Learning Style Humor:
Freud's Seminal Contribution to Learning Styles
Learning styles has had a remarkable popularity in education, despite the absence of significant empirical support that such classifications are valid or reliable, or that
attempting to teach to a dominant modality improves the outcomes for students. A seminal paper in The Onion entitled Parents of Nasal Learners Demand Odor Based
Curriculum provided the impetus for a search for more than the few simple categories currently considered critical.
Looking into the movement from a historical perspective provides some surprising information. A search of leading electronic databases indicated that Freud was the first
protagonist for the "You say tomaytoe, I say tomartoe" model of instruction. He pointed to differences in style among learners based upon the degree to which they
successfully completed some early developmental stages.
Thus oral learners are those who are fixated at the oral stage or who regress to that style under stress. Bill Clinton is of course a classic oral learner despite Freud's famous
dictum that "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar". All students have an inalienable right to a preferred style of education, and young oral learners are those with a taste for
the savoury - so savoury they must have. "I eat, therefore I learn" provides teachers with the challenge, and thereby the inspiration to meet these students' distinctive needs.
Although much NICHD research is yet to be completed, some empirically validated strategies are that they learn the alphabet best from eating alphabet soup, and the best time
to teach them anything is at lunch-time. Some critics have argued that the force-feeding approach to teaching leads to simple regurgitation of facts; however, this may be the
ideal system for oral learners as it provides learning opportunities at the input stage and the output stage.
The ability-training model has been treated with undue harshness by researchers in recent times. Popularised during the 1960's, it proposed that training the underlying
processes behind any given skill will overcome learning difficulties and accelerate learning. For oral learners, the newest area of research encompasses tongue callisthenics,
epiglottal biofeedback, and mouth aperture training programs in either small group or one-to-one instruction.
Anal learners have always been misunderstood and harshly treated in school. Learning blockages are a common problem, and teaching that does not allow for their specific
zone of proximal development often goes to waste. Anal students have been discriminated against, and their innocent attempts to communicate anally have been met with
disdain, disgust and punishment. Teachers must now become alert to the needs of such students, and provide encouragement for particularly insightful examples of anally
produced responses to, for example, reading comprehension questions. Viewing these contributions as thoughtless flatulence is demeaning to the students, and inevitably
diminishes their self-esteem. Surely we've learned something from the wonderful way in which Facilitated Communication has resolved the communication issue in autism.
As teachers we must become alert to their construction of the world - a term Rogers called "entering their phenomenological field". It is time to desist from the persecution of
anal learners, and instead become attentive and accepting of their natural communication style.
We know that one-way communication is inadequate as a teaching strategy, so teachers need to be trained how to communicate in like manner, just as some learn finger
spelling, sign language or cued articulation to aid those with other special needs. A preliminary survey of young teachers known to be sensitive to student needs has indicated
their preparedness to do whatever it takes to redress this communication problem. Indeed, some remembered (in their teacher training) constructivist professors providing many
lectures that could only be anally-inspired. For those less fortunate teachers, massive in-service re-education will be necessary.
If we are truly to integrate those with such very special talents, we must also make every attempt to normalise their experience. How can a school demonstrate to these
students that they are valued just as they are? It is not hard to imagine a school anal choir. What parents of the anal learners would not feel proud of their children, performing
a beautiful piece of music in their natural and inimitable manner - thereby earning acceptance by teachers and peers alike? It would surely provide validation of their style, and
even improved social cohesion and tolerance in the school.
The overt and covert behaviours of phallic learners have also been misinterpreted in the past. A category with more boys than girls, their apparent self-absorption has tended to
leave them isolated in class and sometimes overlooked by teachers. Paradoxically, they often prefer their educational activities to occur in private, yet relish the opportunity to
display their achievements to the whole class.
The phallic learner has a reputation for having a one-track mind, and thus relatively few variations in teaching strategies are possible. However, inspiration to teachers is
provided by the many successful phallic learners working in the advertising industry. They have demonstrated that it is not difficult to cover a diverse range of topics
while employing only one thematic tool. Teachers should consider the use of the double entendre to hammer home major conceptual points, and the subtle introduction of
Playboy into the beginning reading program. "It's not what you've got, it's the way that you use it" could be their mantra. The phallic learning style appears to be an enduring
one, as in a large scale New York Times survey, many women reported that they had long been aware that most of their partner's cognitive functioning seemed to occur below
the level of the waistline.
Freud's description of the latency period as one in which very little happens obviously fits a significant number of students. The latent learner is one who is not ready for
learning yet, and the appropriate teaching strategy is to do nothing. DO NOT TEACH! We are indebted to the far-sighted whole language pioneers who recognised this group
some time ago, and have ensured developmentally appropriate practice (in this case, no practice) is applied. Though it may be difficult to accept for some teachers, it is the
normal style of these learners to do nothing. Since this is their natural learning style, latent learners should be accepted and celebrated, rather than badgered by well meaning,
but behind the times, instructionally-obsessed teachers. The latent learners' conception of the universe is as valid as any other, and a study of brain-based learning is
recommended for those tempted to shift them into any artificial learning model, such as mastery learning or precision teaching.
So there you have it. An acknowledgement of the wonderful, previously unsuspected diversity in our classrooms can open new vistas to teachers, albeit with a few associated
challenges. Learning styles teachers know that if children are to take risks as learners, then it is incumbent upon teachers to provide the unconditional positive regard (Rogers
again) towards their students' preferred modes of learning. As Marie Carbo clarified so succinctly, when we consider all of these traits as strengths rather than as teaching
problems, difficulties simply evaporate.
Howard Gardner has recently added an eighth intelligence to his Multiple Intelligences framework, but it is obvious that he has barely scratched the surface. Mouth
intelligence, anal intelligence, and phallic intelligence must surely be soon to have their day in the sun. However, the most profound of the Multiple Intelligences must be
latent intelligence. This is an intelligence of which there are no observable signs in any domain.I think we've finally reached that most desirable of educational states -
complete inclusion. Everyone in the world now fits into one or more of the expanded Multiple Intelligences framework. And it's all down to Freud.
Regards,
Kerry
Dr Kerry Hempenstall
Senior Lecturer
Department of Psychology and Disability Studies,
Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology,
Plenty Rd., Bundoora,
Victoria, Australia. 3083.
Ph (61) 9925 7522 Fax (63) 9925 7303
Webpage Address -
rmit.edu.au
e-mail address - kerry.hempenstall@rmit.edu.au
Home e-mail - shiraz1@iprimus.com.au |
