Whole Child Education: Intrapersonal

The final pillar of whole-child education is intrapersonal. Although similar to other elements that have been discussed in this series, intrapersonal development can unlock the potential within the other aspects enabling a person to thrive in life. So, what is intrapersonal development? 

Intrapersonal Development

Intrapersonal development refers to the development "within" an individual person or knowing oneself. As a Christian, I like to refer to this as knowing who God created you to be ... and where you fit in His redemptive story. While often overlooked or left in the "hidden" curriculum, educators need to help students identify their gifts, discover their passions, and uncover ways to use those gifts/passions in a vocational or avocational calling. 

Schools, for too long, have assumed that students will develop intrapersonally on their own, but I've seen too many students wander aimlessly for too long before stumbling into their major and eventually their job. Thankfully, a ton of tools are available for educators to use to begin this process 

Gift Identification / Development

Each student is created with individual gifts, and the first step in intrapersonal development is helping to identify those for students. The second step in this pillar is to develop those gifts into strengths. Like the biblical Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30), God-given gifts are to be used and developed ... not hidden. In order for full intrapersonal development, gift identification AND development needs to happen. I like how the strengths perspective emphasizes developing gifts into strengths through learning more about one's gifts (knowledge) and practicing those gifts (effort). 

Gifts + Effort/Knowledge => Strengths

So, how does a school help students identify and develop their gifts? 

Howard Gardner, the founding father of Multiple Intelligences, challenged schools to redefine student intelligence: "It's not how smart you are that matters, what really matters is how you are smart." Unfortunately, most schools place students in subject area boxes based on if they are "smart" in those areas, e.g., I am good at math, I love history, I can't spell; of course, this is reinforced at the end of each term with report cards. Sadly, many students see themselves as "dumb" because they are not smart in academic subject areas. How short-sided, limiting, Hellenistic ("I think, therefore I am"), and intrapersonally damaging if students see themselves only as a subject area! 

So a good place to start this journey is by breaking away from subject-defined categories and utilize a system like Multiple Intelligences to redefine how students see themselves. An educational goal for intrapersonal development is to help students see how they are smart (to use Multiple Intelligence language) or how they are gifted.

Equally disappointing, schools follow up the subject-area intelligence/gifts identification by developing students from a deficit (not strengths) perspective. Let me explain; for most of K-12 education, students are identified by their weaknesses and parents/teachers/schools add tutoring/remediation to develop the students in areas in which they are not gifted. A strengths perspective (as the formula above suggests) would work to identify "how the students are smart" (gifted) and then provide additionally opportunities to grow those gifts into strengths. 

Let's look closer at the two frameworks discussed above: Multiple Intelligences and Strengths.

Multiple Intelligences -- a structure of 9 categories that identify ways students can be "smart" in school and in life. This aligns well with a whole-child perspective and has been used by educators to enrich the "learning styles" conversation.  

Identifying a student's intelligence can be found through many free surveys on-line; however, unpacking how they are smart and how they can use their intelligence inside and outside of the classrom will involve much more work. This is a great starting point to help students see intelligence and "smarts" from a different perspective. 

StrengthQuest -- The CliftonStrengths for Students (name recently rebranded) from Gallup is a more robust program with 34 different themes applied from a strengths perspective for students to thrive in school and life. It has a wide array of resources that can be used to develop students intrapersonally. This program is being used in colleges across the country, especially with first year students. Due to the research done at strengths-aligned universities and the extensive use with college students, CliftonStrengths is leading the conversation in intrapersonal development; however, it does come with a cost ... both a fee to take the assessment and an additional cost to become a strengths-certified educator. While developed more for college students, it can also be used in high school.

Other tools (fee or free versions) are available to help identify student gifts. Here are a few to consider:

• Values in Action -- An online tool that I've used with high school students to identify character strengths is VIAcharacter. Values in Action (similar to CliftonStrengths) provides good resources on each of the character strengths to help students learn more about their character strengths and provide suggestions to practice putting their values in action. 
• The Highlands Ability Battery -- The THAB is one of the most complete career identification and planning resource. While the cost is prohibitive, this tool utilizes a wide range of tests (including personality and interest inventories) and resources to pinpoint a career path for students. Primarily utilized at the college and early career stage in life, this tool has been introduced at the high school level also.
• Spiritual Gifts Assessment -- Christian schools can use a Spiritual Gifts Survey to help students identify their gifts. Of course, deep learning can happen around each of the spiritual gifts through Bible and Christian book study. Students can then be encouraged to practice their gifts at school to improve the school culture.
• Personality Tests -- Schools can also use personality tests, like Myers-Briggs or Enneagram, to help students identify how they were created and ways to use those traits to be successful in school and in life. Like the other programs, educators can find extensive resources to help students develop their personalities into strengths.

Calling Prep

In order to complete a student's intrapersonal development, the gift identification/development ought to be done with the student's future in mind, i.e., a teleological perspective. This includes college and career preparation, but it is even bigger than that. Schools should want to see their students flourish in all areas of life. I like to use the terms "Life Prep" or "Calling Prep" instead of the typical college/career prep to emphasize the "education for all of life" that a whole-child education promotes.

By connecting what happens in the classroom to a future calling, students will see the relevance to the learning and help them see a future-fit for them in the world. This can begin in the elementary classroom with career days by having parents come in to share about their jobs, but it is especially impactful when this happens at the high school level. If an engineer comes into a physics class to share about how they use this content every day, a spark may be lit for these students that will lead to a college choice, college major, and future career. 

An important part of intrapersonal development is identifying what a student is good at and what job fits with their interest/passion. However, career prep is more than just finding a job you love (so "you'll never work a day in your life" as Twain quipped). Calling prep is deeper than that. I love Frederick Buechner's quote: "The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." Implied in this quote is that we need to both know our "deep gladness" and the "deep hunger" around us. This involves intrapersonal development but it also involves world and market analysis. What jobs are out there? What jobs are needed at this time? By considering the world's deep hunger, we may need to step into a job that we don't love and is hard work ... but it is fulfilling because the world needs us to use our gifts there.

Ikigai is a Japanese term meaning, "a reason for being," or a life purpose, or a calling. The diagram below helps to clarify the elements of intrapersonal development and align it with what the world needs. 

Schools can encourage students to use their gifts to make a real impact in the world by helping them combine what they love, what they are good at, what the world needs with a career. This will be truly calling prep.

What I love about many of the instruments above (CliftonStrengths, VIA, Spiritual Gifts, etc.) is that they identify and help to develop a holistic, intrapersonal person. They are concerned about academic success and future employment, but they also have resources to help students flourish in all areas of life. Likewise, schools with a Hebraic, whole-child perspective want to see student flourishing in all areas: cognitive, spiritual, social, emotional, physical, and intrapersonal.

I hope that this blog series has helped you see whole-child education in a new light.