AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF CHARLOTTE BAUM

Charlotte Baum

University of Redlands

EDU 331: Child Development

Professor Drallos

April 11, 2020

Autobiography of Charlotte Baum

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The most developed intelligences that I have are body and interpersonal. My soccer

experiences definitely contributed to both my body and interpersonal intelligences. As a young

athlete, I got the opportunity to travel to many different places to guest play with teams that I did

not know. This improved my interpersonal intelligence because I got to meet so many different

people with different backgrounds. I ended up in many situations that required me to adapt to the

people around me and understand how they connect with each other; in order to create a

successful team dynamic. I was also a great player, which is why I got these opportunities. This

made my entire soccer career a crystallizing experience because everywhere I went, I was a star.

It also reinforced my interpersonal experience because no team that I ever played with was

vocally intimidated by me or rude to me in any way.

My underdeveloped experiences include natural and verbal intelligences. Natural

intelligence is not my top intelligence because nature was not a big topic in my household. I do

not think I have any specific situations that make me feel less passionate about nature, I am just

not as interested in it. My background also contributes to my verbal intelligence. It’s funny

because despite not expressing my thoughts well, I always speak the loudest in conversations.

That probably has to do with my intrapersonal strength. My confidence is so high, it’s like I

could never be wrong. My verbal intelligence is weak because I always come back to this

situation with my mom. At a young age, my mom kindly asked me to read from Mark Twain’s

Tom Sawyer. That evening, I read it out loud to her. Basically I was reading the words just out

loud and not actually putting together sentences. I didn’t realize this was happening, I just

thought I was reading. My mom said “Are you actually absorbing what you’re reading? Do you

know what’s going on?”. Even though she didn’t mean it in a bad way, my brain told me it was a

terrible thing that I could not really understand what was happening. I had even read a funny
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scene in the book and my mom laughed but I could not understand it. The book was too complex

for my reading skills at the time. Even though I can read it well now, after that event, my reading

habits totally changed. It was like I did not want to read anymore out of fear of failure.

I think my natural and musical intelligences are weak because of my environment. Like I

said before, my natural intelligence was never a huge part of my life. Even in school, I can not

remember teachers expressing extreme concern about the environment. I do remember a specific

event in my musical career that killed my ambition to play the trumpet. As middle school

approached, I began to notice that it was not so cool to play an instrument. I held my

interpersonal intelligence very close to me because for some reason, the opinions of my peers

were important. I quit playing the trumpet in the sixth grade for that reason. Also I was all about

soccer at the time so I suppose I made the choice between music and body.

I am the type who wants to be great at everything. It’s important to be knowledgeable in

all of these intelligences. Despite my natural intelligence being low as a child, I am very active in

that case now. Nature is so interesting and being an activist in a natural way is currently

important to me. Recently I have been improving my verbal linguistic knowledge because before

this assignment, I noticed that it was lacking. I have been reading deeper into texts and getting a

fuller idea of what the text means. There are times when I will re-read a piece multiple times to

get a better understanding of what’s going on. I keep notes on my readings now so that I do not

blank on details as well.

Knowing what I know now about multiple intelligences, I understand why my brain

works the way it does. I have been relating back to my past in order to discover why my brain

works the way it does. Howard Gardner believed that the consideration of multiple intelligences

could not only be beneficial to the individual but, “...teaching strengths as well as for examining
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areas needing improvement,” (Armstrong, 21). That being said, I hope that as a future teacher I

do not limit the thoughts of my students through influential interactions or events. I would be

interested in knowing what my student’s current MI strengths and weaknesses are. I would love

to give them a test similar to the one we did today so that I could help round out their MI’s. It

might be a good way to start off the school year and then check back in towards the end to see

how they improve in places and deteriorate in others. I think this would be very helpful to

students who need confidence in certain areas. It would also help them have more successful

futures because they would be educated on multiple intelligences.

Works Cited

“MI Theory and Personal Development.” Multiple Intelligences in the Classroom, by Thomas

Armstrong, ASCD, 2018, pp. 20–43.