What a good many people seem to miss when they say that your learning style needs to fit the instructor’s teaching style is that they are confirming the authoritarian structure of education. Those who fit in are considered good students, those who don’t are considered unintelligent or lazy, and those who force themselves to conform are unhappy.
The whole point of differentiated instruction, learner-centered teaching, multiple intelligences, learning syles, and multiculturalism is to get away from this one-dimensional approach to education. B/c it is a departure from tradition, errors are made, missteps occur, exaggerations abound, and charlatans take advantage. Nevertheless, a core of tough-minded educators continue to believe that more people can learn than just those who fit the mold. It’s not faith-based education b/c we have seen students written off who blossomed under different conditions, different instruction. We know it works.
It was only in the mid-90s that Charles Murray’s The Bell Curve was extremely popular, at least among conservatives, b/c it posited that certain social groups do not perform well b/c they are congenitally burdened with a low intelligence that is inherited as part of their genetic group. These folks are still around, in force.
Pat’s Polemics
On-going brilliance
