
Teachers must ditch 'neuromyth' of learning styles, say scientists - rrherr
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/mar/13/teachers-neuromyth-learning-styles-scientists-neuroscience-education
======
teslabox
It would be more helpful to ditch the 'myth' that age-segregated classrooms
are an improvement over the one-room school house.

It used to be that education was something people did for themselves. Parents
or a teacher would help children learn what they wanted to learn, when they
were ready to learn it. Modern schooling forces children to learn on the
teacher's schedule.

John Taylor Gatto wrote extensively of the corrupt nature of institutionalized
schooling 15-20 years ago. I guess it's not polite to point out that the
system is rigged against children, so Mr. Gatto's insights into more effective
teaching have been successfully ignored in recent years.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Taylor_Gatto#Main_thesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Taylor_Gatto#Main_thesis)

"Against School: How Public Education Cripples our Kids, and Why" \-
[http://www.wesjones.com/gatto1.htm](http://www.wesjones.com/gatto1.htm)

Archive.org should have the complete text of "The Underground History of
American Education", which was formerly posted in its entirety at
[http://www.JohnTaylorGatto.com](http://www.JohnTaylorGatto.com)

Also search for "I quit, I think", and ... "The Seven Lesson Schoolteacher"...
several copies of these essays are scattered around the internet.

~~~
bluGill
I do not want kids who learn only what they are interested in. I know too many
adults who don't like to read, hate math... - they never would have learned to
read or do basic math if they had not been forced at some point.

Learning what you are interested in is fine when you have the basics and want
to fill some time. It doesn't matter to me if you learn to welding or piano -
both are interesting and could potentially make you money, but neither is core
to life. You could add hundreds of other things to that list.

Learning can start with your interested, but at some time you will realize
something is hard. At that point you need something higher to force you to
buckle down and study when it isn't fun anymore. I think all great piano
players can tell you that there was a time their tried to stop playing
completely and their parents didn't allow it.

~~~
spraak
I think you're missing the point, maybe because you too went through a
traditional school? Most kids in traditional schools who don't want to do math
or read because they don't have something hard or interesting to motivate
them. But in free school settings the focus is first on what you want to
accomplish and then how to do that, which most often then involves learning to
read, write and math as an avenue to achieve something greater. It's similar
to your pianist example but the motivation is internal. I wouldn't want to
force any child to continue doing something they don't like just because I see
value in it. I highly doubt "all great piano players" have been coerced that
way. And those who have are probably out of touch with what they really want
to be doing. Just because you can be great at something doesn't make it your
calling.

~~~
Balgair
"Most kids in traditional schools who don't want to do math or read because
they don't have something hard or interesting to motivate them."

Yeah, I'm gonna call shenanigans here. SO is a HS teacher, her kids _really
really really_ do not want to learn. They want to either play Minecraft,
snapchat their genitals to each other, watch porn, or just gossip between
themselves. Oh and drugs and sex in the bathroom, as usual. Occasionally, they
turn to real crime and assault each other (one is still in a coma), pimp
themselves out on Instagram for money (either sex), or hurt themselves
(suicide clusters, it's 'a thing' now [1]). For about 1/3rd of her kids, if
they come to school stoned to Pluto or drunk as skunks, that's a victory; at
least they came to school and weren't out committing felonies or having
felonies committed against them.

Look, the super-crunchy idea of kids that are naturally curious is really just
... rich and _white_. Like, kids in an inner city/dense urban environment have
waaaaaay more serous shit to deal with. They get raped habitually by their
mother's many 'boyfriends', they don't eat all weekend and if they do it's 2
bags of Cheetos, they have drugs forced on them by family members that really
do think pot is medicine and can cure everything, their parents think school
is nonsense and they should start working the fields to earn something for the
family, etc. You ideas are great, but that is not how life is these days,
poverty and racism fucking suck.

[1] Not my SO's state, but a good overview:
[http://www.newsweek.com/2016/10/28/teen-suicide-
contagious-c...](http://www.newsweek.com/2016/10/28/teen-suicide-contagious-
colorado-springs-511365.html)

~~~
wyldfire
> SO is a HS teacher, her kids really really really do not want to learn. ...
> [lots of examples of bad behavior at school and awful things that happen to
> kids]

Your point does seem reasonable that many kids would not thrive at all in a
self-directed learning environment. But maybe you also (unintentionally) make
the point that they shouldn't be in the traditional school either?

