Torch, Fall 1991

'' llllm~----------------------------------~ • - NURTURING THEIR UNIQUE GIFTS by Tim Heaton f a student is failing, you are failing as a teacher until you find out the reason why." I share this motto with all the future teachers in my classes here at Cedarville. I believe strongly that God calls each teacher to be a minister, to practice discernment, and to show a servant's spirit in helping students find a way that they can learn best. You see, I struggled through school. When I wrote my master's thesis on learning styles I discovered much about my own learning difficulties in school. This perspective enabled me to better understand my students. I did some soul searching about education, God's role in the education process, and each person's uniqueness as a reflection of God. I suggest the following steps for anyone who helps others learn. 1. Understand the learning style of your student and ways he learns best. I always knew there was something different about me. My parents called it creativity or said I was unique. I never felt I was "dumb" in those early years. After all, I read before I went to kindergarten and enjoyed reading immensely. By second grade, I always had my head stuck in a Hardy Boys book or even the Encyclopedia Americana we had at home. My parents would catch me staying up late, reading under my bed covers with a flashlight. At the same time, my w1iting was sloppy and I tended to reverse words and numbers. In the sixth grade I wrote my name "Ymmit" (instead of Timmy) on a paper, which really gave my parents a scare. Though I was somewhat reserved in school, I had ideas floating around in my head. I would look out the window and daydream about the clouds, making funny pictures of animals in the sky. I also would sit down for hours with a roll of white shelf paper on top of a board / and draw model cities and floor plans offuturistic houses. I wanted to be an architect or a city planner, or maybe even a teacher of history. I enjoyedthewaytheteachersretoldstoriesoftheAmericanpioneersand about foreign lands and cultures. Today, the research in the area of learn– ing styles would diagnose me as right– hemispheric preferenced, a divergent thinker, with a spatial-01iented intelli- also be classified as having a mild dyslexic handicap. The term "learning disability" gence, and learning primarily through a visual mo– dality. I would is a broad concept for many terms describing specific learning prob– lems. However, there are children struggling in schools today who do not fit the limited descriptors for specific learning disabilities. They, like I, are not so much learning disabled, but are schooling disabled. Their style for learning is different from the teacher's style. Many diagnostic instruments are available to identify and assist them, and some schools are making progress with this current research.