One of my last required classes for educational certification was a Curriculum and Instruction course, and I was reluctant to take it. Fortunately, I had a wonderful instructor, who made going to class fun and interesting. She required a term paper on a topic of our choice. I went through a lot of topics, and finally found one that interested me: Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences Theory. As I thought about what I would write, a fiction story appeared in my head and began beating its way out. When I asked the professor if she would accept a work of fiction instead of a dry scholarly paper, she kindly agreed. I hope this story serves to illustrate what MI theory is about. She gave me an "A" on the paper.
September 13, 2031
The light from the computer screen faded, leaving only the ambient light in Annette Fraser's quarters. Two month old Billy was still asleep in the cot nearby and she hoped to be able to nap for a little while before he was ready to eat again. Her husband would be off duty shortly and would bring dinner trays home with him. She lay down and closed her eyes, but the research she had been doing played against her eyelids, keeping her from sleep.
The research was intriguing, and one of the most important assignments she had ever been given. As a data retrieval technician, helping to upload and install the enormous databases on Searcher, a generational starship hollowed from a ten mile long asteroid, she had thought she had found the most fulfilling work possible. Then, three years ago as she and a team of technicians loaded and integrated the final databases from Earth, the accident occurred, leaving three hundred people alive aboard a ship meant to house two thousand, stranded, and heading away from Earth at speeds no traditional ship could hope to achieve. No rescue was possible. Their trajectory would take them in a long elliptical orbit through the Oort Cloud and back to Earth in 456 years. Her husband had co-piloted the last supply ship. When Searcher's powerful experimental engines had been activated prematurely, Bill Fraser and Captain Alan Carter had endured extremely high g-forces and used every ounce of fuel to match the velocity of Searcher and rendezvous.
Searcherwas a state-of-the-art self sustaining city with parks, schools, a medical center, and even farms for food and industries to make essential machines and consumables. The database/library system contained as much human knowledge and research as could be scanned and digitized. The missing element was people. About half of the three hundred inhabitants had been scientists and managers on board early and settling in. The other half were on temporary contracts, and once construction was finished were scheduled to return to Earth. Most of the colonists of Searcher, and their family members, had been left behind because of the accident. That group included the children and the teachers.
It took nearly three years before the accidental inhabitants of Searcher were confident enough of their chances of survival to begin having children. When the decision was made to allow new births, Annette was one of the first to ask how the children would be educated. Commander Koenig, Searcher's project coordinator and leader of the people aboard her appreciated her concern and immediately appointed her to chair a committee to study the problem and come up with a solution. The four other members of the committee were similarly selected. Dr. Bob Mathias, the resident psychiatrist was a member of the committee as was the Chief Supply Officer, Paul Morrow. Geologist Greg Sanderson had also been assigned to the committee, but he was so involved in mining the asteroid he seldom paid any attention to the outside world. Nevertheless, she was certain he would have opinions once she began making suggestions or plans. The final committee member, Michelle Osgood was an engineering technician who had developed a heart problem and had been in and out of Medical Center so often that she hardly seemed to be a contributing member of the group.
During Annette's pregnancy the Commander had given her the time to research the subject, as well as valuable communication time to query Earth. Communications was occasionally possible, but annoying with a 70+ minute delay and frequency problems caused by relative speed; and communication was only possible when the Earth was on the same side of the sun as Searcher. There were a myriad of educational theories to study. The more regimented theories reminded her of the overcrowded classrooms and the dull lectures of her own early schooling or the isolated and impersonal technical training once national standards had been effected during her teen years.. She had finally found a theory that appealed to her and there seemed to be a good deal of information about how to design a teaching system to train students to fill all the niches needed in their society.
It was obvious she was not going to sleep this afternoon. Billy was already beginning to stir. She needed to talk with someone about her research before the committee met tomorrow. She sat up and pulled back her long blond hair, reached for her commlock and tapped in the personal number of a friend.
Helena Koenig answered right away, and smiled as she recognized Annette's features on the tiny screen of her own commlock. "Hello Annie, how are you and the baby?"
"We're fine, Helena. Do you have a few minutes to talk?" As Chief Medical Officer, Helena was always busy, but she was on 'maternity leave' too.
