Human Intelligences Human Intelligences

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Over the years, I have enjoyed my stretch of time within the educational arena. Here's a framework of what I did during those enjoyable times.

Throughout, I was a/an:

  1. Regular elementary and high school classroom teacher

  2. Elementary school principal

  3. Special education teacher in elementary and secondary schools

  4. University instructor and guest lecturer at universities

  5. Book reviewer

  6. (Part-time) Education researcher

  7. Substitute/supply teacher 

Elementary School Experiences as a Regular Classroom Teacher

  1. 1998-2007 Supply Teacher: Ottawa Carleton Separate/Public School Boards

  2. 1982-1998 Ottawa-Carleton District School Board: John Young Elementary and Century Public School

  3. 1973-1975 Leeds and Grenville County Board. of Education, Merrickville Public School

  4. 1967-1968 Peel County Board of Education Core French teacher Lyndwood Senior Public School

  5. 1966-1967 The Ottawa Separate School Board: St. Leo's Catholic School

High / Secondary School Experiences as a Regular Classroom Teacher

  1. 1984-1985 Carleton Board of Education  Sir Robert Borden High School  Roberts Smart Center

  2. 1975-1982 Lanark County Board of Education  Smiths Falls and District Collegiate Institute

Experiences as an Elementary School Principal

  1. 1972-1973 Kenora District RCSS Board: Principal of Father Moss Catholic School, Sioux Narrows, Ontario

  2. 1971-1972 Lanark, Leeds / Grenville RCSS Board: Principal of St. James the Greater School, Smiths Falls, Ontario

  3. 1970-1971 Lanark, Leeds & Grenville RCSS Board: Principal of Holy Cross School, Kemptville, Ontario

  4. 1969-1970 Hornepayne RCSS Board: Principal of Holy Name of Jesus School, Hornepayne, Ontario

Experiences as an Elementary / High School Special Education Resource Unit (SERU) Teacher

  1. 1975-1982 Lanark County Board of Education  Smiths Falls District Collegiate Institute, SERU

  2. 1984-1985 Carleton Board of Education  Sir Robert Borden High School  Roberts Smart Center Program SERU

  3. 1982-1993 Ottawa-Carleton District School Board: John Young Elementary School SERU

  4. 1993-1998 Ottawa-Carleton District School Board: Century Public School SERU

Experiences as a Part-time university lecturer

  1. 1995-2002 University of Ottawa  Faculty of Education  Educational Psychology Instructor

  2. 1990-1993 Harvard University / Lesley College Adjunct Professor PD Learning Styles Instructor

  3. 1984-1985 Queen's University Additional Qualifications (AQ) Courses Special Education Part I

  4. 1982-1983 University of Western Ontario AQ Courses Special Education Part I / II / Specialist

Experiences as a Supply / Substitute Teacher

  1. 1998-2007 Supply teacher at various elementary Catholic/Separate and Public schools in the city of Kanata/Ottawa

Formal Schooling:

1992 -- 1996  PhD Candidate

  1. Doctorate of Philosophy (PhD), All But Dissertation (ABD)

  2. Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

  3. Published my PhD Pilot Study in The McGill Journal of Education, 1996, Spring, 31(2), 119-141 Multiple intelligences: Profiling dominant intelligences of grade eight students by Clifford Morris and Raymond LeBlanc

1990 -- 1992  Master of Art  (MA)

  1. Interim Thesis Report, University of Ottawa

1985 -- 1988  Master of Education (M Ed)

  1. Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa, Domain of Studies: Special Education (Learning Disabilities)

1961 -- 1974  Bachelor of Arts (BA)

