Early Childhood

‘Everyone is a genius.

But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree,

it will live its whole life believing it’s stupid.’

— Anonymous

Sir Ken Robinson in his legendary TED Talk ‘Do Schools Kill Creativity?’ tells the story of a little girl, Gillian, who couldn’t sit still. At just seven years of age, she was always on the move — restless and distracted. In school, her teachers scolded her. They punished her for not listening. They rewarded the rare moments she stayed quiet — but mostly, she was misunderstood.

At home, things weren’t any easier. Her mother, unsure of how to help, resorted to punishment. Gillian wasn’t just failing at school… she felt like she was failing at life.

One day, her mother was called in for a meeting with Gillian’s teachers. The teachers were concerned. ‘She’s not normal,’ they said. ‘She might need help… medication, maybe.’ They labelled her ‘wriggle bottom’ and suggested to her parents that she might have a learning disorder.

Her worried mother took her to see a wise doctor. The doctor, after observing Gillian’s behavior and listening to her mother, concluded that she wasn’t sick, but rather a dancer. He turned on the radio and left the room with Gillian’s mother, observing her through a window as she instinctively started dancing to the music.

This experience led the doctor to advise Gillian’s mother to enroll her in dance school. That changed everything. Gillian started dance classes — and she blossomed. When she arrived home after the first lesson, she told her mother, ‘Everyone there is like me — no one can sit still!’

Years later, the girl who couldn’t sit still became a dancer and actress and would go on to become one of the world’s most celebrated choreographers, Dame Gillian Lynne, — best known for bringing Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musicals, Cats and The Phantom of the Opera, to life with her choreography.

Gillian wasn’t broken. She didn’t need fixing. She just needed someone to see her differently.

In my book Early Childhood: Where the Magic Happens, I have written about the groundbreaking work of Harvard Professor, Howard Gardner. Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences has had a profound impact on the thinking and practice in education.

His theory emerged from cognitive research in the 1980s, documenting how students’ minds differ and learn differently. These differences influence how they approach tasks, solve problems, and progress in various educational domains. Gardner proposed that intelligence is multifaceted and should be recognized, nurtured and valued as such.

Initially, he identified seven intelligences — Verbal-Linguistic, Logical-Mathematical, Musical-Rhythmic, Bodily-Kinesthetic, Visual-Spatial, Interpersonal and Intrapersonal. Gardner has since suggested that there are additional intelligences and believes we all have multiple intelligences.

One or two intelligences are usually more dominant than the rest although this can change, particularly in a child’s early years. This dominance becomes evident when your child demonstrates superior ability in an area related to a specific intelligence. For Gillian her dominant intelligences would likely have been Musical-Rhythmic, Bodily-Kinesthetic and probably Visual-Spatial. To learn effectively, Gillian needed her teachers to allow her to move in some way while she learned new material. In Chapter 6 of my book, I provide examples of how you might achieve this goal. 

Historically, schools were biased toward the Verbal-Linguistic and Logical-Mathematical modes of instruction. This bias favored children who were strong in these ‘valued’ intelligences. This narrow approach definitely would not have helped the ‘Gillian’s’ in the classroom.

If your child has difficulty understanding new material as it is presented in school, consider speaking to their teacher. Offering this feedback should encourage the teacher to tailor your child’s learning experiences to use alternative approaches to achieve positive outcomes. Don’t be afraid to ask how you can support your child at home to build their confidence and to ensure their ‘in-school’ learning experiences are effective.

‘If a child can’t learn the way we teach,

maybe we should teach the way they learn.’

Ignacio Estrada