Pages

Tuesday, October 9, 2018

Learning as we age


I was raised to never stop learning. That can get tricky as your memory starts to get assailed. Remembering where the car is parked after working a 14 hour day with Inventory can be scary. So can remembering your locker combination after that awful test. And don’t get me started on making it through Bach by memory!

But, I continue to read and search out learning opportunities. What have I learned recently? Succulents like to be watered at a different time of day than roses. Systems to recirculate water have a lot of moving parts. People can misunderstand a phrase you grew up with.

I also have discovered a theory that makes sense to me: Multiple Intelligences

Developed in 1983 (why has it taken this long for me to discover it????) by Dr. Howard Gardner, professor of education at Harvard University (maybe because I’m not in education but the Arts???) to explain why people have different abilities. He proposed that eight abilities meet the criteria of specific modality (which I’m not sure I understand). These abilities are: Musical-rhythmic, visual-spatial, verbal-linguistic, logical-mathematical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic.

This discovery has spawned exploration of a rabbit hole for how to recognize the abilities, assess the grasp of each one, and how to develop weak areas. It’s been fun! I understand more and it makes sense!!

The journey the last few days have confirmed that I’m an organist, even though I’m no longer able to play as I could; an artist, even though I create pieces many view as craft; and I can meld the two areas of my life, even though it’s difficult to balance and explain it all.

More later!

No comments:

Post a Comment