Matthew Henley '13 is combining his studies in educational psychology and dance to challenge common views of intellectual assessment and help all students recognize their strengths.
From the article:
“His research focuses on building bridges in the language between three areas: educational psychology, dance education and the world of standardized intellectual assessment.
He was concerned that the language used by the dance education community might automatically marginalize the field in the eyes of the intellectual assessment community and, in turn, in the eyes of people who determine funding and policy.
“All I had to do was change the language of ‘bodily-kinesthetic intelligence’ to ‘proprioceptive aptitude,’” Henley said, and the TWU faculty members involved in intellectual assessment suddenly understood.
Henley explained to them that proprioception and kinesthesis are modalities for the manipulation of information to solve problems. It is the manipulation of movement qualities rather than letters or numbers.
“For me, this is a social justice issue or a neuro-diversity issue because there’s so many students out there who are only being evaluated on their ability to put letters in an order that makes sense to other people or organize numbers which can then be manipulated to find answers,” Henley said. “And, yes, those are valuable skills that develop ways of thinking, that are absolutely vital for our culture, but there’s lots of other ways to exist successfully, happily and wholly in our culture which are served through other sensory channels.”