"Sure. I'm at my office. Why don't you come by here?"
"You're working? I thought you'd be off with the babies."
"I don't think I could stand the thought of my desktop if I stayed away any longer. It's only for a few hours a day, then my staff chases me out. Come see me and I promise I'll put my feet up while we visit."
Annette laughed with her and signed off.
Billy was wide awake now and Annette changed him before gathering him up and heading for the travel tube. As she left her apartment she said, "Computer. Lights out." The lights obediently blinked out. The travel tube was just down the corridor. Medical Center was nearly a quarter mile forward and two levels up. As she passed the sensor in the car a disembodied voice asked slowly, "Destination?"
"Medical Center," she replied, sitting in one of the molded plastic chairs attached along the wall of the small car.
"Emergency Status?" the flat voice inquired at a higher pitch than normal.
"No emergency," Annette replied with a smile. Chief Computer Technician Kano must be tweaking the system again. Everyone complained about the voice response system. Despite the enormous size of Searcher's computer, the voice spoke so slow it drove everyone crazy. Kano had tried all sorts of fixes, but they only altered the pitch of the voice, or the inflection, but never the timing, which remained dull and plodding.
"Confirmed." The computer responded and the car started immediately. The same artificial gravity field that made living on the small asteroid possible cushioned the acceleration in the small car and Annette and the baby arrived at the door to Medical Center in minutes.
Helena's office was just inside the entrance to Medical. It was a spacious room with two glass walls facing the main area of Medical Center and two walls full of video screens. One side of the office held a round table with an embedded computer screen and more molded plastic chairs in the same style as the travel tube. A sofa was pushed against one glass wall, a desk nestled in the corner by the video screens. There was no paper on the desk, although low bookshelves behind the desk held real paper books. Searcher was a paperless environment. The computer screen embedded in Helena's desk held layers of color coded messages. A basket next to the desk held a tiny sleeping baby with dark hair and delicate features. Helena was turned away from the door speaking to a dark-haired man whose face was displayed on the view screen. She glanced at another screen, caught the reflection of Annette as she entered, and waved a greeting without missing a beat in her rather heated conversation.
"--not be responsible for any deaths that occur because of this," she was saying. Neither she nor the man she was speaking to seemed happy.
"Look, we simply don't have the replacement parts for the sensors. I would like to have the emergency monitoring system in place as much as you do, but we don't have the resources."
"I can't believe you would try to put this through while I was on maternity leave! Did you think I wouldn't notice when I got back?"
"It wasn't that at all. When the technical section told me about the problem with the sensor units I told them to disconnect the system. We just don't have the replacements for the faulty sensors. Your staff knows about it. I meant to tell you, but we have been a bit busy you know," his voice held a touch of sarcasm along with the annoyance.
"I noticed. It could be your child that stops breathing and the EMS isn't there to catch it you know."
"Dammit, Helena, I know that, and if I could run out to the nearest hardware store, I'd fix it myself. My child happens to be your child too. You're the one with the engineering degree, design a replacement part that we can manufacture here." John Koenig flipped the switch and his image blinked out to be replaced with random shots of Medical Center.
She turned to face Annette with a shake of her head and a rueful smile. "If I weren't in love with that man, I'd probably kill him."
"I think I've come at a bad time," Annette said. She hadn't sat down yet.
"No, it's the perfect time. I put some tea on and I really need a break."
"They did announce that the EMS was down on the news," Annette tried to play peacemaker. The Koenigs both held high level, high stress positions and their ability to disagree loudly was legendary.
"I guess I wasn't paying attention," Helena said with a smile and a glance at the sleeping baby. She poured tea into two coffee mugs and both women settled on the sofa.
"Where's the other one?" Annette asked as she took a sip.
"With her father. I'm surprised all that shouting didn't wake her up."
"Yours or his?"
Helena laughed, relaxing a bit more. "Both I suppose. That system was important," she added wistfully. Her tiny twins were less than a month old and born premature. She was nearing forty and it was doubtful that she would have another child. The twins would be considered high risk on Earth and excellent candidates for SIDS. The EMS was designed to monitor heart rate and respiration for everyone aboard Searcher with a non-invasive system of detectors. It had proven to be less maintenance free than the plans had indicated.
