Daily Prompt | BulgingButtons

December 8, 2013
by BulgingButtons 29 Comments

Daily Prompt: Learning Style

As an educator (I teach fourth grade students) I think about learning styles a great deal. Every day I am charged with teaching children concepts that are often confusing and difficult to understand.

I have been teaching for quite a while, and I know that different learners need different experiences, but in a classroom of approximately 30 students, I cannot offer 30 individualized lessons, that’s why I have to mix things up. Besides, when we are confronted with new experiences, we don’t get to stop and request that they be presented to us in a particular style, now do we? Sometimes we have to gather information by hearing it, other times by reading it or attempting to perform some task. Experience with all of these is important, even if someone is clearly stronger in one area than in others.

There are those who would propose that we can learn anything by reading a book on the topic, however, would a book be the most effective way to learn to play an instrument? Wouldn’t you have to hear the notes and watch how the instrument is manipulated in order to produce certain sounds?

Likewise, it would be difficult to become a proficient athlete without actually suiting up and trying out different movements and routines. I can read about ice skating all day long or watch a fine skater perform, or listen to a lecture on skating, but I will not learn to skate until I get on the ice and start moving.

I consider myself to be a very visual person. Many people are visual learners, which I believe is why so many of us are horrified by the idea of losing our vision. Our main method of taking in information would be eliminated, and we find this terrifying. At least I do. When I see things I can often make sense of them. Reading is an excellent way for me to learn, and when there are visuals, either photos, charts, maps, or better yet video, involved, I learn even better.

Still, I do believe in the age old saying (attributed to I don’t know whom and I’m too lazy to go searching, sorry) “Tell me and I will forget, show me and I may remember, let me do it and I will learn.”

I find this to be especially true when I take quilting classes. I have been a quilter for well over twenty years, and I have taken class after class after class. It’s not because I’m incompetent. It’s primarily because I enjoy the company of other quilters, and I like to see how they interpret the same ideas using their vision and their materials. I also learn something new with every class I take, sometimes from the instructor and sometimes from the other students. I listen to them, I watch them demonstrate the technique, then I practice the technique. If I wish to go in a slightly different direction with my work I’m generally encouraged to do so.

All of this is done in a supportive, non-threatening atmosphere. There is no test at the end. No panel from the state will be walking through to see how I’m doing, and the teacher’s boss isn’t breathing down her neck with a check sheet to make sure she has covered the same topics that every other quilt teacher has covered, whether they apply to this class or not. At the end of the class I evaluate my own progress. Have I accomplished what I sought out to do? Do I need more practice with this technique? Is there something else I should try to improve my work? What do my peers think? What does the instructor think? How will I incorporate their feedback? Ultimately, it is up to me.

I wish I could provide more of this type of learning atmosphere to my students. I wish I could provide more time for exploration and discovery, more materials for them to manipulate and experiment with, and more options for showcasing and sharing their knowledge and learning process. I wish I could limit the number of standardized tests they are required to complete, and I wish I could eliminate some of the content I’m expected to cram into their fragile heads each year, in order to spend more time on topics of importance that fascinate and engage them. My biggest wish, though, is that they will continue to love learning, for the sake of learning, not for the sake of the test or the grade. If I can help them do that, I have succeeded.

What’s your learning style? Do you prefer learning in a group and in an interactive setting? Or one-on-one? Do you retain information best through lectures, or visuals, or simply by reading books?

Trackbacks & Pingbacks

December 1, 2013
by BulgingButtons 33 Comments

Daily Prompt: Tattoo You?

I grew up in a household where the phrase, “Moses said not to write on your skin,” was pronounced anytime there was a pen mark on my hand. Forget about writing phone numbers on it, it wasn’t worth the reprimand. I honestly don’t know what Moses said exactly, but I do know that Jewish people don’t get tattoos. At least they didn’t.