What is the function of the traditional school for students whose motivations
are so far apart from the school's? Merely to detain them to avoid the bad
behavior near their homes? Do those kids grow up to be adults who think "thank
goodness I went to high school otherwise I would have done yet more
crime+drugs?"

~~~
Balgair
Yeah, so Betsy DeVos is like a broken clock here; she is narrowly right but
for all the wrong reasons. Charter schools are heavily used in a neighboring
school district, most are publicly funded though. They are doing _great_
there. Many many reasons also come into that issue, but suffice to say that
school uniforms, school lunches, strict no-phone policies, and a lack of a
restorative-justice model really do help. Well that and a lack of racist
elderly turbo-republican voters that will never raise a levy for new taxes for
the schools. As I say in another comment, the main issue here is the poverty.
I have no idea how to solve that, but I know chromebooks aren't a part of it.

Yeah, we're bitter, we know.

~~~
zorak
I think the biggest factor in the success of those schools isn't any specific
policy. It's the selection bias. These kids have at least one parent/guardian
that cares enough to put in the minimal effort required to get the kid in a
different school. Some charters require parent volunteers, which ups the bar
again. What actually happens in school might not matter as much as having the
home support you need to be successful.

------
aphextron
This myth has always particularly annoyed me. It's like when people say "I'm a
visual learner". Of course you are. You are a human being. We all learn things
more effectively when they are displayed visually in an intuitive way. It's
the same mindset that feeds into people thinking they "just aren't a math
person". You're not special, it's just pop science BS designed to make people
feel better in their laziness.

~~~
bberrry
I think there can be some merit to "styles". Personally I have a hard time
focusing when reading something (possibly adult ADD but I haven't sought a
professional opinion) which is why I find YouTube videos much more helpful if
I am to learn something.

~~~
ordu
This "style" is just some habits of your attention. Your attention was trained
to focus on movie, but was not trained enough to focus on book. You can use
some behavioral training approaches to make youself attentive while reading
(without much effort), or inattentive while watching movies. So this "style"
is no more than a habit, that reinforces itself.

This is not some kind of disorder, its just habits. I cannot attentively watch
movies full of speaking heads, where no guns, fires, fights and other funny
things. I would better read book, article, or something like. And this is not
disorder also, just a habit. If I'll need to use movies for learning, I train
my attention to concentrate on movies. Its not a problem, though it needs some
time and effort.

~~~
Broken_Hippo
I'm likely mildly dyslexic. I get my left and right mixed up. I am horrible at
spelling, even after practice. I'm nearly 39. I share much of the same habits
as the poster - reading is much better if I've gotten the basics introduced
orally. Reading in a quiet library? I hear every paper shuffle and I have to
start the paragraph or page over again. I already have to read some texts a
few times to get a bit of substance from it. Some things, I simply can't learn
by myself from reading, even if I'm interested in the subject.

And I actually enjoy reading. It just goes slowly and takes a lot of mental
effort especially if it is something long or involved.

Learning to focus attention correctly is only part of the issue for some of
us. For myself, I wish they would have caught my stuff when I was a kid
instead of figuring this stuff out trying to learn the language of a country I
moved to.

------
Pulcinella
For those wondering what is meant by learning styles. I've written this in the
past:

Commonly, with learning styles a student was considered an auditory, visual,
or kinesthetic learner. Timmy is an auditory leaner? He should learn to
calculate voltage through lectures and song.

Timmy is a visual learner? He should learn to calculate voltage through
pictures and diagrams.

Timmy is a kinesthetic learner? He should learn to calculate voltage through
dance.

It's a shallow understanding of how learning really happens. No one learned
how to throw a football by singing about it and no one has a strong
understanding of circuits and how to design them just by listening to
lectures.

~~~
maxxxxx
I think knowledge about auditory, visual, or kinesthetic is still very useful.
For example, I mainly learn by doing or reading. If someone gives me a lecture
I will remember almost nothing later.

It's not the answer to everything but it helps to think about it..

~~~
Retra
It doesn't really help, though. When a student fails to learn something, it
doesn't do any good to sit around wondering what "kind of learner" they are.
You need to figure out what actually stopped then from learning. Students need
to be able to learn from the world they live in, not from some meticulously
sterilized learning laboratory.

If you can't learn from a lecture, you need to solve that problem by figuring
out how to actually change yourself to learn from a lecture, not by avoiding
lectures. You need to understand what can actually be learned from a lecture
and what needs additional outside experience.

