Did you watch Diana Waring’s video about being body smart that I hosted on my blog last Wednesday? It was so important because far too many people believe children with this intelligence are not smart.
Today’s video (below) is about word smart – the one most people naturally think of when talking about intelligence. Children strong in this smart usually enjoy learning. School is a safe place for them.
I love how Diana reminds all of us that word smart shows up differently. That’s why I want you to watch the video with your children. They may be more word smart than they think they are.
There are my professional comedian friends, Christine and Sally. They can turn a phrase, dramatically pronounce or emphasize a word, and listen to what I think is a normal conversation and hear something humorous.
There’s my friend, Brad, who writes original birthday raps for his friends. He puts words together in the most unusual ways.
Ezra, my niece Katie’s husband, just designed my nephew’s wedding invitation. He’s word smart!
Diane reminded me of my grandfather and the speeches he gave. Both my brother and I take after him.
If you’re already familiar with the 8 great smarts, you might realize that in each of my examples, at least one other intelligence is involved. The same is true with Diane’s examples. Intelligences rarely, if ever, work alone. When you listen to her examples, see if you can identify other relevant smarts. And, talk with your kids about who her examples remind them of. One more suggestion – listen for her comments about practice and how to do it well. I wholeheartedly agree!
{Note: if you can’t see the other smarts in our examples, don’t worry. I predict that you’ll be able to find them after watching all of Diana’s videos.}
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Diana’s Biographical Sketch
Diana Waring is one of the pioneers of homeschooling. For nearly three decades she has been an author and speaker to the international homeschool movement. Diana is the author and publisher of the History Revealed curriculum, the Experience History Through Music series (William T. Anderson authored one of the titles in this series), Beyond Survival, Reaping the Harvest, and numerous world history and homeschool encouragement audio CDs. She is a video blogger, blogger, columnist for The Homeschool Minute, guest writer at The Old Schoolhouse magazine, curriculum writer, singer/composer, actress/playwright, wife, and homeschool mom.[/callout]
