.  Dr. Gardner’s groundbreaking work in human understanding and the multiple intelligences is the basis of CH-CH’s educational philosophy: We teach the way students learn.  Dr. Gardner enjoyed his time visiting classes, meeting with faculty, trustees and the administrative team, and addressing the school during assembly.

“When something is important, try to teach it lots of different ways,” Dr. Gardner told the CH-CH community.  “Text books are fine, but not everybody learns best from text books.  iPads, hands-on, works of art, debate, humor, graphics, and video, the more different ways you can teach something, the more likely it is to get in there, stay in there, and be useful.”

After visiting classes and speaking to the CH-CH community, Dr. Gardner met with teachers and administrators to talk about his theories and their use in the classroom.

“He is such an incredibly influential thinker in the field of education,” said English Teacher Cory Olcott.  “His work has helped teachers reframe their lesson plans, and look at things from the prospective of the students.  And his ideas about the use of technology in the classroom are really where the future of multiple intelligences is going.”

Dr. Howard Gardner is the Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.  He is a leading thinker of education and human development, and he has studied and written extensively about intelligence, creativity, leadership, and professional ethics.  His latest book, The App Generation: How Today’s Youth Navigate Identity, Intimacy, and Imagination in a Digital World, will be released next week.

To learn more about Dr. Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences, take a test to discover your own learning styles, and see how MI comes to life in the CH-CH classrooms visit www.chch.org/multipleintelligences.