~~~
gizmo686
It depends who "you" are. If you are a student, your job is to maximize your
learning given the instruction provided [0]. If you are a teacher, your job is
to maximize your teaching given your students ability. One way to do this
might be to train the student to learn a certain way. Another way to do this
might be to train yourself to teach a certain way. The optimal solution
probably involves having both students trained to learn, and teachers trained
to teach. This begs the question of what "optimal teaching" is. More
specifically, is optimal teaching lectures? I don't know the answer to this
question, but it sure is useful to have scientists looking into it.

>Students need to be able to learn from the world they live in, not from some
meticulously sterilized learning laboratory.

So, not from lectures?

[0] or seek out more appropriate instruction.

~~~
Retra
Lectures serve a purpose. People tend treat them like comedy shows where they
get a series of punchlines and hope it gives them a satisfying giggle of
enlightenment. You're _supposed_ to walk into a lecture already knowing the
punchlines. Then you can spend that time exploring how to optimally organize
the information in your brain and cleaning up misunderstandings. It is almost
impossible to pay attention to a full lecture. Your mind will wander. That's
why you have to have a cursory familiarity before you approach them. And then
you can enjoy having your mind wander, because it will wander into good
questions, insights, and interesting relationships. Learning will happen. If
you're prepared.

If someone isn't learning during a lecture, it's because they're not spending
enough time on the subject outside of the lectures. It's not because they have
an alternative "learning style". That would be like saying sitting on the
couch is an "alternative dancing style." It's not a matter of _style_ , it's a
matter of understanding where you have to put your effort to achieve those
goals. Maybe they weren't taught to do it. Maybe they've just never tried.
Maybe things are in the way.

In the end, _lectures are cheap_. And this matters. You _need_ to learn how to
extract good knowledge from cheap sources. If you can't do that, then good
luck convincing anybody to invest more in you over those that _can_.

~~~
gizmo686
I am not defending the concept of "learning styles"; the scientists cited in
the article are undoubtedly more qualified that I on that subject. I was
responding to the claim that the problem is students who cannot learn from
lectures, and the solution is to teach children to learn from lectures. That
might be the case; but I was pointing out that another option to consider was
changing our method of instruction (either away from lectures entirely, to a
hybrid system, or even to a better form of lectures); and it is counter
productive to dismiss this path out of hand.

I will also point out that the article is an attack on "learning styles", not
a defense of lectures. Responding to some of your points:

>You're supposed to walk into a lecture already knowing the punchlines.

This was not my experience through high-school. Most of my class's in high-
school and before would assign readings _after_ the corresponding lecture;
often times I would not even know what to study before the lecture.

Even in college my experience is different. Ignoring the useless lectures, I
found that most of my lectures were more useful before I studied the material.
This is probably heavily biased by subject matter: most of my useful lectures
are in math, where the lecture serves as a broad overview of the material,
which serves as a foundation for when I open the textbook to dig into the
details. [0].

In contrast, in my linguistic classes, it is essential that I read the
material before class: the lecture would simply not make sense without the
reading, and what was being presented in lecture is often not present in the
textbook. Having said that, and thinking more about those classes, it seems
like my linguistics professors are aware of these issues: while textbook
readings come before lectures, research paper readings are almost always come
between lectures (eg. we would talk about an experiment and the results, then
read the paper at home, then talk about the results again).

Again, the question is not lectures vs learning styles. The question in the
article is "learning styles?", to which the answer seems to be no. This does
not necessarily mean that the answer is lectures. And it almost certainly does
not mean lectures in their current form.

[0] As an aside, this is probably a deficit in my ability to learn math. The
"correct" way to learn math is to first go over the material once, then go
back and understand the material in a second go-through. I have trouble doing
the first step without the lecture environment forcing me not to jump straight
to the second.

------
lr4444lr
A much welcome public statement on this matter. When I was teaching and I
chanced upon a colleague who was overzealous about the learning styles theory,
I used to respond - if you had a child whom you pegged or tested as a "visual
learner" and you wanted to teach him how to distinguish between different bird
calls, you'd seriously have him do something like study oscilloscope graphs of
the sound waves rather than having him actually listen to the calls?

Taken to its logical conclusion, it defies reason and even basic experience
that any knowledge and skills can be better transmitted when conveyed in the
modality that lies in learner's unique strengths.

~~~
julian_1
> oscilloscope graphs of the sound waves

I agree with your point in respect to the over-emphasis of particular leaning
styles in the classroom.

At the same time the oscilloscope example is intriguing, since I could easily
imagine research scientists using FFT, and wavelet decomposition to classify
bird-calls as primary research. So I wonder if there is anything intrinsically
wrong with the idea of using an oscilloscope in the classroom at lower-levels
as part of a teaching strategy?

Meanwhile drama classes might be trying to get students to mimic bird calls -
which also seems like a valid learning experience.

