Differentiation At Its Finest (?) Part III

So as not to divulge too much information prematurely in the direction I intend to take my research (and my book), I am next going to be investigating the research on the activity implementation with selected multiple intelligence/learning style groupings. However, and admittedly this may be putting the cart before the horse, I am already considering the learning style of the educator as a very central and large piece of this "merging" puzzle...

It stands to reason that most educators teach according to the mandates and requirements of the district and school by whom they are employed. For most of America, and to keep things in a more locally centralized frame of reference, for most of Florida educators, this means "teaching to a test" compliments of the guidelines of NCLB...aka bureaucracy at its finest!

However, let's entertain for a mere second a world in which we (Heaven forbid) consider using these standardized tests for what they were designed to be...a diagnostic tool for assessing not only individual or 'subgroup' student achievement but pedagogy and instruction as well as curriculum. With that in mind, what if we gave these tests no more attention than that and really focused on optimum achievement....

Imagine a world where the student was excited and engaged each day in school, because the teacher and student were both equally passionate about the content they were delivering/receiving...because it matched their intelligence preference and learning style!
So...teachers for each grade level would be evaluated for their own learning style/intelligence preference. In doing so, the administrator could then staff each grade level with teachers for the various subjects for each learning style. Next, they would also have to evaluate and make changes as needed, the learning/intelligence style of each student. Curriculum selection would have to be done (and perhaps designed!!) carefully, so that the material could easily be presented in each of the fashions dictated by these differentiated learning styles.

"Why yes" you say, "isn't that what we are already doing?" Perhaps, but then what?

Then the teachers teach the content in and to the learning style that is their (and their group of students') strength and preference...every day and all the time!

So...Mrs. Smith would be teaching math to perhaps a different group of students than she teaches other subject matter to, since learning style preferences require adjustment across the disciplines, due to the types of activities each requires, and the whole left brain/right brain thing (and the room we must leave for physical and learning challenges). So maybe these students might even receive instruction in the same discipline from more than one teacher each week, to provide yet an even more enriching experience.

The TEAM of educators then would do what they are hopefully already doing, but un a much more relevant and pertinent level...collaborate and discuss, evaluate, assess, compare, design and LOVE their jobs!

This is a theory, and as such, as yet, has no grounded factual basis. However, redesigning teaching and learning so that the passion, strengths and teaching/learning style of the teacher matched that of the student, I believe, would not only MAXIMIZE learning and achievement, but render laws like NCLB moot and devoid of purpose. And as for the tests...well, if they were designed to match the learning style of the student, need I say more?