23/2 Personality and Learning Styles
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23/2 February 2014 www.international-montessori.org www.international-montessori.org Brussels A Newsletter for the families of ‘International Montessori’ Author: Annie Hoekstra-de Roos Layout: Inspirit Personality and Learning Styles Inside: Personality and Learning Styles Personality styles become apparent during Early Childhood Characteristics of each personality styles at a young age Catering for different learning styles at school Limits are needed to create respect for others Ourselves, the parents It takes a village to raise a child Personality and Learning Styles All people are different. We are an amazing In this series of species, in that none of us are the same! We newsletters, the move, act and think differently. We have different focus will be first belief systems and values. We also all learn on nature. We will differently. We acquire knowledge in different look at a selection ways; have different strengths and weaknesses of personality types and function predominantly from a different set and related learning styles. Every person has a core, of intelligences. what Montessori called ‘The secret of childhood’. We are who we are. And we also want to stay whom Nature determines partly who we are and nurture we are. To feel true to our heart, we cannot become continues to shape the identity of each individual. different to our origin. To become happy, we need The brain is a very flexible organ, especially in the acknowledgement for whom we are. This basic first six years of life. It can adapt to any culture concept translates into predominant characteristics and any language. This is a great plus but also a through which we are recognisable by others. It also negative. It makes it a fragile process since the translates into preferred learning styles. brain depends on what is on offer in the outside environment. This environment is made up of the This is where education comes into the picture. parents and caretakers, extended family, school, If we all agree that everyone is different, than friends, neighbourhood, country and culture at this needs to be acted upon on a daily level. The large. traditional segmentation of large groups of children 2 23/2 February 2014 2 23/2 February 2014 3 and students by birthdate is unnatural. As if they would all be the same when divided by ‘batches’ of the same age. Yet, due to the adults having gone through the same system, and therefore accepting it as ‘normal’ it is still the way that most students are taught. But how can a teacher accommodate the needs of a large group of three year olds? How can a secondary teacher cater for the different learning styles of a class of 25 teenagers? The TED Talk clip, found on Youtube, of Sir Ken Robinson named “Do schools kill creativity?” explains it very well. You might also like to see the RSA Animate – Changing Education Paradigms. Children require an individualised approach in order to be able to develop their full potential. Due to the fact that they have different strengths and weaknesses, the teacher needs to know each child well and put different ingredients into the environment. This provides students with learning situations in which the individual learns best and simultaneously helps the student out of their comfort zone bit by bit. How to do this? Amongst other professionals, Dr. Montessori provided a lot of information on how to individualise the approach to teaching. She conducted teacher training courses which included a lot of psychology and encouraged teachers to observe students, to be able to know the child’s individual temperament. The observation skill Montessori imparted was a special kind. She trained teachers to ‘look’ without judging; to take oneself out of the equation and to diminish preconceived ideas. Additionally there is a lot of recent research that helps in recognising personality traits and learning styles. Some of the theories have originally been developed for the business world. The Myers- Briggs indicator is one of these and is used as a tool in creating successful teams. It specifically looks at the interpersonal intelligence and related communication style of the employee and uses the terminology: Relater, Socializer, Thinker, Director style, Indirect and Direct. 4 23/2 February 2014 In the fitness and healthcare industry William Sheldon’s analysis of personality traits is sometimes used using the terminology Ectomorph, Mesomorph and Endomorph. This looks at both the physical and psychological priorities of a person, thus dividing people in three categories. Howard Gardner has studied individual’s temperament, work habits, social relationships, fact processing and many other skills and came to the division of initially seven intelligences. In further studies he added additional ones. This is a huge expansion from the division of students into auditory, visual and tactile. With this ‘old’ division of learning styles, one only looks at how the student perceives information at it’s best. Howard Gardner’s work, along with the work of Daniel Goleman on emotional intelligence, it has become very clear that social, emotional, natural, intrapersonal and musical intelligences influence the learning process and academic success as much as mathematical, linguistic and visual-spatial intelligence. This expanded theory helps teachers a lot in observing students and consequently determining strengths and challenges. It not only looks at input of information but also how the child engages and processes information. Upon this, a personalised approach can be formed to assist the child in developing his/her full capacity. To be able to do this one needs individualised education. Deriving from Howard Gardner’s work, Mark Wahl, in his book ‘Math for humans’, came to four learning styles. Each learning style is given a name of an animal, thus giving them easy recognition. Each animal entails a combination of personality characteristics, work habits, attitudes, approaches and social relationships that together give a description that sounds familiar. These learning styles are called Beaver, Owl, Dolphin and Fox. These names trigger the imagination and give an initial idea. Each animal will be described in relation to a specific age range. This newsletter will continue by focusing on children aged 0 to 6. Subsequent newsletters will respectively cover the Primary 4 23/2 February 2014 5 and the Secondary stage. a completely different learning style from their mum or dad. This can The descriptions of the learning create friction and anxiety, however styles will go into the strengths and when well informed it can also assist challenges of each learning style and parents in determining their approach focus on the influence it has on life at home and in knowing what limits in the classroom. This influence is to set and freedoms to give in threefold: order to help the child remain on a 1) Creating activities and the constructive path of growth. classroom environment as such that the child to work through his/her own The information is also interesting for students learning style. By acknowledging the style, themselves. From the Middle Years Programme children feel respected and accepted and can onwards students are mature enough to look at learn efficiently. themselves and evaluate their functioning. Every now and then, the theory is presented to the 2) Determining a framework for boundary setting students for them to get to know their strengths so that a child/student does not get too stuck in and challenges and learn to act upon them without one way of working. it taking away from their self-esteem. 3) Assisting in the development of skills of the We need to be aware that every person can feel other learning styles so that the student has close to one or more styles. Not everyone has the opportunity in becoming a harmonious characteristics of only one learning style. And as individual. life moves on, hopefully we have characteristics This information is very useful both in the school of all styles, thereby having been able to maintain setting and also for the home environment. It is our original self and having developed skills of the interesting for parents to see what the personality other learning styles. Since that makes us flexible, style of their child is and simultaneously analyse adaptable and therefore successful! themselves. Even though children are born from us, they are not the same as us. They might have 6 23/2 February 2014 Personality styles become apparent during Early Childhood Focus on the ages 0 to 6 Nature provides every child with a set of genes. moments in life to develop these deeper and wider. Not one child is the same. The eating patterns In the period of 0 to 6 years old, the child has an and sleeping patterns differ, and so does the absorbent mind. This mind allows him/her to absorb manner of making contact, the smiles, likes and life around him deeply, intensely and unconsciously. dislikes. The time a child starts to crawl, walk The child absorbs language, communication and talk is also patterns, different thus movement, all together mannerisms, giving us a body language, glimpse on and related what kind of values, ideas, child we have judgments and in front of us. preconceived The child has ideas. a natural urge The absorbent of wanting to mind thrives develop. Nature best when life is amazing proceeds in and has built an ordered in common manner. sensitivities This way the during the brain does different not receive stages of too much development. information at Thus assisting once, but can the child in absorb it in developing portions and an array of store it in the characteristics developing and skills. Montessori called these sensitive periods. neuronetwork. Therefore the sense of order is very Madeleine Nash, in the article named ‘Fertile strong in these children.