Questions at Issue: Essay #2 Readings

Nature vs. Nurture

• To what extent do parents matter to children's development?
• What are the ramifications of buying into Judith Rich Harris's assertion that parental involvement in child development has no lasting effects? Why should we care about this idea?
• Should we tailor our teaching specifically to boys and girls, or should we continue to use the same methods regardless of our classes' gender makeups? Should we do things to ensure that no one gender gets "shortchanged" by our school systems?
• Are there really generalizable differences between the inherent personalities of boys and girls? How do we account for those differences? What do we do with "exceptions" to the rule, like tomboys or "wussies"? If there are a lot of exceptions, does it change the validity of the rule?
• Does culture play a role in the ways boys and girls develop? That is, are the generalizations we make about gender true for, say, countries in the middle east, or in Africa, or Asia?

• Are all children alike in some essential way? Does culture affect the way children develop? Does time period affect the way children are conceived by society?
• Are we misguided in maintaining a "modernist" educational system with a regularly-ordered progression, an accumulation of skills in a specific order, which happens in exactly the same way for every child? Should we use the "melting pot" or the "racial rainbow" as our metaphor for education?
• If we switch to more "postmodern" teaching and assessment methods--like using portfolios or projects or presentations instead of tests--which emphasize individuality rather than conformity to a standard, how will we judge the progress of our students?
• What things influence us? Are we affected by television, or video games, or books, or people? To what extent does each of these affect us? Are we unaware of the difference between reality and representation?

• Are the different "intelligences" described by Gardner all equally important? Is there a reason why linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligences have traditionally been seen as the ones that are most important?
• Can teachers really be expected to use MI theory in the classroom? If so, how? What results can be expected?
• What does it mean, to American teachers facing the 21st Century, to be "intelligent"? How do you define that term? Does an embracing of multiple intelligences mean that we are also abandoning some values? Does it mean that we will no longer have a society with any hierarchy, where everyone is considered "equal"? Is this something we want?