When I was a kid I wasn’t sheltered from the horrors of the Holocaust. It was because of that catastrophic event that my parents were in America, and that they met and formed our family. It was a horrible tragedy, one we need to know about and talk about and discuss with others, lest they forget or, heaven forbid, don’t believe it. As a kid I didn’t understand this mindset, and thought that my parents, my father especially, watched too many documentaries, read too many books, paid too much attention to this awful thing. It made me nervous and frightened as a child. I had a plan to hide in a certain spot should Nazis come to round us up some night.

As part of my exposure to all of this horror, I was also taught about the meticulous record keeping that the Nazis did, numbering their prisoners and keeping track of their inventory of humanity. I learned of the number each prisoner was assigned and how it was tattooed on his or her arm. I met survivors who bared their arms to show their numbers. They had been brutalized and wanted the world to know that it was real. It happened.

One afternoon when I was about 10, I was on an errand with my mother. We were in a shop that had a large book area, and I occupied myself there as I waited for her. What I found both fascinated and horrified me. There was a book filled with images of items that had been created with the tattooed skin of Nazi prisoners. There was a wallet and there were lampshades and other items. I know many people consider these tales to be urban legends, but I know they are all too real.

These early experiences with tattoos, along with my father’s admonition that tattoos were an indication of a violent personality, steered me away from tattoos. I never really thought about getting one for myself. Okay, maybe for about five seconds after my divorce, but then I snapped out of it. It turns out that my father wasn’t completely wrong about tattoos and crime. Our county has a database of its criminals, and tattoos are photographed and recorded (not so different from those earlier record keepers). I have it on good authority that about 98% of the people in the database have some sort of tattoo somewhere. Some of the criminals have the most horrific tattoos, including Vikings on the forehead, skulls on the face, and obscenities around the mouth. You kiss your grandmother with that mouth? Ew.

Last summer the border agent at the bridge to Canada told me that we (son, mother, and I) didn’t look like trouble. I asked what trouble looked like, and without missing a beat he answered, “neck tattoos.” I’m quite sure he was serious. Now maybe that’s unfair to the vast majority of neck tattoo wearers, but it is a common perception, and one held by someone in authority (hey, he can keep you out of his country).

I am well aware that having a tattoo does not make one a criminal. There are people in my life whom I adore who have tattoos. I know times have changed, and I know lots of very loving, nonviolent people who have tattoos, but they just aren’t for me. Some of them are pretty, like my friend’s giant floral design up her leg and hip, some are quirky, like the little Martian scene on another friend’s back, and some are flat out gross, like the goose stepping Nazis on one of the prisoners. I’m not a huge fan of tattoos, but I try not to judge a book by its cover either. I don’t hate them but I don’t love them. I do appreciate the artistry that can go into them, and the sentiment behind many of them. As for me, though, I prefer to keep my skin unadorned.

Do you have a tattoo? If so, what’s the story behind your ink? If you don’t have a tattoo, what might you consider getting emblazoned on you skin?

Trackbacks & Pingbacks

November 20, 2013
by BulgingButtons 3 Comments

Daily Prompt: Fright Night Take Two

Everything scares me. The television show Fear Factor was beyond my ability to comprehend. I would have been too afraid to do any of the things that those contestants did for the opportunity to win a monetary prize. I cannot imagine the drive for money being greater than the drive for self preservation.

Scary movies send me running for cover, and it’s been years since I’ve read a frightening book. I dislike being afraid. I feel my heart rate increase, my stress level rise, and an inability to think clearly overwhelms me. And people do this for fun? No thank you. In fact, the issue of fear is one that I prefer to avoid all together.

Of all the fears I have, I think the biggest one is that something bad would happen to my son. I am a parent. It’s my responsibility to be afraid for him. Money wouldn’t make me face my fears, but love for my child is a different story. Who knows how any of us will behave in a given situation? People say they know, but I’m not one of those people. I believe that my love for my child would cause me to rise above my fears, but I can’t be certain. Since I can’t be sure, I have to do everything in my power to make sure he is far from danger. Impossible? Yes, but in my opinion a worthy pursuit.

What’s the thing you’re most scared to do? What would it take to get you to do it?