"What's up with you Annette?" Helena asked. She smiled at the strong healthy baby Annette held in her lap. He was gurgling and reaching for his toes.
"I have an education committee meeting tomorrow and I have some recommendations, but I want your reaction to my ideas before I take it in front of the group. Are you sure you have the time?"
"Of course. I'd love to hear them. I told you I'd help any way I could. John tried to appoint me to that committee as well, but I told him one more committee and I'd have to choose between work and our marriage, and he decided to keep me around."
Annette smiled. The Commander and Helena would not have been allowed to hold such positions of authority and be married to each other had they been in a more traditional area of the space program, but they had married after Searcher left Earth, and Earth authority was very far away now. "Have you heard of Howard Gardner's theory of Multiple Intelligences?"
"Yes, although it's been years since I reviewed the theory. It hasn't been my field of focus lately."
"I find his writings on how we learn, and the various types of intelligences appealing. He divides human thinking into seven different intelligences--or maybe eight, there are a few references to an eighth form.
"It seems to me there was very little empirical evidence to support the theory."
"It wasn't embraced by the research community, but during the 1990's a number of educators based a theory of education reform on it. Gardner himself was an advocate of educational reform. He gave many interviews discussing his recommendations for a totally different system of education."
"What were the different intelligences he identified?"
"There's linguistic intelligence and logical-mathematical; those are the two which are traditionally measured by intelligence tests. Then musical; bodily-kinesthetic, which would include athletic ability as well as fine motor skills like sewing or surgery. Spatial intelligence would include navigational skills or architectural or engineering skills--visualizing the objects from different angles. Then there are interpersonal intelligence with deals with relating to the needs of others, like negotiators, leaders and politicians; and intrapersonal intelligence which is a knowledge of your own self, guiding and understanding your own behavior. An eighth intelligence, naturalist is an understanding of the natural world."
"Well, they all sound like important aspects of the human spirit, but I'm not certain they are all equally intelligences. Why did he choose these eight?"
"His criteria included a cultural component, it had to be a problem solving ability of consequence to the person's culture, and it had to be an ability recognized in a variety of cultures--and even in a variety of ways.
"There also had to be a biological component so that the intelligence was cross-cultural. He used evidence from studies of normal development; the development of gifted individuals and exceptional populations such as prodigies and autistic children; how cognition is affected by brain damage; and also studies of how people transfer information and generalize as well as other psychological tests and cross-cultural accounts of cognition.
"Each intelligence also had to have a core set of operations where the intelligence is activated by some circumstance, either internal or external. These operations should also have some kind of encoding system, such as language, picturing, music or mathematics."
The office door opened and Dr. Mathias entered. He frowned at Helena. "I thought you were leaving an hour ago."
Helena smiled and shook her head in amused defiance. She was a beautiful woman with a cap of silky golden hair, wide-spaced green eyes, and high cheekbones. As Chief of Medicine, she was Mathias' boss, but she was also his patient at present. She gestured to a chair, calling an unspoken truce. "Annette is educating me about Multiple Intelligence theory."
"Howard Gardner, right?" Mathias asked, taking a seat. "His theories were becoming quite popular in the 1990's before Microsoft bought the contract for the American education system, and a more mechanized approach was rammed down everyone's throats.
"All power to Microsoft," Helena said sarcastically with a laugh.
"Well, I'm glad I was almost out of school by then, but they do pay our salary." Annette said, slightly shocked.
"I haven't seen a paycheck for a while, have you Bob?" Helena asked jokingly.
"I think now we're just doing this for the fun of it." Bob replied with an answering laugh. He noted Annette's unease. "Annie, just because Microsoft and Matsushita built the Searcher, and own practically all of Earth, doesn't mean we have to like everything they do."
Annette smiled faintly and nodded. She had spent all her working life working for Microsoft, so had most of the people she knew.
Helena smoothly brought the conversation back on track. "The theory sounds intriguing, but what's the connection with education?"
"Well, intelligence is just a biopsychological potential and everyone has some aspects of each of the eight, but some people have more promise in one area than another. By structuring the children's education on encouraging the use of their best potential, the children will have more success and learn more. We have so few children, it is important that each one of them fulfill their greatest potential."
