Customer Reviews

Becoming a Multiple Intelligences School

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Tom Hoerr's book BECOMING A MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES SCHOOL should be at the top of every educator's list of books to read. Tom tells it like it is and doesn't gloss over the hurdles and challenges he and his staffs were faced with at the New City School during the process of becoming a Multiple Intelligences School.

One can appreciate Tom's honesty and openness when he discusses the difficulties during the phases of MI implementation. His success lies in his approach, which recognizes that these frustrations are necessary steps for the growth and development of any organization.

Great emphasis was placed on developing collegiality among Tom's staff during this courageous journey. I found it refreshing to read about the New City staff as they learned from one another as true colleagues and as real partners. It is apparent that they grew professionally in their roles as educators from their experiences while implementing MI.

It certainly is a challenge for classroom teachers to design their own curriculum and to create assessments to determine student achievements. But the thrill and sense of accomplishment in creating many ways of learning and making the material accessible to all students makes the effort more than worthwhile.

Having read Tom's book I am once again inspired to enthusiastically continue on my own journey, taking on new challenges as I implement MI in my first grade classroom at Epstein Hebrew Academy.

I've spent twenty years becoming a teacher and studying how to design curricula. It was an honor when one of my teachers from high school asked me to design his new school's curriculum -- and so I turned to Thomas Hoerr's "Becoming..." book as part of the required reading for new teachers. We created a four-part curriculum (body, emotions and attitude, academics and spirit) that imbues the concepts of portfolios and learning styles. It has been helpful to use Hoerr's insights next to the materials of Dan Pink, Thomas Friedman, Malcolm Gladwell as well as Dennis Littky, Lois Hedland and Howard Gardner. Parents would do well to get this book to coax their children's teachers to expand their methods to include not only the words of MI theory, but the action of developing and nurturing the process of building and editing portfolios. -- Steve McCrea, SDE ESOL instructor and certified to teach math in Florida.