Teaching is never easy. And imagine teaching 30 to 40 kids!
I cannot sympathize more with all the teachers who are trying to teach so manyyyyyyyyyyyyyy children at one time.
Today after talking to Dr Paget for an hour I was compelled to pen down this immediately. Dr Paget is a sepatgenarian, who has been into teaching kids in UK since donkey years. We had a good session on how and what to do to make life better for both the kids and the teachers.
Mind you, when I write teachers, its not just the school teachers. I mean everyone who is training somebody. It can be you, moms, dads, coaches, school teachers, college lecturers, professors and whosoever claims to impart any knowledge or skill to someone else.
I am a very very visual learner with kinesthetic learning too quite high. Which means I learn things best when I look at a picture, when I draw the picture of what I am learning, when I have graphs and flowcharts etc etc to support my books.
Infact I used to in my younger days capture paragraphs like snapshots. I would read every thing aloud and keep drawing to make my brain understand. This is my way of learning. I am a duh when it comes to understanding anything when told by someone. I do not remember any lectures, talks etc unless supported by images. Even now I avoid conferences where people are talking for long duration. That is why I love internet and search engines, where things pop up and I grasp them easily visually.
So what is your way of learning?
Its not difficult to find this out. There is a link here which will help you know what type of learner you are.
Ones you appreciate your way of learning, you will realize what are the best mediums for you to use to grasp anything.
Next step should be to repeat the test for your kids. Each child must be individually asked directly or their parents must be asked to fill this questionnaire. You will realize that its so much easier on the child, when she or he is taught as be her or his learning ways.
So if your child is not paying attention to when you are reading the books or when you get complaints from the class teacher about his or her blank looks or looking at the windows, you know this child is a Visual learner. You cannot do any justice to this type of child by reading loudly in the typical class room style. There must be pictures either drawn side by side or flash cards to help learn.
If a child is easily picking up in the typical classroom style of teaching, the child is an Audio sequential type learner. This child will be all teacher’s delight and will do excellent academically.
But then there are a few kids who just cannot sit in one place. Do you know how to teach them? Well these kids are a combination of visual and kinesthetic learners. They will not just want to see the pictures but will learn and remember best when they actually do it. Such kids needs loads of practicals, hands on small experiments, every concept must be done by them to remember long term.
To teach alphabets and numbers to these kids is a challenge to the class teachers. But if they get to know that these are visual and kinesthetic learners, all they need to do is use flash cards and as much possible real objects, field trips and touch-feel shaped 3 D replicas.
These type of kids are excellent with real time and hands on experiments. They can fix odd jobs in the household very easily on their own. Yes they also love to break open stuff to see how it works!
Here is the short questionnaire which will help you find out how you and your kids learn best.
Get a copy of this questionnaire.
