Chapter 11: MI and Special Education

The main point of this chapter is to make sure that teachers focus on what a student can do as opposed to what they have difficulties with. The “Pygmalion effect” is the idea that a teacher’s outlook of a student’s future inherently effects the investment the teacher makes in the student and the student’s effort. If a student struggles with reading then putting that student in a separate room, with a separate teacher, and drilling him or her in linguistic worksheets and papers is just going to discourage the student. The chapter suggests allowing the student to stay in the regular classroom and learn the material through other means, such as an audio recording, and participate in class activities and discussions. The student can work on reading separately while also participating in the class. The ideas of this chapter could revolutionize the normal course of an IEP. This affects me as a classroom teacher if I implement more of the multiple intelligences in my classroom there will be fewer referrals to special education. This affects the students by allowing them to stay with their peers and avoid the isolation that is too often times a part of special education. This will also change the role of a special education teacher. That special education teacher will become a partner to the classroom teacher and will only help the student improve his or her weak areas while having the student learn the content in the student’s strong intelligences.