Mathias nodded in agreement. "And because we need these kids so desperately, they'll need to become productive members of society at a younger age than on Earth."
"Exactly. How often have you read about someone who was really successful, brilliant or creative, but was a poor student in school?" Annette replied.
"Like Einstein or Edison." Helena suggested.
"Yes. Their greatest potential was beyond their school's ability to properly support or train." Annette agreed. "We need to encourage those with potential logical-mathematical intelligence like Einstein and creative spatial intelligence like Edison, someone who might be able to create those sensors you need for the EMS."
Helena nodded. "I may have an engineering degree, but even with my expertise in biomedical technology, that kind of work is beyond my potential."
"That may be true, but you are an expert, and could guide a gifted young person in the right direction. For older children, Gardner advocates apprenticeships in the field with an expert. We also need to train maintenance technicians, and farmers, and people to manage the different departments. These would require bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, naturalist, and intrapersonal intelligence as well as linguistic and logical-mathematical. The more ways we have to assess levels of intelligence the better for us to match people to jobs they will be successful with."
Helena nodded in agreement, then she glanced at the glass wall of her office and used her commlock to open the door with a smile. Commander John Koenig peered in cautiously, assessing his wife's mood before entering. "Are you still mad at me?"
"Furious," she responded lightly. "But that discussion is tabled for right now."
"Sara is hungry," he said, entering with some relief. He handed the baby to his wife before turning to acknowledge Annette and Bob. He nodded to Bob, then smiled at Annette and Billy. "Annie, I think he grows more every time I see him." Koenig was tall and dark with a strong face and deep blue eyes that always seemed to stare into her soul. When she had first met him, Annette had been a bit apprehensive of his almost sinister good looks, but despite his energetic personality and the drive of a perfectionist, he was a kind man and she enjoyed working for him. He perched temporarily on his wife's desk, but she knew he would soon be prowling the room with the boundless energy he always displayed.
She smiled at him. "Sometimes I think he grows so fast I can almost see it."
"Can you be at the meeting of the education committee tomorrow, John?" Helena asked.
"When is it?" he asked.
"Second shift, eighteen hundred," Annette replied. "Bill can watch Billy then."
Helena added, "Annette has some interesting ideas. I think we should both be there."
His eyes twinkled as he teased his wife. "I thought you didn't want to be involved with another committee."
"I didn't want the responsibility of another committee, that doesn't mean I'm not interested in my children's education."
"Parental involvement is essential in Gardner's view. It was an area very much neglected by American education. He also felt that different reform groups did not cooperate enough to enact reform and that regional differences in education also hampered reform. Fortunately, we don't have to deal with the latter two here."
"As few people as we have, everyone will need to be involved," Koenig said. "We'll be there Annie, and you should send a reminder by e-mail to all the other parents on Searcher. Tell them I said I thought it was important they attend."
Annette beamed. She knew if the Commander suggested it, there would be a high turnout. "I'll do that, Commander." She turned to Helena, "I've kept you long enough. See you tomorrow."
Helena nodded and Annette gathered up Billy and left. Mathias followed her out and they spoke briefly before she left Medical Center. He had some ideas that might support the goals she had. She offered to e-mail him her research notes and he promised to look them over and send her his own ideas by morning. Annette was glad she had an ally on the committee. She felt the others would be harder to sway.
The next evening at 1800 hours Annette Fraser stood at the podium of the Searcher's theatre. When the Commander had suggested that all interested parties attend she had changed the meeting place from a small conference room to the theatre which would hold 100 people comfortably. The committee members sat at a data table on stage. They each had a connection to the main computer through the table and could follow the agenda she had provided take notes or access the databases. Annette's husband Bill sat on the back row with their son in his lap so he could leave if the baby began to fuss. The Koenigs sat next to him with their twins. Nearly fifty others were scattered around the auditorium. Most were couples with a baby. A few were childless older scientists who had been asked to come either by Annette or the Commander, others were hoping to have children soon.
She smiled at her husband who smiled back, glanced briefly at the Commander who sensed her nervousness and grinned, giving her a surreptitious thumbs up. She thought briefly that a high level of intrapersonal intelligence was essential in his position. She took another look at her son and began to speak. "We're all here today because our children are important to us."
