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Naturalistic Learners are students who have strengths in intelligence related to nature. They may be highly connected to nature in many ways: They may have a deep love of plants, animals, people, rocks, nature, being outdoors, camping, hiking, rock climbing, biology, astrology, dinosaurs, etc..
These kids often struggle in school, and unfortunately, their naturalistic strengths are often not valued in our “standards-based” culture.
Here are links to the main concepts I mentioned in this video:
- Howard Gardner the guy who came up with Multiple Intelligence Theory
- Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and Self Actualization
- What are Visual-Spatial Learners? As defined by Linda Silverman.
- Right-brained, global, big picture learners. A concept by Jeffrey Freed.
- Content, process, product. A framework for teaching.
- Gap years. Blake Boles’ blog, he’s got some great resources.
- Overexcitabilities. Concept by Dabrowski.
- Understanding “emotional regulation”.
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Video transcript:
Running for Moab Utah. This doesn’t step bro., And I’m doing some Road trippin right now. And I’m in The Amazing Moab, Utah and the rocks that you see behind me or leave it or not. They are 2,500 feet below the Rocks across the street that used to be the exact same height the ones right here and the ones right here. We’re actually the same height but six million years ago. There’s a big crack in the ground and that crack it’s called the Moab fault not fault runs right straight through here. And yeah, and that’s actually the fault right there where that road goes. There is a reason is I want to talk a little bit about multiple intelligence theory and some things that go along with it. There’s a gardener. I think she’s somewhere I don’t quite remember. I was really into his stuff for a while and then I integrated and I mixed it with a bunch of other paradigms. I really like that one of the things that Gardner talks about is the multiple Multiple intelligences, he talked about these 7 multiple intelligences and then I believe he created 8 and then I believe he created more but he didn’t really Publix at work if I’m telling the story correctly because he couldn’t locate areas in the brain for them. For example, if there is a spiritual intelligence and you couldn’t locate a part in the brain for it, but supposedly he felt he found parts of the brain for all these different intelligences queso. There is a logical mathematical there is linguistic. There’s interpersonal intrapersonal are the seven intelligences and one and then there is a and I believe they’re still ain’t but one of the intelligence is he talks about is called naturalistic and I completely geek out on science nature rocks plants animals. I always have and I’ve noticed in my practice that I get these students. Sometimes you really struggle and conventional classroom, but who are brilliantly gifted and naturalistic ways and their relationship to Nature in some way shape or And one of the tragedies as you well know is that when kids struggle in school and start to feel bad about themselves and starts cross that threshold where they start say learning isn’t funner. They start to believe that learning isn’t fun when it’s not learning at the experience at they’re having a school that’s not fun for them and they start to resent learning a resent school. They don’t want to try they start giving up on certain class classes or subjects. Obviously that’s tragic and the most tragic thing is when they really give up on themselves and they can’t stop by actualize and they don’t understand that their strengths are tremendous and to be developed in that they can develop their their strength in terms of for example, their naturalistic ability and they can create a career or multiple lifetime careers that will Empower them to be happy to contribute and to self-actualize and that this that sort of thing so I took so Notes today and I want to go through a few of these notes hear about what I want to mention about these particular students. So these particular students they tend to struggle with linear systems. So again, they will appear to be poor students in a conventional setting they will appear to be really struggling and hat they will have trouble academically and they don’t shine in this situation. So they struggle of linear systems that could be a school that can be linear systems that a particular teachers implementing in classroom. They tend to be very visual spatial. They see things differently. They they’re seeing things in their head that can’t be assessed on on Bubble test or in a lot of classroom assignments or in a lot of busywork. So they’re able to visualize and imagine things. For example, I have one student who is a brilliant rock climber. So in rock climbing, there’s something called reading The Rock So when you’re going to climb a route, you actually have to read it yet to visualize yourself going up the Rock and where you’re going to make hold so he for example can visualize that brilliantly so that’s something that’s not measured on Tesla’s ability to visualize things. They tend to be very right brained Global big picture thinker so they struggle with details, but they’re great with underlying Concepts. And once they also once they do Master in area, even if they can’t articulate it verbally or in writing they