Really I’m just Arse Smart (or vice versa). You see I simply manipulated the scores by answering the questions to make me look “smart”. Not very smart, you may be thinking, but I’m thinking about just how much weight to put on such tests.
I know there are lots of people with more relevant experience in learning and teaching who get giddy on these MI tests, but perhaps I bring something from my legal background? Cynicism. Only a kid with no “Street Smarts” is dumb enough to tick all the “dumb” boxes instead of the “smart” boxes.
I know there are lots of people with more relevant experience in learning and teaching who get giddy on these MI tests, but perhaps I bring something from my legal background? Cynicism. Only a kid with no “Street Smarts” is dumb enough to tick all the “dumb” boxes instead of the “smart” boxes.
Human beings use their brains to keep themselves alive. Way back when, that meant avoiding sabre-toothed tigers, trying to work out how to make fire, etc. And, as Ben Sedley, clinical psychologist and entertaining blog writer writes “it’s lucky [our brains] do or else we’d be dead”.
But in 2011 there is somewhat of a shortage of sabre-toothed tiger threats out there. Modern dangers are more likely to be “terrorism, earthquakes or peanuts allergies”. Sedley suggests the “the number one danger in our modern era is being alone...So the number one job of our brain is to be on the lookout for social rejection. It does this by being on guard for all the times we might stuff up in social situations, attempting to guess what other people are thinking about us, and worrying that we’re not good enough”.
Kids aren’t dumb. They probably have an even more developed “social rejection radar” than you or I. So how much weight can we put on these subjective, self-completed tests, when we know that “smart” kids are going to skew their answers so they fit in with and please their peers (or their teachers) or otherwise try to avoid “stuffing up”? Such skewing need not be conscious. A learner may genuinely feel that they don’t “think out loud” (would a “cool kid” ever want to admit this?), or that they have a “good sense of direction” (how many domestic disputes are caused by wives not knowing their left from their right, or their husbands refusing to ask for directions?), but surely the way to objectively determine a learners “smarts” or preferred learning style is to see how they react in reality to different teaching styles.
Look at my “genuine” (as honest as I could be) results. For a guy who is a qualified windsurfing instructor, SCUBA Dive Master and kite-surfer, you’d think I might be a little more Body Smart, hey? And, of course, I’d love my results to come out that way, so all those reading my blog would think I’m “cool” and sporty, rather than the nerdy book smart guy I really am. Or am I?
As I suggest above, the real proof of the pudding is not the results of a subjective snap-shot test, but is in how “smart” I really am and how I actually learn. And as you’ll see in my earlier blog, I believe learning styles depend on what (skills or subjects) I’m learning.
No amount of playing Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 on my WiiPlayBoxStation thingy will actually enable me to learn how to balance on a tiny, wobbly plank perched on four tiny wheels…
nice... like your thinking, standardised test equals standardised students!
ReplyDeleteI must be [a] arse dumb (or vice versa) as I have no idea how you produced that result.
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