She spoke with an eloquence born more of passion for her topic than experienced public speaking ability. She spoke of the high dropout rate in American schools. In 1995 the number of students who left public schools without graduating was 12%. The schools did not meet those children's needs. In the U.S. that added up to 500,000 children. The potential those children had would not be realized, or if it was, it would not be because of the things they had learned in school.
The people of Searcher needed to provide the most effective education possible. They could not afford anything more than to expect that all their children be educated to their fullest potential, to become productive members of society.
She explained the Multiple Intelligences theory, how certain domains are important for different occupations, and that all domains should be encouraged to develop to their fullest potential in each child. During early childhood, until the age of five, children seem to absorb the symbol systems of the domains without formal training. They should be exposed to situations that stimulate the different domains. As children grow older they begin to seek the rules to the different domains. Concrete experiences in the different domains give alternative methods for learning. Intelligence needs to be assessed in a fair manner across all the domains.
Annette moved on to discuss creating a school where the classroom teacher allowed students the freedom to explore topics through a variety of domains. The teacher would prepare lessons that would awaken the intelligences by activating the senses, amplify the experience with activities that strengthen and enhance the theme being learned, teach with the strengths of the student and the teacher in mind and transfer the experience into a useful part of the student's life.
Supporting the teacher would be a team whose goal would be to realize the child's fullest potential. An assessment specialist would use intelligence-fair tests to understand the abilities and interests of each student. A student curriculum broker would match student profiles and goals to particular curricula and styles of learning. A school-community broker would match student interests with positions aboard the Searcher and arrange apprenticeships and practical experiences, to ultimately find a niche for each child to fill in Searcher's society.
As she came to an end, Greg Sanderson shifted restlessly in his seat. Annette glanced at Bob Mathias who smiled. He had predicted that Sanderson would be the first to protest. Greg was a dissenter by nature, he rarely agreed with anyone. A big bear of a man with long shaggy hair and beard, he was good at intimidating people and he knew it. He was not afraid to express his view and frequently had a way of convincing others to follow him.
"It all sounds good, Annette. But don't you think it's a bit complicated?"
"None of us know anything about teaching, Greg. Don't you think we should try to find the best way possible?"
"Yes, but teaching everything seven or eight different ways? What's wrong with the three R's? They worked okay for us."
Annette glanced at Mathias again, who leaned forward and caught Sanderson's eye. "Of course we would need to teach each child basic skills, that's the symbol systems for our culture that Annette was talking about. With encouragement, the children will pick up language and mathematics easily, as well as music, and spatial knowledge, body coordination, and getting along with others. But the children need to build on those basics. Didn't you tell me you were a Boy Scout?"
"That's right, from Tiger to Eagle, then I stayed on as a Junior Assistant Scoutmaster while I was in college."
Paul Morrow caught on first. He leaned forward, looking more interested than he had so far. "If course, I knew this had a familiar ring to it. Each level of Scouting repeats various themes such as first aid, citizenship, science, health, fitness, and at each level, the scouts work on a variety of different activities that all approach the theme from a different direction."
Annette nodded. "Yes, I've looked at the Wolf, Bear and Webelo books. The choices the children are given for each activity are similar to the design of learning centers in the curriculum I've viewed."
Sanderson looked a bit shocked. Mathias had placed him in a position where he would need to agree with the presented plan. He completed the connection that Morrow had made. "The Scoutmaster is like the classroom teacher, with the assessment broker being the Board of Review for rank advancement."
Mathias nodded. "And the school-community broker would be the advancement councilor who hooks up boys with merit badge counselors. For the intermediate students a variety of merit badges through apprenticeships would be advisable, this would be much like the Boy Scouting program. Then as the students progress, they could focus more closely on a particular career, or even cross-train for several career tracks the way Explorers or Varsity Scouts did."
An older gentleman in the audience stood and caught Annette's eye, motioning for permission to speak. Victor Bergman was the elder statesman of Searcher. His design of the gravitational force fields had made Searcher possible. It was irony in the proportion of Frankenstein that he had been stranded aboard Searcher with the rest of the survivors on the first trip he had ever made off Earth. His craggy features were a familiar sight all over Searcher as he explored 'his' ship with almost child-like glee. Of all those aboard, Bergman seemed to adjust to their situation most readily. He had appropriated a laboratory with the Commander's full cooperation and made himself at home. He had been heard to mention on more than one occasion that the atmosphere here was much less stuffy than Cambridge.
