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We Can Improve Our Ability to Learn |
People learn in different ways. We are coming to understand this, but in the past may have labeled some as "not too smart" because they did not appear to learn as well as others in school. What we didn't realize is that our educational system delivered learning in a manner that worked well for some and not so well for others. Well how did it get like this you might ask? Dave Meier, "The Accelerated Training Handbook" provides several reasons for this educational oddity, none of which have anything to do with HOW WE LEARN!
Dave Meier tells us that our current educational system has its roots in 19th century Puritan New England. What the Puritans developed was something called the Common School Movement, which kind of standardized our approach toward learning. And puritanical learning was naturally a very dreary, joyless and rote affair which eventually made its way into our schools and universities. Instead of learning being an intrinsically joyful experience, it was more a punishment inflicted on us unsuspecting students like medicine, which although hard to swallow was reputedly good for you to take. "Spare the rod and spoil the child" was the mantra chanted by this top down, hierarchical, controlling and instructor centered system. This approach also eventually found its way into our corporations. Meier jokes, instead of corporal punishment we’ve inherited corporate punishment with its endless no questions asked PowerPoint presentations and mind numbing training manuals.
Meier sites good old American individualism as another detriment to the way we learn. Somehow there was this idea that we needed to stand on our own isolated two feet competing against our classmates for higher grades. As General Eisenhower told us, "More than ever before, in our country, this is the age of the individual". Learning we know however can be a very social activity. Indeed studies like those conducted by H.M Levine at Stanford University found that peer tutoring was 4 times more effective than individual computer based instruction, reduced class size and even lengthened instruction time. The University of Minnesota published a study that demonstrated that two individuals in active dialogue, with concern for one another’s progress, significantly improved the quality and quantity for computer based learning. Meier points out that the education systems in Western culture have been paternalistic and dominated by males (The school master). These beginnings have had profound effects on the way we learn. Yet as women continue to break glass ceilings and achieve parity within our learning institutions, they bring with them a desire for more inclusive and collaborative learning environs. We begin to distance ourselves from hierarchy, rigidity and dogmatism within our learning methodologies.
Meier provides us with actually 7 reasons (he references them as diseases) which have harmfully shaped and contributed to our learning malaise. The last and perhaps most interesting one is the Printing Press. Invented by Johannes Gutenberg, this blessing for all mankind is also a curse. Books have become central to all learning. Yet for all the wonderful knowledge we derive from reading, the way we learn became dramatically more verbal (vs. visual), linear (vs. holistic), abstract (vs. experiential), and overwhelmingly more individual (vs. collaborative). Another way to say it might be more "left brain" then "right brain".
Science has clearly attributed different learning functions to the right and left hemispheres of our brain. Right brain functionality, which is more visual and allows us to discovers patterns and relationships between parts has been somewhat downplayed in our learning institutions over the years. Well in a "this glass is half full" sort of way, a great opportunity exists. People who for whatever reasons prefer right brain functions to learn would be better afforded this opportunity in our schools. And left brain learners can become more adept at developing their own right brain learning strategies. A WIN WIN for everyone! This certainly makes the case for developing new ways to deliver information.
A good read on the subject comes from Linda Verlee Williams in her book entitled "Teaching for the Two Sided Mind". Williams states "The brain has two hemispheres but too often the education system operates as though there is just one." In the typical high school classroom”, she continues "students are expected to learn most of their information from books and lectures. They work almost exclusively with words and numbers, in a world of symbols and abstractions." In the early 1960s, Roger Sperry of the California Institute, in an effort to treat epileptic suffers, performed a surgery to effectively split the two hemispheres of the brain. This allowed science to clearly view the different functions of the right and left hemispheres of the brain. The differences were dramatic. Naturally, although we have preferential learning styles, we all use both sides of our brains to learn. In order to maximize learning, it only makes sense to present information in ways that appeal to, for lack of a better term, "left brain" learners AND "right brain" learners.
This idea would take a bit more time initially, and obviously a more learner centered approach, however the net result would be increased and improved learning. |
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