learning styles

Twice this week we’ve talked about learning styles. When I thought I wanted to be a teacher (a semester of substituting cured me) I took my required education classes. Instead of the three or four learning styles we talked about this week we learned about "the seven intelligences." Since I don’t have the text book from way back when, I can’t remember exactly what they were or how it was different from what we discussed this week. I do remember that when I took the test my scores were almost identical in every category. My professor was rather flabbergasted since we were supposed to be radically dominant in one area and perhaps subdominant in one other. This week in CRLA I scored identical in only two of the three categories. I’m slipping. (Some people say pregnancy kills brain cells.)

My husband and I just finished watching "Little Man Tate," about an seven year old who is in the 200 IQ range. It made me feel pretty stupid since I can’t even fathom the brain power needed to understand half of what this kid was supposed to be doing. One of the questions was along the lines of "if you take the fourth square of this number and divide it by the fifth square, then subtract 40 and 45, the remainder is 0." The kid, of course, comes up with the correct answer, but I can’t understand the question. I know when I was a bit younger my brain seemed to work much better than it does now. Perhaps it’s just hitting the big 3-0 this year? More likely, it’s the lack of challenge I’ve given myself over the years.

So, to tie this together– learning styles and people that are genius without trying. In the writing center we have a short time to sit down with a student and perform a prescribed routine. We have the students read their papers out loud and then we help them decided on changes that can strengthen the paper. On Friday, I had a girl who honestly couldn’t hear that she was reading the paper different than what she’d written. Does this put her in the audio-nonverbal category? Or in the kinesthetics? Both times we’ve talked about learning styles they’ve been divided and labeled differently. What if we ever have a student that comes in who is so far above our level of knowledge and expertise? I’d like to think that even with my pithy little brain I could make intelligent suggestions on the writing. Just a few days ago I had a tutee that was working on some science paper and I couldn’t, for the life of me, figure out what was going on. I, of course, made sure the thesis matched the conclusion and all those other things we’re supposed to do, but I felt like a blubbering idiot by the time we made it through the paper.
I’m not quite sure where I’m going with this. It’s just after midnight and I have a fussing three year old on my lap. This is just something to think about. Perhaps ya’ll have some insights on this?