"Annette, you have obviously done a good deal of work here. Have you found any evidence that this model works?'
"Yes, I have, Professor Bergman. Dr. Gardner and his research team at Harvard created Project SUMIT in 1997 to assess the effectiveness of schools using curriculum guided by Multiple Intelligences Theory and promote the use of MI theory in the classroom.
"They published 'compass points' for using MI effectively and give examples of schools that were using those techniques. For instance one compass point is that the arts played a significant role in the school. By incorporating musical and bodily-kinesthetic, performances became an important part of assessing learning. Another compass point indicated that teachers need to collaborate and utilize their various strengths to encourage the children to use various arts and music to express understanding. Dover Elementary School in Dover, Florida began to apply MI in 1990. Their high minority low-income school reduced discipline referrals from 400 to 13 and their standardized test scores improved from the 30th percentile to the 50th percentile.
"The Kennedy School in Brewster, New York found that even children with learning disabilities were exceeding the district's standards on the New York State minimum competency tests.
"Project SUMIT also found that providing choices in both curriculum and assessment allowed the student to become more engaged in their work. These strategies work over a wide range of students, from those considered learning disabled to those students considered gifted.
"Of course, MI is a means to mastering the subjects or topics which are being taught, not the curriculum itself."
Paul Morrow looked at her. "No one has any experience with anything like this, although many of us have talents that could be put to use in this framework." I've heard you play the guitar, Paul," Annette replied. "I know you're quite gifted musically. I hope you will utilize your talents to teach the children."
"I'd be glad to," Morrow replied. " I like the sound of this program you want to develop. You have my vote for it."
Bob Mathias nodded as well. "I think we need to get the cooperation of the parents and other adults on Searcher, but I'll endorse using this theory."
The others nodded in agreement. Annette realized that her work was just beginning.
October 23, 2038
"Come on Mama!" Seven year old Billy Fraser pulled on his mother's hand.
"We've got plenty of time, Billy," his father said with a laugh.
"We get our Wolf badge tonight if we do a good job! I promised Jason I'd be there early so we could practice."
Annette smiled at her husband and the family picked up the pace as they headed to the travel tube. Jason Koenig and Billy Fraser had collaborated on a play for Assessment Night. The theme for the past month had been the Solar System. Annette had spent the afternoon helping the children perfect models,1 decorate the classroom, practice songs,2 and poems3 and Billy and Jason's play.4 Other school board members had been there as well, and the occasion would be a social event on board Searcher. Anyone not on duty would be trying to be there. Tonight would be the culmination of a year's worth of work for Searcher's children. Their annual Assessment Night would give them a chance to show off their best work for the year, and the evening would end with awards earned over the last three months.
Billy was proud of his new khaki coveralls with the yellow arm band indicating his rank of Wolf trainee and the orange Tiger patch on the chest with 'paw print' pins to show past achievements. The most recent paw print had been earned for air-lock training, and a small gold chain dangled from that one, a citizenship award for assisting a fellow student who panicked in the low pressure drill and endangered his own life and the others. Bill had assisted with those lessons and had told Annette how proud he was of his son's quick thinking and cool head. Annette was glad she hadn't been there. Just the thought of the children near the airlock gave her the shivers, but she knew it was important to learn about the environment they would spend their lives in. As student curriculum broker for the school, Annette had recommended the panicky child receive more intensive instruction in a low pressure environment, and the assessment broker recently informed her that the child had earned his paw print after additional experience in a hyperbaric tank and a medical examination for ear damage. On the day of the class assessment, the child had an ear inflammation and could now perform to all the accepted benchmarks.
At the travel tube, Billy dropped his mother's hand and joined Jason. Commander Koenig was standing back from the door to the travel tube holding a crying Sarah. "You know she'll be there as soon as she can," he was saying.
The adult Frasers joined them. Koenig glanced at them and explained. "Helena was called away from dinner to perform an emergency appendectomy. Sarah doesn't want Mommy to miss her performance."
Annette hugged Sarah. "What if we tape your song and Billy and Jason's play, just in case?"