~~~
lr4444lr
Sure, because in the case where differentiation of very similar signals is
necessary, the human ear is too obtuse an organ of measurement. You might show
kids the output from such an instrument as a brief exhibit piece in explaining
a more relatable scientific fact such a tool would allow us to discover, e.g.
that birds can pick out their own chicks' cries from those of their fellow
species kin, but that's teaching about the _bird 's_ sensitivity. Not
developing the learner's ability to analyze that. You would not use an
oscilloscope as a means to teach the sparrow's call from the blue jay's from
the robin's from the jackdaw's.

------
ashark
> “I think the fad about learning styles faded long ago, and I would be
> surprised if many schools continued to subscribe to the approach. That said,
> the notion of making teaching and learning more varied in classrooms is
> helpful and likely to motivate a wider range of students,” he said.

LOL no. It's faded in research and education-policy nerd circles, maybe. It's
still everywhere in pop culture and among actual k-12 educators. Questioning
it will likely get you disapproving looks from teachers, principals, and so
on.

(at least in the Midwestern US. Like everything else, until someone comes
along selling some BS curriculum/training package that tells them it's wrong,
they'll continue to think it's true. Source: am married to a teacher who's
taught in 3 states, and am [separately] friends with a bunch of others)

~~~
nathanasmith
I took a hobby related class at the local community college last year and one
of the first things the professor had us do was take a quiz to determine our
"learning style". For the rest of the semester, she deferred to each person's
results when giving personal attention. I had long been aware that learning
styles aren't backed up by any real evidence and can even be detrimental, but
I figured I'd rather just deal with it than look like the old fogey in the
class who thinks he knows everything trying to make the teacher look bad.

At any rate, this kind of junk is alive and well at least where I live.

------
oobey
So, how should kids be taught? Since learning styles are a myth, would it be
okay to skip in-person lessons entirely and just move everyone to individual
text-based book learning?

After all, it looks like the idea that "someone might learn better in person"
or "by discussing things with peers" is complete bunk, and one method should
be sufficient for everyone.

~~~
adamnemecek
Amen! I've been saying this for years. Do you know your MBTI type by any
chance?

~~~
oobey
Yes, it's ISTJ.

------
timthorn
The letter itself possibly carries more information than the article:
[https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/mar/12/no-
evidenc...](https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/mar/12/no-evidence-to-
back-idea-of-learning-styles)

------
andrewflnr
And yet, I continue to see anecdotal evidence that something like learning
styles do exist. Granted, they don't always fit the classic
visual/kinesthetic/auditory classification. For instance, I often learn a new
topic best by reading about it, while some friends do better watching videos.
And I think we all know that different explanations on hard topics work for
different people.

Other people here have talked about stupid things people have done because of
a simplistic understanding of learning styles. Ok, fine. Obviously you need to
learn a topic in its own medium, and there's limits to what you can teach with
song and dance. But let's do enough experiments to actually figure out what's
going on, and not throw the baby out with the bathwater. There's clearly
_something_ there, IMO, even if it's relatively insignificant.

~~~
karlkatzke
I think it's more appropriate to say that some people have deficits in taking
in information in particular ways. Someone with an auditory processing
disorder will not retain spoken information, for instance.

What bugs me about the OP article is that they pan "learning styles"
consistently without saying what should be used instead, and I have to assume
that the instead is something that only makes sense to neuroscientists and
looks a lot like "learning styles" if you explain it to a layman.

------
oliwarner
All my favourite teachers had one thing in common: passion. They liked their
subject and they liked teaching it.

I don't necessarily disagree with the post or the people behind what's being
reported, but telling teachers how to teach seems like you're going to pick
away at them, and with it their passion for their job.

------
kutkloon7
"[...] research in 2012 among teachers in the UK and Netherlands found that
80% believed individuals learned better when they received information in
their preferred learning style."

What a weird way to put it. Do the others think it makes absolutely no
difference in what form the information is presented?

------
ArialAnemone
Public Schools are horrific squanderings of societal wealth and innumerable
years of cognition.

They socialize children into diets that bring on pre-diabetes and diabetes.

It's absolute quackery to say that the massive resources spent have anything
near a positive return for most kids.

