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I See the Forest When I was in second grade I had the worst time learning how to tell time. In fact, to this day I still have a little trouble. Clearly, I didn’t have trouble reading a digital clock, but when it came to reading the hand of a clock I failed miserably and usually was reduced to tears. At the time I couldn’t understand why I was having so much trouble. I was in the top reading group in my class, and one of the chosen few in the Intervale Elementary School gifted and talented program. At that point in my academic career, I had never failed at something before and I quickly became very frustrated. Regardless, I eventually figured it out, but it took a very long time. I also had a lot of trouble learning multiplication and division. I specifically remember getting so frustrated I couldn’t figure out my math homework, I ripped it up. I soon realized at an early age that I had trouble learning certain things and in subjects like math and science, concepts took me longer to learn. The problems continued, as I got older. When I reached middle school and high school, it was clear that I was far from a math and science student, yet excelled in English, history, and the arts. In fact, when I was a sophomore in high school my chemistry teacher advised me to never take physics or calculus and instead suggested statistics and environmental studies because I would have “trouble understanding the concepts and principals”. By the time I had graduated high school, I knew that I was a right-brained learner. Luckily for me, my mother was a teacher who strongly believed in the notion of different learning styles as well as different intelligences, therefore my mother was able to help me when my teachers could not. She understood the concept that not everybody learns the same way and she in turn helped me adapt and integrate my styles with my teacher’s style. It was difficult but eventually I was able to catch on. Interestingly I found myself integrating my styles further when I went to college. I found it difficult that in college many of my classes were based on lectures. It took me a while to adjust, but now I am able to sit through and understand a three-hour lecture where just 3 years ago I had problem paying attention in a one-hour class. It was until this class, where I was able to physically see the classification of a right-brained learner. Characteristics like use visualization, accident prone, creative, like humor, rely on images for thinking and remembering, need touching, and need to have goals set for them, are all things that describe me and my learning preferences.
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