"Could we?" Sarah asked hopefully.
"Your mommy has an important job to do. I know as soon as she can get away, she'll be there. Probably in time to see you get your Wolf badge, but you have to quit crying so you can sing well."
Sarah sniffed and took a deep breath, trying to bring the crying under control.
Her dad agreed, "That's a great idea. Then we can all watch your performance again."
By the time the travel tube arrived, the child's tears were dried up and she was again anticipating the upcoming event with excitement.
March 4, 2046
"What an absolute mess," Billy Fraser slumped onto a bench across from the brown leafed plants that had been his project for the final naturalist badge he needed to attain Explorer rank. He hated plants. He snuck an envious look at the delicate pink rose blossoms in the plot next to his. Sarah Koenig had been working with those plants for two years, and they looked great. He'd managed to kill off tomato and bean plants in a mere three weeks.
Shermeen Williams sat on the bench next to him and draped a companionable arm around his shoulders. She was the chief agronomist for Searcher, and had agreed to mentor his final naturalist project. "You know it would help if you showed up to water them regularly."
"Sara said--" he started.
"I know Sara said she would water them and I told her you had to do your own work." Shermeen smiled. She liked young Fraser. He had a mop of curly black hair like his father's, but he wore his long and pulled back into a ponytail as was the style most of the young men aboard Searcher currently affected. Annette Fraser had suggested that Billy was set on this project more to get Sarah Koenig's attention rather than any true interest in botany. He had been assiduously avoiding the naturalist requirements for the Explorer rank. "Maybe you should approach this from another angle. Let's assess the problem."
"I got busy and forgot to water them," the teenager said with frustration. "Sarah told me you wouldn't let her do it, but I've been practicing for the gymnastics5 meet next month and forgot."
Shermeen considered the information she had recently gleaned from Billy's portfolio. He had high assessments in spatial, logical-mathematic and body-kinesthetic intelligences. His linguistic and interpersonal intelligences were also highly developed. Music, intrapersonal and naturalist intelligences were assessed the lowest. Billy was designed for action and destined to be a pilot like his father. He was already spending time in flight simulators, preparing to take his place in the squad of pilots who flew small one man flitters called 'Sparrows' ahead of Searcher to scan for meteors or other dangerous debris. As Searcher approached the Oort Cloud, this would become an important and dangerous function.
Billy kicked at the leg of the bench. "Sarah comes down here to water them every day. Isn't there some way to water them automatically?"
"Most of our truck farm areas have automated watering systems."
"What if I got the things to make a watering system? Could I use that?"
"Of course, if you wish."
"Why doesn't Sarah do that?"
"She likes to grow things6. Roses are very temperamental, they need a more hands-on approach. Sara volunteers on the farms too."
"Yeah, she brought me with her once. I thought maybe I could drive the harvesters or tractors7 or something, but we planted seedlings instead. It was exhausting and boring."
"Fortunately, not everyone feels that way, or we wouldn't eat." She smiled and stood, motioning him toward a storage room that contained equipment earmarked for the school plots. Together they sorted through shelves full of slightly used equipment. He began to gather together a box of parts.8 Shermeen stated to tell him that some of the parts he had selected would not be necessary, but she decided to stand back and let him try on his own.
Three weeks later she stood next to Billy Fraser's school plot again. Billy was bursting with pride at the tiny shoots greening out in neat rows. He had showed her the watering system he had designed and she was impressed. He had used the cast off parts efficiently9 and even included an innovation that she could envision using on some of the larger fields. She had watched the check-in logs and found that he had come more often to check on his irrigation apparatus than he ever had to water his plants. On the other hand, he had carefully researched the amount of water that was optimum for each type of plant10, and could tell her exactly how he had contoured the land to provide for the various plants needed, and why he had chosen those particular plants.11 The enthusiasm he had lacked with the first project had been restored as he dealt with the project with his own talents. She would soon be able to authorize the assessment of his project, and he would be advancing to Explorer rank, focusing on his chosen fields of study as a trainee, with more responsibility and real-life situations rather than simulations. She knew that once his vegetables were harvested he would most likely never plant anything again, but she would see him again. Sarah Koenig's roses would soon be transplanted to a plot in the area reserved for adult hobbies, and Sarah would be one of her trainees. She was sure Billy would be a frequent visitor.
