Recovery

It is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin, barefoot irreverence to their studies; they are not here to worship what is known, but to question it.  ~Jacob Bronowski

 

     I like this quotation -- it suits my sons all the way down. Their learning styles, so different from each other, nonetheless retain a certain 'irreverence' to the norm. Everything is up for grabs, everything needs to be discussed, considered, dissected... and that process is constant. Even when (and maybe more so) it is bed time, they never let up, thinking, questioning debating.

 

     The subject of learning styles is something that fascinates me. I had never really considered the power of that issue, just accepted that I was wierd in the way that I learned (I see things as patterns: patterns of numbers, letters, words, sounds. colors...) but when faced with the challenging task of helping little boys learn, I was brought face to face with the importance of learning styles... and the potential of conflict between my style and that of those around me.

 

     Now in one sense, my standard approach/understanding of material makes it easier for me to explain things: As I said, I see things in patterns. Music, Art, Mathematics... all of these are patterns. When I was a little girl, I saw color and number as the same -- 3+5= brown just as red plus green equaled eight. When I was asked for the answer to a math problem, I gave it but when asked how I knew the answer... well, my answers never made sense to those who relied on memorized equations. Numbers have a pattern. The pattern is there, inherent in the system. I could never explain that to my teachers. They always thought that I must be cheating, though they could never figure out how! (LOL)  The same thing was true of Music -- music is color and number. Fantasia (Special 60th Anniversary Edition) was always a favorite film of mine because it was the work of people who saw the world in a manner similar to mine own. The same was true of Donald in Mathmagic Land. Truly, it was a relief to know that I wasn't alone, that I wasn't a complete abberation.

 

     As I grew older, the world of patterns became more complex and I had to work harder and harder to try to clarify the patterns I saw. I got to be pretty good, it turns out. I wrote a paper on headhunting in Celtic culture and presented it at a conference at UCLA. After my presentation, professors came up to me to talk. Their comments were always the same: 'You know, I never really thought about that before but now that you have said it, I can see it...' Friends of mine, archeologists and historians in training all shook their heads at me: Don't make it too clear or you won't get the credit -- practice obscurity and people will think that you are brilliant. The scary thing is, I watched my friends do precisely that, practice obscurity, and it had exactly the effect that they anticipated.