I can believe this. People’s brains are wired up differently and we learn best in different ways.
I CANNOT CANNOT CANNOT learn by being told things—just can’t take in and retain information received through my ears. I learn by reading, or (preferably) by reading and then doing the thing with my hands. If my life or the lives of my children were on the line I still could not remember what I hear. Something isn’t hooked up for aural processing.
It’s genetic. My father was this way, and so are my children. But we are intelligent and talented, and we do well in college and grad school—with the stipulation that we learn in our own way.
A quick PET scan to elucidate our learning issues could have saved us a lot of time, grief, self-chastisement, and loss of motivation and self-esteem.
There would be so much variability in the PET results that it would be essentially useless as a predictive tool in this manner. Maybe we need educators who are trained to recognize different learning styles, and an educational system that allows variable approaches (e.g. provide all material that is taught orally in class in written form as well (word for word - not just ‘read the text’).
Interesting. I’m just the opposite in that I learn best if I have a lecture coupled with intensive reading followed by lots of problems. Perhaps that is due to college?