Reason #4: Learning Styles

Everybody is a genius.

But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.

- Albert Einstein

I'm pretty confident that if Cap goes to school, he will be a terror to his teachers.  I've had almost two years of this experience to back me up.  Even on the days when he's not causing general disruption, he doesn't do all of his work.  The thing that bothers me most is that Cap seems to be a different child when he's at school.  My sweet little guy is already planting flowers because we're going to have a baby girl and when she grows up she might want to get married and he wants to make sure she has plenty of flowers on her "married day".  My boy insists on taking milk to the food pantry because somewhere there is a little boy who doesn't have a home to live in and he probably doesn't have any milk to drink.  Yet every progress report that has come home from school has noted that he does not consider the needs of others.

I'm pretty sure the reason for this disconnect has a lot to do with his learning styles.  I think there is a lot of truth in Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences.  It's pretty clear to me that Cap is a logical-mathematical, bodily-kinethetic & interpersonal learner.  While the logical learners tend to do pretty well in school, bodily-kinethetic & interpersonal learners often struggle.  Bodily-kinethetic learners use their bodies to learn.  Sit Cap at a table and tell him not to move and he's not going to learn much.  Give him freedom to tap his fingers, lay on the floor, walk around the room and he keys in.  In the same way, tell the little social learner to quietly work on a page and he'll be daydreaming in a minute.  Give him the chance to talk with others, ask questions and converse about the subject and he's eager to learn. 

The trouble is that letting kids wander around and talk freely is a recipe for disaster in a classroom.  It's pretty hard to manage a large group of kids when they are given these freedoms.  So the kids who learn best in these ways have to find other ways to adapt.  In Cap's case his movement and social inclinations have found the outlet of disruption.  On my visits to his class, it seems to me that Cap often assumes the role of class clown.  He's always looking to get a laugh out of his friends.  His need to explore his surrounding with movement and conversation is being expressed in ways that are inappropriate for a classroom setting and he gets in trouble.  A lot.

And the preschool years are the most movement and social oriented time of traditional education.  I tremble to consider what would be in store for us as Cap got further and further along in an increasingly rigid school structure.  Considering his particular interests and his learning styles together makes me think we would be doing his potential teachers a favor by letting Cap learn at home. ;)  At home he can have the freedom to move around and talk with a variety of people about his questions and hypotheses.  I'm excited about the possibility (and the challenge) of helping my little guy learn in ways that are in line with the unique individual God created him to be, rather than trying to fit him into a system where he is going to feel like a fish trying to climb a tree.