  1. St. Patrick's College, Echo Drive, Ottawa, Ontario (1959 -- 1961)

  2. Carleton University, Faculty of Arts (1970 -- 1974), Domain of Studies:  Anthropology / Sociology / French

Throughout, I developed and used an assessment and programming instrument titled Smarter.  Initially developed in the late 1960's, Smarter is my acronym standing for successful minds are really the end result.  In 1966, as a novice teacher, Smarter aided me as I taught public school regular and special students.  This informal intellectual assessment tool was meaningful during one-on-one counselling sessions with special learners, their teachers and, more often than not, parents.  Often, I considered conventional teaching and mainstream assessment tools unsuccessful when dealing with this exceptional school population.  From 1969 until 1973, as a primary school principal, I used Smarter to guide small groups of students and staff towards a better understanding of themselves and their cerebral capacities.  In 1975, as a high school teacher, I was able to draw on Smarter to help me (visually) display the positives, or plus side of numerous problem learners, especially certain early- and mid-adolescents involved in serious school and social situations.  Via Smarter, I believe that I was able to convince numerous girls and boys that yes life was indeed worth living.  In other words, I tried to show them that their (negative) LD label was not that they had only a Learning Disability and, more often than not, perceived as learners "at risk" (see the lower left-hand quadrant in the below schemata) but simply and more positively-speaking, that their LD label meant that they learned differently.  In short, I attempted to show them that their learning glass was half full ... that they were promising learners (see the upper right-hand quadrant in the below schemata).  In 1985, as a graduate student, I modified Smarter to measure the intellectual performances of numerous research subjects.  Today (2011), I still use Smarter to try to change doom and gloom perceptions of reality towards a boom and zoom quest for success.  As a retired educator, I still enjoy editing the writings of others, reviewing books received from publishers, and performing informal research projects.

Smarter Interpretative Schemata

Copyright  © 1990, 2012 by Clifford Morris

The above interpretative schemata, first designed in the early 1960's, hypothesizes a successful learning mode by showing flashing line segments continuously intersecting with a horizontal (x-axis) intellectual continuum and a vertical (y-axis) affective continuum.  Here, the viewer sees a representation of a student's societal success as resting in the upper right-hand corner whereby effective learning blends (Howard Gardner's) many intelligences with (Juli an Rotter's) internal locus-of-control and (Alfred Bandura) high levels of self-efficacy.  Each of the eight (8) flashing diagonal line segments represent a Gardner intelligence.  Terms located to the perimeter of the four learning quadrants suggest polar opposite and possible learning processes.  The more interested reader can click here and scroll down to "Part III: Thinking and Working Smarter not Harder" for a closer interpretation of this schemata.

To conclude, as the study of our cognitive capabilities is a model of the mind too good to drop, I continue to read and write on the general nature of human intelligences and most appropriate learning styles as I still feel that these variables are often overlooked when trying to place individuals into a meaningful career placement. 

I have a special interest in the writings of the following intelligence theorists: Reuven Feuerstein, Howard Earle Gardner, Karl Anders Ericsson, Robert Jeffrey Sternberg, and Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky.  Feuerstein continues to operate out of the Jerusalem International Center for the Enhancement of Learning Potential.  His work on elevating the performance of functionally illiterate people is unquestionably interesting.  To this day, Gardner works out of Harvard University.  He theorizes that we have multiple types of intelligence, all based in different regions of the brain.  Ericsson -- a k a the torchbearer in the Expert Performance Movement -- studies the cognitive structure of expert performance.  He is especially interested in how expert performers attain their superior accomplishments by acquiring complex cognitive mechanisms and physiological adaptations through extended deliberate practice.  Sternberg continues to argue that human intelligence is fed by three (3) cerebral abilities: analytical, practical and creative.  His ongoing concern is that analytical ability is the sole ability rewarded by standardized intelligence tests.

And finally but not least, there is Vygotsky.  Who can forget his contributions to education and psychology!  Briefly summarized for here, his theoretical framework claims that social interaction plays an essential role in the development of cognitive functioning, that every function in cultural development appears twice: first on the social level, that is, between people (inter-psychological) and ... later on, at the individual level, in other words, within the individual (intra-psychological).  This function applies equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory and to the formation of daily concepts.  In short, Vygotsky's hypothesis is that all of our higher cerebral functions originate as actual relationships between individuals.  Another aspect of his theory -- and one that I used for years as a teacher -- is his notion that the potential for cognitive development depends upon the zone of proximal development (ZPD) ... that cerebral level of cognitive development attained when anyone engages in social behaviour.  Full development of his ZPD depends upon full social interaction.  The range of societal skill that can be developed with adult guidance or peer collaboration exceeds what can be attained alone.

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Revised on Monday, 14 May, 2012