The Art of Learning

by Jennifer Stratton

I've been artsy-craftsy for as long as I can remember. Much of my childhood was spent reading Volume 9 of my Childcraft Encyclopedias; Make & Do under the covers with a flashlight. It was worth it, even if I got caught poring over the bright, slick pages. I spent so many hours reading and crafting from that one volume that tonight when I typed the title into the search engine, the memories took my breath away.  Even after thirty-five years, I still want to color a tiger onto sandpaper with oil pastels and paint a bird onto corrugated cardboard. It was as though the projects came alive for me in that book and I could not wait to do it for myself. It is clear to me now that I am part visual and part kinesthetic learner, meaning that I learn by seeing first, then by doing it! Seems simple, right? 

Learning Styles by Percentage

Well, it is if you are among the 65% of visual learners or the 30% of auditory learners. 

>Teacher writing on a board.<  

>Teacher giving a lecture.<

Schooling is based on the above learning styles and it's been done that way since dinosaurs walked the earth. 

But wait... what about that other 5%... the tactile learners? 

Since I am a visual learner, I of course looked for a pie chart to show the percentages of visual, auditory and tactile learners. Research shows that most females change to visual learning in the second or third grade, while males tend to retain their tactile learning style throughout life. Well damn! This makes so much sense why my second grade kinesthetic daughter is struggling in school and why so many boys struggle and the  rate of male dropouts is so high!

Tactile students learn by doing, touching, wiggling, cartwheeling and generally distracting all the other learners in the class. They are often misdiagnosed as ADHD or Trouble (see that capital T?) Yeah. My sweet, scary-smart eight year old daughter who loves reading, is a natural leader and cannot seem to sit still for 30 minutes was given and "ISS" or In School Suspension a few weeks ago for wiggling and running at the inappropriate time. It has since been retracted, but the fact remains that these learn-by-doing kiddos are getting the short end of the stick! I get it. She is busy. Ok, she is really busy and it's an issue in a traditional classroom. Until I can find a kinesthetic classroom that allows for her to move about the classroom because the "fasten seatbelt light" is off, we have decided to home school her. In our free time. Truthfully, time was a big concern, but how can we not carve out the time to provide her an education in the way that she learns? 

Bonus for Mama; arsty-craftsy activities are kinesthetic! 

If I'm going to home school, there will be art in her learning,
because for my child, learning is an art.