self-contract: socio-cultural influences, personality type and multi-intelligences

Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory suggests that interpersonal interaction leads to changes in thinking and behaviour that’s specific to cultures. When looking at how a cultural tool can be passed on from one individual to another, Vygotsky argued that people learned through the sequence of imitative learning, instructive learning, and finally collaborative learning. Vygotsky’s theory of learning emphasized the social and cultural environment as well as cognition (unlike Piaget who focused exclusively on cognition). Howard Gardner’s (1991) theory of multiple intelligences focused different cognitive strengths or “intelligences”. Gardner’s focus on distinct intelligences suggested that people (students) have different ways of knowing the world (different “kinds of minds”). Rather than taking Mamchur’s personality type approach, Gardner’s theory looks at how people learn, perform, and understand in the world. Using his theory, teachers are better able to understand students’ areas of strength.

As was the case in my reading reflection, this topic brings to mind the age-old nature-nurture debate. In terms of learning, there is an intricate “dance” which occurs between individual factors (e.g., personality type, intelligences) and social/cultural factors.

My main goal in this course was to develop a sequential and organized approach to classroom management (self-contract). Growing up as an ENFP (personality), I was often labeled as “scattered” and “forgetful”. With strengths in interpersonal intelligences (multiple intelligences), I was viewed as a “social butterfly” whom “didn’t take her studies seriously” (I think this was written verbatim on my Grade 9 report card). Internalizing these messages as a young person, I was very critical of myself. I felt that I needed to become “organized” and “scheduled” and that I would have to make my social life less of a priority if I was going to “make anything of my life”. My sociocultural environment did not value or support my unique strengths. Rather than learning to hone my skills, I learned to suppress them. Interestingly, this continued to be my fear in terms of classroom – could I ever by organized and sequential enough to manage a classroom? I have learned, through this process, that I need to edit my self-contract somewhat. Perhaps it should be to discover an effective classroom management approach that works well with my strengths and personality?