There are two kinds of students: smart ones, and not-smart ones. It’s easy to tell them apart.<\/p>\n
If you teach it and I learn it, I’m a smart one.<\/p>\n
If you teach it and I don’t learn it, I’m a not-smart one.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
(To be clear: I’ve never heard anyone say that so crudely. But that tone suffuses the mythic past of our profession.)<\/p>\n
Of course, this theory suffers from one deep flaw: it just ain’t true<\/em>.<\/p>\n Those are simply false learning categories.\u00a0We all can learn, but we all learn differently.<\/p>\n If I teach it and you don’t learn it, the problem may very well be with my teaching. You might well learn it some other way.<\/p>\n And yet, this optimistic reframe comes with perils of its own. If, in fact, “we all learn differently,” then teachers face an almost impossible challenge.<\/p>\n We have to figure out how each of our students learns, and then tailor all lessons for all of them. A class with 30 students requires 30 lesson plans.<\/p>\n How on earth can such a system work?<\/p>\n Facing this baffling challenge, I would LOVE to sort my students into reasonable categories<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Instead of saying “there are smart students and not-smart students,” I’d rather say “students can be smart this way, or that way, or t’other way.”<\/p>\n With this framework, I can now have three lesson plans, not thirty. Or, I can have one lesson plan that teaches all three ways simultaneously.<\/p>\n For example: maybe left-handed students learn one way, right-handed students learn a different way, and ambidextrous students learn a third way. If true, this model allows me to honor my students’ differences AND create a coherent lesson plan.<\/p>\n As it turns out, people have proposed many (MANY) systems for sorting learners into “reasonable categories.”<\/p>\n Perhaps boys<\/em> and girls<\/em> learn differently.<\/p>\n Maybe\u00a0introverts<\/em> differ from extroverts<\/em>.<\/p>\n Perhaps some people have interpersonal intelligence<\/em>, while others have musical\/rhythmic intelligence<\/em>.<\/p>\n Maybe some learn concretely<\/em> while others learn abstractly<\/em>; some learn visually<\/em> while others learn kinesthetically<\/em>.<\/p>\n The list goes on.<\/p>\n Let’s add one more to that list:<\/p>\n Perhaps we can sort students according to the Myers-Briggs test. This student here is an ENTJ (extroverted, intuitive, thinking, and judging), while that student there is an ISFP (introverted, sensing, feeling, perceiving).<\/p>\n This system allows me to teach with distinct categories in mind, and so makes my teaching life easier.<\/p>\n Alas, this system suffers from a (familiar) deep flaw:\u00a0it just ain’t true<\/em>.<\/p>\n As\u00a0Clemente I. Diaz explains, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator doesn’t measure what it claims to measure<\/a>.<\/p>\n In fact, it can’t. For example: the MBTI acts as if extroversion and introversion are two different personality types. In truth, we’ve all got a some of both — and, different settings bring out the introvert or extrovert in each of us.<\/p>\n All of the seemingly “reasonable categories” listed above are, in fact, false learning categories<\/em>.<\/p>\n No: with very rare exceptions, boys and girls don’t learn differently<\/a>.<\/p>\n No: introverts and extroverts don’t learn differently. (They don’t really exist. We’re all both, depending on the circumstances.)<\/p>\n![\"false](\"https:\/\/braindevs.net\/blog\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/AdobeStock_49926469_Credit.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nA Solution, A Bigger Problem<\/h2>\n
Another Solution?<\/h2>\n
Another Problem: False Learning Categories<\/h2>\n