3 ms·

> Every time someone someone tries to sell me on this tired idea, I ask them: ... Now it might be time to turn the table and ask: is it equally easy for everyo

> Every time someone someone tries to sell me on this tired idea, I ask them: ... Now it might be time to turn the table and ask: is it equally easy for everyone to learn bird calls? Or maybe people have different abilities? Edit: my point is not that this hasn't been used to sell a lot of useless ideas but rather that people are actually different. For your bird call example the obvious way to learn it is by listening. Other times it is less obvious. A kid with severe dyslexia will probably learn history easier by listening while other kids will prefer to read it at my own pace (i.e. fast).

pphysch 9y ago
"Learning history" is an interesting example. As far as actually studying history goes, one needs to carefully examine real evidence, and restructuring the evidence in a way that is appealing to the observer's "style" is almost certainly damaging to its authenticity. To a large extent, user preference shouldn't even be a factor here. OTOH, "textbook history" is, bluntly, mostly about memorizing fact/oids embedded in a highly curated narrative. That a dyslexic student has trouble finding the needle in the haystack isn't surprising, but to me it suggests that we shouldn't have students digging in haystacks in the first place. I'm certain that a more topographically-simple representation of the "historical facts" would be beneficial to all parties. More charitably, though, part of the goal of reading textbooks is to develop textual parsing (reading) skills, so again if you take that away from a dyslexic student, what are you really trying to accomplish as an educator? Making them feel good? FWIW, I have a friend who was very dyslexic, but managed to overcome it in high school, not coincidentally while he was taking a series of relatively rigorous history classes that involved a lot of reading and writing--now he reads a hell of a lot more than me. YMMV, of course.
- reitanqild 9y ago
  > More charitably, though, part of the goal of reading textbooks is to develop textual parsing (reading) skills, so again if you take that away from a dyslexic student, what are you really trying to accomplish as an educator? Making them feel good? No. You make the pass every mandatory exam. Many of the pupils who struggle most at school makes excellent carpenters, fishermen, chefs etc. Source: my father is a specialist teacher and tells me he get really good feedback on some of those who have struggled to even pass mandatory subjects. And if reading barely passes and they get a medium good grade in some other subjects because they learnt better from audio books that is so much better than barely passing in all those subjects, right? Not everyone is cut to be an engineer. Not everyone even wants which is why I argue that in addition to teaching more STEM, earlier we should also work to increase the status of other professions.

pphysch 9y ago

"Learning history" is an interesting example. As far as actually studying history goes, one needs to carefully examine real evidence, and restructuring the evidence in a way that is appealing to the observer's "style" is almost certainly damaging to its authenticity. To a large extent, user preference shouldn't even be a factor here. OTOH, "textbook history" is, bluntly, mostly about memorizing fact/oids embedded in a highly curated narrative. That a dyslexic student has trouble finding the needle in the haystack isn't surprising, but to me it suggests that we shouldn't have students digging in haystacks in the first place. I'm certain that a more topographically-simple representation of the "historical facts" would be beneficial to all parties. More charitably, though, part of the goal of reading textbooks is to develop textual parsing (reading) skills, so again if you take that away from a dyslexic student, what are you really trying to accomplish as an educator? Making them feel good? FWIW, I have a friend who was very dyslexic, but managed to overcome it in high school, not coincidentally while he was taking a series of relatively rigorous history classes that involved a lot of reading and writing--now he reads a hell of a lot more than me. YMMV, of course.

reitanqild 9y ago
> More charitably, though, part of the goal of reading textbooks is to develop textual parsing (reading) skills, so again if you take that away from a dyslexic student, what are you really trying to accomplish as an educator? Making them feel good? No. You make the pass every mandatory exam. Many of the pupils who struggle most at school makes excellent carpenters, fishermen, chefs etc. Source: my father is a specialist teacher and tells me he get really good feedback on some of those who have struggled to even pass mandatory subjects. And if reading barely passes and they get a medium good grade in some other subjects because they learnt better from audio books that is so much better than barely passing in all those subjects, right? Not everyone is cut to be an engineer. Not everyone even wants which is why I argue that in addition to teaching more STEM, earlier we should also work to increase the status of other professions.