A toolbox of wisdom to develop, nurture and encourage teachers, small-group leaders and pastors in their teaching ministry.

	Multiple Intelligence and Spiritual Type (Part One)

You are probably familiar with several ways of "being smart" and that typically a person has stronger preferences for some over others.

• Word Smart (Verbal / Linguistic, the most widely used): involves writing, reading, speaking, or listening.
• Number Smart (Logical / Mathematical): involves numbers, problem solving, patterns, reasoning, connections between things, maps, charts, and so on.
• Picture Smart (Visual / Spatial): involves what and how we see outwardly or visualize with the inner eye and mind, pictures, videos, how things fit into space or context.
• Music Smart (Musical / Rhythmic; the first to form): involves listening to or performing music, humming, beating out rhythm, finger or toe tapping, and so on while assimilating information.
• Body Smart (Body / Kinesthetic): involves movement and sensory stimulation, doodling, handling things, and so on.
• People Smart (Interpersonal): involves social learning, working together, sharing ideas to clarify thoughts, and so on.
• Self Smart (Intrapersonal): involves reflection and self-knowledge; private thinking and creating before speaking, and so on.
• Nature Smart (Naturalist): involves appreciation of the natural world, sensitivity to the environment and context, patterns of growth, interrelationship of living things, and so on.  

Most Sunday school curriculum resources across the age span make good use of this variety in learning styles to ensure that all students have at least one activity that feels familiar and effective. However, you may find that your musical learners, for example, are never satisfied with the same music. It may be that the difference in spiritual type and theological approach matter more than the kind of "smart." (More on spiritual types next month).

As we tend to teach in the ways we prefer to learn, we do well to examine our methods.

• Do you know your own preferences for learning?
• As you select which lesson activities fit your time and context, do you typically (or unconsciously) eliminate the activities that don't fit well with your preferences?
• Your students (of any age) may disengage if their preferences are seldom included. Do you know their learning strengths? Can you teach to those strengths?
• What might happen if your students understood these differences, not only for their own sake, but for the sake of other learners?

Diana L. Hynson is Director of Learning and Teaching Ministries at the General Board of Discipleship.

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