SpiritLinks

Multiple Intelligences & Christian Education

When church educators began to discover the theory of multiple intelligences, there was a great rush to produce materials that “covered” them. While not an unworthy goal, using an individual intelligence is not so distinctive. I cannot think of an instance when I use just one intelligence. As I write this article, I am using the linguistic intelligence. I am also thinking about the readers, you, and trying to put myself in your place – interpersonal intelligence. Eventually I will look at what I have written and make suggestions for how it might be placed on the pages – spatial intelligence. Our brains just aren’t wired to segregate an intelligence as to use. How we combine intelligences and how we use particular parts of intelligences together is what makes us unique. While I may be a better writer than someone else, all of us find our niche in each intelligence. We have each one and we use each one, but we have some that we prefer to use above others. These intelligences we develop more highly and use them more skillfully.

So all of this is to say that as you look at your session plan, don’t worry that you cannot find an activity that is strictly bodily-kinesthetic or solely naturalistic. Playing a game of “find the lost coin” as the children imitate the woman in Luke 15 might be identified as a bodily-kinesthetic activity, but there are also potential elements of the spatial and interpersonal intelligences in the game. A role-play between the Pharisee and the tax collector in Luke 18 may look like a linguistic intelligence activity, but it requires using the interpersonal intelligence and maybe something of the logical-mathematical intelligence as well.

Multiple intelligences and entry points A better way to approach your session plans is to look for the ways that you invite the group to encounter and engage with the Bible. In Intelligence Reframed, Gardner identified seven entry points as ways to approach subjects. They are

  • Narrational, learning through stories 
  • Quantitative/numerical, learning through numbers and the use of them 
  • Logical, learning through deductive thinking 
  • Foundational/existential, learning through examining fundamental questions 
  • Aesthetic, learning through works of art or the ways materials are arranged 
  • Hands on, learning though building something, manipulating materials, or carrying out experiments 
  • Social, learning through assuming the roles of someone else, observing other people, interacting with others, especially in problem solving

As you plan for your group, look back from time to time to see what entry points you have provided. As you find those entry points in Gather or Engage, look at the other activities to see what the spread of intelligences is. It isn’t so much that you want to reach a particular young person or adult, but that you want each one to find her or his way into the Bible through a variety of paths. That variety of paths or ways of knowing will enrich the faith journey for everyone.

Selected Bibliography
Howard Gardner, Frames of Mind, 2nd edition (Basic Books, 1993).
Intelligence Reframed, Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century (Basic Books, 1999).
Thomas Armstrong, Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom, 2nd edition (ASCD, 2000).
Harvey F. Silver, Richard W. Strong, and Matthew J. Perini, So Each May Learn: Integrating Learning Styles and Multiple Intelligences (ASCD, 2000).

Carol Wehrheim is the editor for ages 9–11 of Seasons of the Spirit. She and Joyce MacKichan Walker wrote a chapter on multiple intelligences for the book, Children Among Us: Foundations in Children’s Ministries (Witherspoon Press, 2003). 
 
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