Schools are for the benefit of administrators and unionized teachers imo.

~~~
peterwwillis
Schools are for the benefit of parents.

~~~
ArialAnemone
Schools are for the benefit of of people who rarely have anything invested in
the growth of any one student.

It's robbing taxpayers, demanding draconian control of kids, both physically
and legally. The money that is funneled into "teaching" kids is obscene.
Instead of smaller scale private schools, we have black holes of mismanagement
that we call public schooling.

And it's for the benefit of people in the ponzi scheme in charge of students.
I can't imagine children learning any notable skills.

Think of how it utterly fails black communities. Instead of sex segregated
them, and destroying the rationale for petty histrionic behavior, you put
teens together and enable peacocking behaviors which destroys classroom
ambiance.

Imagine how stupid you have to be to say "public schools are for the benefit
of the children" when rich people use private schools as a way to cement
social immobility.

It's beyond the pale how many wasted moments exist in the graveyard of
bureacratically run education.

------
zorak
The Dunning-Kruger is strong in this thread. So many misconceptions!

------
sinxoveretothex
This article is a great example of how to write hundreds of words to say "this
doesn't work".

This is literally what this article is. "X says learning styles doesn't work",
"Y says he's concerned that teachers are taught learning styles even though he
thinks they don't work", etc.

I was hoping they would at least quote someone explaining the problem simply
and offer a potential solution. Instead, the comments here did a better job at
that.

I nominate Sally Weale as a useless journalist.

~~~
watwut
Debunking popular but bad science is a good thing. It is enough to say that
science is bad. You do not need to replace it with another theory.

------
steffann
Teaching should include a mix of learning styles so everybody gets at least
some information in their preferred style as a starting point.

~~~
Pulcinella
The article is about how learning styles are bunk...

~~~
jecel
There is a group of scientists claiming to have done experiments proving the
idea of learning styles is false. Without more details, I am sceptical.

I went to school in the 1970s and many teachers demanded that all students
copy in their notebooks everything they wrote on the blackboard. To me that
made going to class useless. I would get more and more behind and at the end
of the class would not remember anything - I might as well have just stayed
home. Fortunately for me I didn't actually need the classes since just reading
the books was enough.

Most of my classmates, on the other hand, learned quite a lot as a side effect
of this copying. Some actually would copy a second time from the "scratch
notebook" to the "clean notebook" when they got home. That was an important
part of their learning style. Those teachers that imposed copying in their
classes probably had the same style and thought it would be good for
everybody.

When the blackboard got replaced by overhead projectors and then by
PowerPoint, copying the text was no longer an option (specially if the lights
were dimmed). It also wasn't needed since the teachers would distribute copies
of their slides to the class. This style (with its faster pace) was way more
effective for me but I could see that many (if not most) other students were
learning a lot less.

So if someone has experiments proving that a "one size fits all" teaching
method is best, I would like to see it.

~~~
tdb7893
There is pervasive myth that how students learn best can practically be
separated into discreet styles such as the "listening" style or the "visual"
style, and that is what the article is saying is not a useful idea. I don't
think the article is arguing at all that "one size fits all" for education.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
If it's not "one-size fits all" doesn't that mean different modes are
preferable for different students, wouldn't it be reasonable to call these
modes "styles"?

The article sounds like a straw man, I can readily believe that someone
identified as "listening style" only getting education aurally would be
ineffective; but that doesn't mean that reinforcing information update
aurally, or using a communication style of learning won't help, surely.

Personally I found I need to write to acquire information, an important part
of learning; also doodling helps me digest complex information. I'm quite
visual in some ways, I can't do directions but a glance at a map does work for
me - similarly I usually need a mental picture to hang further learning on.
Fractal geometry came easily to me but I've never managed to grok hypercubes
as I can't really conjure a mental model, etc..

I'd absolutely agree that pigeonholing people as "style X" and educating them
separately is probably not good, personally I've never come across that in
teaching.

~~~
watwut
" If it's not "one-size fits all" doesn't that mean different modes are
preferable for different students, wouldn't it be reasonable to call these
modes "styles"?"

Not really, because a.) it is often situational b.) you can get better at
learning with other "style" if you are exposed to it more c.) it is more of a
scale then discreet grouping.

The individualization is not so much about always talking vs always reading.
It is more about identifying individual stumbling spot, figuring out what the
child missed in prerequisities, whether the child does not develop
faster/slower then expectation, adjusting breaks to individual attention span
and so on.

