Learning Strategic with Multiple Intelligence

At first I was thinking that the seminar I attend would be boring. Not just because I realized that there would be only one keynote speaker. But I used to get easily bored in an activity called seminar.

The main topic of the seminar is Learning Strategic with Multiple Intelligence (MI). Well, I have read few articles and books that relates to this Multiple Intelligence topic and since I knew about it, I already fall in love with this method. Before, I’ve heard so many times about Gardner’s theory or Buzan’s idea about brain works. But for so long time, without realizing it, I have a lot of question that unable to be answered by reading books and googling in the Internet.


Yet, I found that this seminar is really interesting. Regardless that I have to sit on a chair more than five hours, I gain a lot of knowledge from this two days seminar.

For I can be categorized as a technical and practical person, I always need a real and life example of everything new for me. That is my problem when I learned to use the Multiple Intelligence theory when I started being a teacher. I never saw a real example of an MI teacher before. I found it hard to find myself as an MI teacher, just from a ‘dead’ source.

This is the main reason why the seminar interesting me. The keynote is a life example of a successful person that already applied MI in his education environment. It was amazed me more and more when I knew that the location is in the middle of nowhere. Well, not that far actually, I’m just being hyperbolic; it is in Gresik, Sidoarjo.

This person, Mr. Munif Chatib amazed me with his presentation about Multiple Intelligence Strategy, Environment and Service Learning, Lesson Plan and Authentic Assessment.

I can really felt and unite with the discussion because Mr. Munif Chatib delivers his own experience related to the application of Multiple Intelligence in his school environment. He was able to explain how to start a class and building an alpha zones for the students, so that teachers able to deliver things to students easily.

In this part of seminar, he really gives me a lot of things by giving example of how to create scene settings to enter the main topic from a specific subject. It is really open my minds that anything can be done to reach the best condition for our students. It was very positive for me, because he was able to urge me to find try harder in my teaching process.

Next after Multiple Intelligence Strategy was Environment and Service learning. Until now, I cannot hide that this was my favorite part from the Seminar. His explanation about how he builds his recent school on Gresik was inspiring.

He said that in his school, the main school time is up until 12 o’clock. After that students are allowed to take the extra activity after school. Students are allowed to pick one of the entire activity based on their own interest and of course their Intelligence. Let’s say if a student is good in Physical education, he can choose to attend extra time kicking and throwing balls in PE class rather than stuck in Math or Science discussion.

The great part form this program in his school is that this activity is leads by a professional, not a teacher. So, after 12 o’clock, where is the teachers? What are they doing? Drinking coffee? Or replying wall in Facebook? Nope. They are in the middle of a massive discussion about the next session teaching process.

Isn’t it fascinating? Teachers have a bunch of time to dig and find a shinny diamond to be transferred to the students. More than two hours for the teacher to discuss everything about teaching activities, builds a scene setting, makes lesson plans (not a lesson plan but lesson plans), sharing and discussion across subjects to enrich knowledge and ideas. I believe, that the quality time that made for the teacher bring out a qualified teacher.

Last but not least, he explains about what can be categorized as a good lesson plan. There are lots of types of lesson plan in the whole world. So, it’s not just one exact lesson plan that correct. Teacher can explore many types of lesson plan that may suits for their teaching style. That sounds very Multiple Intelligence for me, because it’s not just the students that able to explore their Multiple Intelligence, but the teacher also.

During the seminar, of course, there was lots of question come out from the audience. Including the making of syllabus for the school, and the answer is interesting. The syllabus can be settled for more than one year usage. But at first it has to be settled first with the condition and environment. So, it was clear for me that there were no need to scheduling annual syllabus meeting (including annual and semester program). In the beginning of the academic year, teachers have to be very preparing all the teaching stuff, like mentioned above.

Just like what I said before, what an inspiring seminar. I was really hope seeing a real example, so in the future Lazuardi will be able to create such an environment that fully support the application of Multiple Intelligence Theory. That is for the sake of students,teachers and staff.