What is it: Second grade teacher Christine Passarella believes in the Theory of Multiple Intelligences. Currently western-style schools reward certain kinds of intelligence (eg logical, mathematical), but completely ignore others (eg musical, kinetic).
She believes it is up to teachers to find ways to evoke and explore all kinds of intelligence and one way of doing that is to introducing young students to works of art and music, in a wide range of styles, and helping them explore how they make them feel. Through this, she has discovered that children in general have welcoming and open minds, which easily connect with pure emotions in music. Her second grade class, for example, loves John Coltrane.
This love extended to the point where they joined an effort to raise money to save from demolition the house where Coltrane wrote some of his most evocative and seminal works.
Why is it cool: Society faces an interesting opportunity in leveraging the talents available via different intelligences, and Ms. Passarella’s success demonstrates how fruitful that can be, even with a bunch of second-graders.
As marketers, finding ways to evoke peoples’ passions should be one of our goals. What passions do your consumers have? What passions do your clients have? What passions do your fellow co-workers have?
Where to find it: here!
Submitted by: John Cucka
