Poor Eddie. His mother had to take him home because his teachers felt desperate handling him in class. “He is annoying most of the time. It’s totally hard to adjust him. Besides, his brain is too slow to grasp the lessons”, his teacher complained. Since then, Eddie spent eighteen hours per day at his own small “laboratory” at home. He never considered his activities at his lab as “working” or “studying”. “I just play. It is a pleasure”, he said. The history notes that Eddie, or Thomas Alfa Edison as his full name, the person who had ever been dropped-out from the school and considered brainless by the teachers, in the following time became the most productive inventor with his 1300 inventions during his life, one of them was the lamp. He was only one of those whose learning styles were unmatched with the teachers’ teaching styles in most of conventional schools. Albert Einstein, considered as the most genius person in the world, was also dropped-out from his primary school due to his disobedient attitude and his slow ability in grasping the lessons.
We have known since a long time that many famous successful persons in the world were not successful at their schools. Many persons graduate from schools with worst grades or even “fail” to graduate due to their poor grades. However, those who “fail” actually have the same brain , the same potency, the same chance to succeed. We, as the perfect “primata”, have the perfect brain with the same parts of it that are functioned as the builder of our intelligence. Everybody is smart, with his own way. So, what makes them different? Recently, we are “attacked” by the latest findings from the educational researchers that may change our point of view toward education. Some of them are: there are many (at least eight) kinds of intelligence in human’s brain , there are many (at least three) kinds of learning styles, and there are many (at least four) kinds of thinking (organizing information) types. No single way is better than others.
In fact, the most important but the most forgotten thing to consider by the educators is the varied learning styles the learners may possess. They can be visual learners (access visual image to remember), auditory learners (access the sounds and words to remember), or kinesthetic learners (access the movements and emotions to remember). Most of us are visual learners, and naturally become visual teachers. Consequently, the students whose learning styles are different from us will have more difficulties in grasping the lessons because they process “the world” through “different language” from us. That’s the root problem: the “traditional” schools or educational institutions seldom or never accommodate some students’ learning styles so they look unintelligent. Einstein and Edison were kinesthetic learners; they learnt most when they involved with the activity, actively with their physical contact. They couldn’t stand sitting nicely on the chairs, listening what the teacher’s say, and nodding their heads to show their understanding. They couldn’t stop annoying the teachers with the questions and ridiculous manners. However, they were considered foolish by their teachers and kicked out from their schools. Unfortunately, we sometimes forget that the ‘unmatched styles’ between ‘difficult learners’ and teachers’ way of teaching has been happening continuously nowadays. Handling many characters of students, I found that the students have varied ways of memorizing vocabulary or sentence patterns. Some are accustomed to close their eyes and say the words aloud over and over (so afterward I ask them to clearly pronounce the words in turns), some prefer looking at the whiteboard quietly and making a neat note in order to review the words (so I clearly note them the words, the way to pronounce and the meaning on the whiteboard), and the rest are easy to understand the words if I demonstrate them (using gestures or other movements ). I agree that ideally, education should accommodate all kinds of learning styles . This is an effort to have better learning processes.
