This post will be an introduction to a series I will do on different learning styles. Many people only refer to three different learning styles - visual, auditory, and kinetic. However, in this series I will look at those three plus many more.
The Lessons of Homeschooling
As a former homeschooling mom I understand that all children have their own unique take on learning. All three of my biological children had their own unique ways of looking at the same material. Homeschooling taught me to be very flexible in how I approach teaching the same material to different children. I did not have to change the material contrary to what some experts believe. I am not one that holds to letting the child fully determine the contents of the curriculum. I have seen that in the homeschooling world, and it produces children who know everything there is to know about lizards but are unable to actually read the books about lizards. The material can stay the same while the approach to the material can be individualized. For that child who lives for lizards, lizards can be utilized in as many ways as possible, but you will still have to cover the basics of reading and math. The core of what is taught children does pretty much remain universal around the world if we are completely honest about it. How that core is taught fuels the greatest debate of the last couple of centuries.
Educational Fads
Why is it that everyone has "the way" to reinvent the educational system? Over the last fifty or so years so many different educational fads have come and gone. This was really pronounced in the school system where I attended K-12. We were a guinea pig school. We were so small that in order for our school system to maintain adequate funding, our administrators would take grants to try every new thing that came down the pike. My mother was a teacher's aid and had to attend all those preservice trainings to learn the "new" way school was being done that year. I remember listening to her tell all about the latest way to get children to learn, and I watched good teachers burn out because the school systems would not just let them teach. They were constantly having to follow a new formula that did not fit their teaching style nor our learning style. If it were not for decent textbooks, I would not have had a decent education. Fortunately, while I was in school they left the textbooks alone. That is not the case in today's educational world.
The Value of Knowing Your Personal Learning Style
When approaching the educational world, the very first item of business every teacher, administrator, and politician creating educational policy needs to understand is how they learn individually. Understanding your own personal learning style does matter greatly in how effective of a teacher you will be. If you do not understand how you learn, how can you decipher how someone else learns. However, the second item all of these groups must understand is that everyone else may not learn that way. Here lies the problem of ALL the educational fads that have come and gone. A person discovers his/her own learning style and believes he/she has discovered the perfect way for everyone to learn. What this person discovered was the perfect way for him/her to learn not the perfect way for everyone else to learn. To be an effective educator, you must understand how unique every person's learning style is. Deciphering your own learning style gives you the tools to discern other people's learning styles. It is not a stopping point but a place from which to launch the investigation into how the people being taught learn as well. Every group of people will encompass different ways of grasping material. The beauty of being a teacher is that you never stop learning how to teach other people. You must be a student of learning styles in order to effectively present material to your students.
The New Fad - Individualized Instruction
Right now the new fad in education in some circles revolves around the individualization of instruction. Most of what I have seen of this new fad falls into some of the categories I will be covering in the next several months during the weekend posts. However, they demonize many other categories of learning that I will cover. They have fallen into the trap of only seeing the world as they personally see it and demonizing the rest of the world as inadequate. I hope that I will not fall into that trap during this series. The one thing I have learned during all my years as an educator is that sometimes my teaching/learning style does not mesh with the learning style of one of my students. Because our learning styles may be opposite of one another, I need to have the maturity to understand that and let those parents know I am not a good fit for their child. That does not mean something is wrong with that child. It means that child needs a teacher that can relate to his/her learning style. In the educational world we do not need a one size fits all mentality. We need a plurality of teaching styles and the freedom for children and parents to seek out the styles best suited for their children. One teacher cannot possibly cover every single teaching style and do it justice. I understand the many different teaching styles, but I also know which ones I simply cannot cover well. Does that make me a bad teacher? No. That makes me a wise teacher. When the rest of the educational world finally quits trying to find the "one" right way to teach and admits their limitations, we will begin to see a true individualization of instruction in a way that is truly productive.
I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!!
Check out Natalie's children's books at: https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457
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