A Mind at a Time: America's Top Learning Expert Shows How Every Child Can Succeed - Softcover

Levine, Mel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0743202236 ISBN 13: 9780743202237

Verlag: Simon & Schuster, 2003

Inhaltsangabe

"Different minds learn differently," writes Dr. Mel Levine, one of the best-known learning experts and pediatricians in America today. Some students are strong in certain areas and some are strong in others, but no one is equally capable in all. Yet most schools still cling to a one-size-fits-all education philosophy. As a result, many children struggle because their learning patterns don't fit the way they are being taught.
In his #1 New York Times bestseller A Mind at a Time, Dr. Levine shows parents and those who care for children how to identify these individual learning patterns, explaining how they can strengthen a child's abilities and either bypass or help overcome the child's weaknesses, producing positive results instead of repeated frustration and failure.
Consistent progress can result when we understand that not every child can do equally well in every type of learning and begin to pay more attention to individual learning patterns -- and individual minds -- so that we can maximize children's success and gratification in life. In A Mind at a Time Dr. Levine shows us how.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Mel Levine, M.D., is professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina Medical School and director of its Clinical Center for the Study of Development and Learning. He is the founder and cochairman of All Kinds of Minds, a nonprofit institute for the understanding of differences in learning, and the author of two previous national best-selling books, A Mind at a Time and The Myth of Laziness. He and his wife, Bambi, live on Sanctuary Farm in North Carolina.

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Chapter Two: The Ways of Learning

The mosquito is an automaton. It can afford to be nothing else. There are only about one hundred thousand nerve cells in its tiny head, and each one has to pull its weight. The only way to run accurately and successfully through a life cycle in a matter of days is by instinct, a series of rigid behaviors programmed by the genes....The channels of human mental development, in contrast, are circuitous and variable.

Edward O. Wilson, On Human Nature

Fritz wore very thick lenses in his wire-rimmed spectacles. He was an awkward kid who mostly liked being by himself. At age eight he was becoming an insatiable glutton for the printed word, devouring all manner of written nourishment wherever he found it. At first, his parents were vexed by his marathon stays locked in the bathroom, until they found out that that was where their eccentric Fritz felt most comfortable savoring his reading. Fritz came to see me because of some motor problems, including difficulty writing, along with some seeming leaks in his memory.

On several occasions, his mom and dad mentioned that Fritz was fascinated with gadgets of any kind. He relished getting his hands on whatever seductive apparatus was within reach. In the car he would studiously detach or disassemble ashtrays, loudspeakers, and door handles. His extraordinarily tolerant father observed that Fritz was much more talented and enthusiastic when it came to taking things apart than when putting them together! But Mr. Powell did admit that his son was nothing short of remarkable at fixing objects around the house.

I was able to confirm this finding when one day I was doing a physical examination on Fritz in my office. He saw that one of the lights I use for examining ears (my otoscope) was not working. I told him it was broken and that I had changed the batteries and the bulb to no avail. I had also used a well-established, arguably primitive, Mel Levine technique; in vain, I had shaken it repeatedly and briskly. Anyway, Fritz pounced on my otoscope and immodestly proclaimed, "I'll fix it for you." Of course, I consented to the proposed surgery. Fritz then inspected the instrument, and thought out loud, "Let me see now, how is this supposed to work?" I never would have asked myself that question. Fritz then used his fingers and his voice to trace and talk through the way an otoscope is supposed to work. Only then did he go back and determine where the breakdown was occurring. In doing so, he encountered a loose connection in the switch, which he remedied with leverage from one of his handy talonlike fingernails. What struck me and what I never forgot after that was that Fritz was unwilling to repair my light without first determining how such lights were supposed to work. I have since applied the "Fritz Principle" in my career. That is to say, I should never try to understand and deal with differences in learning until I know how learning works when it's working. So I can't figure out why a kid is enduring serious grief in algebra unless I understand what it ordinarily takes to master algebra -- in other words, how that kind of learning works.

How Learning Works

The most basic instrument for learning is something called a neurodevelopmental function. Our own minds and those of our children are like tool chests. They are filled with these delicate instruments, neurodevelopmental functions, the various implements for learning and for applying what's learned. Just as a carpenter might deploy different groups of tools to complete various projects or a dentist might use different sets of tools for different tooth tasks, our minds make use of different clusters of neurodevelopmental functions to learn specific skills and to create particular products. One committee of neurodevelopmental functions enables a student to master subtraction; another squad participates in the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, yet another neurodevelopmental task force makes possible riding a scooter.

A neurodevelopmental function may be one component of memory, such as the ability to recall things that have been seen in the past (i.e., visual memory), or it may be the awareness of where within the letter "g" your pencil is located during each instant while you form that letter. The capacity to store and retrieve chains of information, such as the alphabet or the events leading up to World War I, is another example of a neurodevelopmental function. As you can surmise, the brain's toolbox is vast, the total number of neurodevelopmental functions inestimable. On top of that, the range of different combinations of functions called upon to accomplish academic tasks is mind-boggling. In view of all these moving parts, it should not surprise us that breakdowns or specific weaknesses are commonplace. We call these deficiencies neurodevelopmental dysfunctions. We as well as our kids all live with our share of these flaws. Often the dysfunctions do not seriously obstruct roads to success. But sometimes they do.

Here are some examples of neurodevelopmental dysfunctions. Some children have difficulty writing, even though they have lots to say. They just can't seem to form letters quickly and accurately enough to keep up with their flow of ideas and words. So their writing is dramatically inferior to the richness of their thinking or speaking. When kids write, their brains assign specific muscles to specific aspects of letter formation; certain muscles are supposed to handle vertical movement, others create rotary movement, others assume responsibility for horizontal movement, while still others operate to stabilize the pencil so it won't fall on the floor while they write. Some kids endure agonizing difficulty with such motor implementation; they simply can't assign the proper muscles consistently. Therefore, writing looms as a tormenting problem for them. This inability to assign specific muscles to operate in the right way at the right time during letter formation is a perfect example of a neurodevelopmental dysfunction. Other kids have trouble finding the exact words they need when they talk, difficulty remembering the associations between sounds and symbols when they read, or trouble understanding complex sentences and thereby following directions quickly and precisely enough in the classroom. Each of these deficiencies is a specific neurodevelopmental dysfunction and in each instance the dysfunction is likely to interfere with learning.

All too often a neurodevelopmental dysfunction goes undetected -- much like an unsolved crime. As was the case with Carson, the assumption may prevail that somehow a floundering student is not really trying, that he is lazy, unmotivated, or, perhaps, even worse, that he's "just not too bright." A child like Nana may be discovered to be daydreaming and fidgeting in class, dreadfully out of focus. She is told she needs to start paying attention in class or she'll get detention. She comes to believe she is somehow bad. No one seems to realize that her fragile concentration is a kind of mental fatigue or burnout; she has neurodevelopmental dysfunctions interfering with her mind's ability to turn on and keep up the flow of mental energy that she needs to concentrate in class. Her neurodevelopmental dysfunction is misread as a behavior problem when she has to combat serious mental fatigue. She's an innocent victim of her own wiring.

Eight Systems

Approximately 30 trillion synapses or nerve linkages exist within the human brain. That crowded network allows for plenty of strong connections, disconnections, and misconnections -- in short, a nearly endless combination of neurodevelopmental possibilities. As we have seen, designated teams of neurodevelopmental functions join together to enable kids to acquire specific abilities. When one or more...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Simon & Schuster
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2003
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0743202236
• ISBN 13: 9780743202237
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 352
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV; info@simonandschuster.nl; ; Herculesplein 96; Utrecht; 3584 AA; Niederlande