Mythbusting Experiment: "I'm Not a Visual Learner"

I admit it, I have seen more than my fair share of practicing teachers turn ghost-white at my mention of using art -- especially teacher-drawn -- art in their classrooms and in my workshops. I hear cries of, "What if you can't draw?" and "What about students who aren't artistic" and "I'm just not a visual learner" more often than I'd like.

I don't get frustrated with the teachers themselves, though I readily admit to you in every exercise that I have used with students and with teachers, a larger majority of students have bought in and enjoyed it more than some of the teachers have, most likely because I make kids feel comfortable by being comfortable enough to model my own drawing skills, which are slight. I do get frustrated as I look into those teachers' eyes and see a 4th grade teacher tell her child-self "No more books with pictures. It's time for real reading" or see a play role out before me featuring said teacher's child-self and another presence --sometimes adult, sometimes child -- ridicule the person's attempt at visual expression.

Yes, I am convinced that my inner eye is seeing psychological trauma associated with drawing and art and its connection to reading when I deal with many reluctant teachers, who sometimes seem to completely shut down upon knowing I might be asking them to draw.

Contemporary education, with its belittling of the arts and linguistic/logical emphasis, seems to further embed the psychological scars. I know that many believe there is a such thing as a person who isn't a visual learner.

I disagree, excepting the caveat of blindness as it is defined as a medical condition. There may be some of us who are better visual learners than others, and certainly this plays a part in reading because many who have reading issues have trouble visualizing what they read, but every sighted person is a visual learner and a visual reader to some degree.

Don't believe me? Try this experiment:

You'll need:

a desk and chair

a friend

a book you haven't memorized. Preferably one you haven't read.

Steps:

1. Posit the book in your friend's hands. Better yet, let the friend pick a book from a shelf or bring one with him/her.

2. Sit in the chair, then close your eyes.

3. Ask the friend to place the book in front of you on the desk, then ask her open it to a random page, making sure the book's pages lay flat.

4. Keeping your eyes closed, begin reading the book.

Didn't work, did it? Isn't it a strange phenomenon that we often seem to forget that when we read, we're actually using our eyes? We get so caught up in the cognitive aspect of reading we forget the basic sensory aspect and how the sensory-cognitive aspects are actually working together to help us form comprehension. It's like we think the words go straight to our brain, bypassing our corneas and rods and cones all together.

If you can read, you're a visual learner. You might not be as good at learning through visual stimulus as others are, but -- especially if you've ever uttered the phrase "I'm just not a visual learner" -- you're probably better at it than you think.