September 30, 2046
Helena Koenig was concentrating on her desktop when Annette Fraser tapped on the door. She looked up with a smile and tapped the commlock to open the door. "Hi Annette," she said as the door opened. "I know how busy you are, I could have e-mailed you the final list, but I'm glad you stopped by." Helena was serving a term as the coordinator for Searcher's Assessment Brokers.
"Just about everything is done. I've delegated most of the last minute tasks, and I just want a moment of peace."
Helena grinned, "I'll make some tea." She turned to the hotplate while Annette collapsed on the comfortable old sofa. It was covered with a brightly colored quilt now that Sarah and Jason had made for their mother while earning a textiles badge.12 It covered the stains from Billy and Sarah's first cooking attempt -- grape jam.13 "This will be our biggest Assessment Night ever. The kids now outnumber the adults on Searcher."
"Jason has hardly been home at all the last couple of weeks. You'd think his new play had a cast of thousands."14
"It seems that way, when you're working with seven and eight year olds. They really adore him and he has his cast doing all sorts of amazing things.15 I've been making sure he eats. It seems the least I can do since Billy is usually at your place."
"He just seems like a member of the family. He and Sarah are inseparable except for the time he spends in the Sparrow simulators."16 She handed Annette a cup of tea and a data wafer the size of a poker chip. "Here's the list. I think you should know that Shermeen sponsored Billy for an innovator award."
"I had heard. She told me about his improvements to the irrigation system and recommended that he continue engineering studies, but right now he's mad for flying." She smiled and continued, "and madly in love."
The mother of the object of Billy's affection smiled and poured the tea for her old friend. "Perhaps they could work on a small project together, just to keep their interest."
"In the field of study, or each other?"
"Why not both," Helena laughed. "We've become quite efficient at creating tasks that combine the various intelligences. Why not include matters of the heart?"
"Call it interpersonal intelligence?" Annette and Helena shared a laugh. Then Annette grew more serious. "Besides some peace and a cup of tea, I wanted to thank you for your support over the past fifteen years. I really didn't know what would happen when I made that first speech to the school board so long ago."
"It wasn't just me, we all helped, parents, educators, all of the community. Without total buy-in, for the long term, this wouldn't have been as big a success. All thirty of the first-born children will be graduating tonight. Each child has different gifts and talents, and we've managed to teach and assess them in such a way that they are all confident and successful and eager to become productive adult members of Searcher's community. I think we should be thanking you."
"No, It's a community effort, but I've always been able to curl up on your couch and moan and groan and work out my problems over a cup of tea. Is this a new blend?"
Helena nodded. "Amy Verdesschi came up with it while earning a nutrition badge. It's low in caffeine-- I thought you would need that today."
"Probably. Our first graduating class, plus rank advancements for nearly a hundred other children, that's certainly enough to keep me stimulated."
"True. Victor was thrilled that you asked him to speak tonight."
"It was the kids' idea, their unanimous choice. Victor has conveyed his enthusiasm for science to all of them, and considering where we live, that's very useful. You'll be there tonight, of course?"
"My staff knows that I'm not to be called for any reason other than a major catastrophe that would postpone the ceremonies."
"Let's hope that doesn't happen!"
"No, I predict nothing but artificial sunshine and virtual blue skies for this evening."
Annette drained her cup. "I can't believe it's finally over."
Helena laughed. "It's not over, this is only the beginning. That's why they call the ceremony a commencement!"
Bibliography
1 spatial and logical-mathematical intelligences 2 musical intelligence 3 linguistic and interpersonal intelligences 4 interpersonal and linguistic intelligences 5bodily-kinesthetic intelligence 6 naturalist intelligence 7 bodily-kinesthetic and spatial intelligence 8 spatial intelligence 9 spatial intelligence 10 linguistic and logical-mathematic intelligence 11 naturalist intelligence 12 Bodily-kinesthetic, spatial, intrapersonal, interpersonal intelligences 13 Bodily-kinesthetic, linguistic, logical-mathematical intelligences 14 Linguistic, intrapersonal intelligences 15 Interpersonal intelligence 16 Bodily-kinesthetic, logical-mathematical