can they can show that they have mastered something in their actions. Okay. So there are other ways that people can show things in this brings me to contact called content process and product. So there is an idea behind teaching that you have three things of the content, which is what you teach the process which is how you teach at or how you learn it and the product which is how you show your learning and these kids if you can Teachers if you can give them alternate ways to to choose the content or to deliver the contents of them if you can help them process the content differently and if you can get them Alternatives in their product and how they show their learning and make those things more naturalistic all three of those content process and product making more relatable to them. You can help them be more successful. So think about creative ways that you can do content process and product with these kids. Let’s see what else we have. These kids are often very intuitive very sensitive very deep Steelers that reminds me of dabrowski dabrowski has now passed on the left the world with his concept of something called overexcitabilities that he noticed with gifted and talented kid. And what do you really meant by Riverside abilities to me was sensitivities in various ways and there’s a sensory sensitivities there’s there and there’s emotional. Why want to talk about the emotional and these kids tend to feel very deeply so if they feel criticized by A teacher asked or something. They really internalized that very very very very very deeply. They’re really affected by buy those things that overwhelm them emotionally when they feel like they’re not being understood. So a lot of these kids really feel misunderstood so you can look up dabrowski’s overexcitabilities and really understand about how sensitive some of these kids are I think is that all we tend to forget how intensely life can feel as a kid. Let’s see what else we got here. So with these kids you really do want to get them different experiences. One of the great things for these kids is giving them Gap years. They need experience has to do things differently. Trust me kids can learn and be educated and have educational experiences in a gap year as much if not more than through a university to there are universities that are more experiential by the way experiential the good keyword. You can look up because there are schools for these kids to that hurts. Experiential type schools that will give them opportunities to be out in the South American southwest be out in nature be out doing all kinds of wilderness things be out. They can do things like work at ski resorts. They can work on rafting companies. They can do all kinds of things that teach them so many skills that are different from what you think send them to Camp send them camping get them out in nature as much as possible because of this is where they Thrive then you want to help him. Tobacco actualize to get a career in lifestyle that’s going to include what they love and not shove them in the box again. I had so frustrating watch kids get shoved off course in life and get into like some sort of corporate job or something when that is clearly not they’re calling but the Box can push people in the wrong ways why I should know next give them into service with outdoor stuff whether it’s things you using animals horses. Helping other kids will have these Kids are awesome with younger kids. So give them into service experiences Outdoors get them traveling obviously camping getting out here. They can go out here and they could do multi backpacking trips right behind me in Arches National Park. They can spend a week there and learn so much and get away from everything and their nervous systems can regulate so that’s the next thing. I want to mention give them experiences Outdoors or with the you know, again back to multiple intelligence theory naturalistic experiences that are going to help them regulate the nervous system. A lot of these kids are going crazy sitting in desk so they they need to move. Okay. This helps them regulate their nervous system have less stress have more calm have better than a key to function and ultimately better live when they learn to regulate better. And I think that’s about it. As you can see I geek out on being outdoors. I am just in heaven out here. It’s breathtaking to me. It never gets old. I hope you are having an awesome day parents and teachers and I will see you soon.
I whole hearted ly agree with you. However on occassions there can be those individuals in that grouping that take advantage of the philosophy and feel its empowerment to criticise and hyercryticise is a fun and worthwhile activity. Teacher percetion and interetation is crucial and this needs to be considered outside of the context of these intelligences. Wefare of these students is viatl and good motivated teachers meet these needs through lesson sequences which are appropriate. However other factors can be the motivation for behaviours that perceived to be orientated toward the school and specific teachers. They often mask other aspects of life that the student does not want the school or teachers to know and when confronted with a perr as a teacher and perceptively accurate they adopt the classical model of poor me it doesnt meet my needs. Otherwise I belive that mutiple intelligences in the classroom are exellent source of planning and differentiation.