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Before continuing, I wish
to explain what is meant by the term learning in this discussion.
After all, the term learning is used in many different types of
situations. There are instances where learning takes place without any
skill being involved on the part of the learner. For example, when I walk
into an unfamiliar room and hit my foot against a step which I did not
see, I will have learned something, namely to be more careful next time I
enter that room. However, this act of learning, which happened quite
unintentionally, occurred without any skill on my part. There will also be
very little difference between the speed and effectiveness with which
different people will learn to evade this step. For most people, one
encounter, or at the most two, will be sufficient.
However, when I learn
history or algebra, or a foreign language, or how to play chess, or how to
operate a lathe, then it is a different matter altogether. Now there is
definite deliberation and consciousness of purpose involved,
which was absent in the other example. At the same time there is also wide
discrepancy in the effectiveness with which different people will be able
to master whatever they wish to, or have to, learn. For example, one
person will be able to learn to speak a new language within one year,
while another will not be able to do the same in ten years. This
discrepancy is frequently explained in terms of intelligence. If this
explanation does not apply, i.e. if a child of obviously good intelligence
is not able to learn according to expectations, a second explanation is
put forward: it is then said that the child has a learning disability.
But are these really the
only explanations? I think not.
In order to present an
alternative possibility, I have to remind the reader of a few important
truths concerning learning.
The first of these
is:
- There is nothing that
any human being knows or can do which he has not learned. This is a
characteristic which very clearly distinguishes human beings from
animals. If I take a puppy of even a few months old, and drop it into a
swimming pool, it will swim. If I try the same with a child, it will
drown. The child, however, can learn to swim. Animals do possess a
limited ability to learn, but to lead their natural way of life they
usually do not need to. Human beings, on the other hand, cannot lead a
natural human way of life at all without constant learning.
The second important
fact about learning is:
- There are basically
two types of learning. This is acknowledged by most English dictionaries
when they define the word learn as to gain knowledge of
or to develop skill in. For example, a person who does not know
what Esperanto is, and who looks this up in an encyclopedia, will
discover that Esperanto is the international language. Thereby he will
have acquired new knowledge. With this knowledge he cannot do anything.
He will simply know something which he did not know before. However, if
he then learns to speak Esperanto, he will thereby acquire a new skill,
and will then be able to do something which he was not able to do
before.
At this point it is
important to note that learning itself is a skill. Despite its apparent
self-evidence, this is an extremely important concept, and it is only when
one starts to realize its full implications that an alternative
explanation for the discrepancy in the learning abilities of different
persons emerges.
In order to grasp the
full import of this concept, it is vital that one should also take
cognizance of the different elements of a skill.
The Different Elements
of a Skill
First of all, we should
note that every skill must be acquired. As already stated, no human
being can do anything at all which he has not learned to do. This must
certainly apply to the skill of learning also. However, the attitude so
far seems to have been that learning is a fafrotsky. (Something
that falls from the sky.) Very little is ever
done to teach children to learn.
Secondly, there is
usually a particular method involved in any skill. Take swimming as
an example. It frequently happens that the first method by means of which
a novice swimmer learns to remain afloat is by swimming dog-fashion.
Employing such an unorthodox method is good enough to enable one to remain
on the surface of the water, but will certainly not help anybody to become
a really good swimmer or to take part in swimming galas. Any of the
standard swimming strokes presents a far better method of remaining afloat
and of proceeding through the water. After having learned one of these
strokes, and having received enough practice in this new method of
swimming, a person will immediately be turned into a far better swimmer.
Strangely enough, though, nothing is ever done to teach children a better
method of learning. As stated, this apparently happens because learning is
regarded as a fafrotsky.
The third element of any
skill has already been mentioned. It is the fact that regular and
sustained practice also makes a vast difference to a person’s
competence at any skill. Yet children are never taught to practice their
learning skills on a regular basis. Most children merely do the most
important homework every day, and only study the day before a test or
examination.
There is also a fourth,
very important element involved in every skill, namely the fact that a
skill usually embraces a number of sub-skills. This can best be
explained by means of an example. In order to acquire the skill of playing
the piano, a person must possess agile fingers, must know the positions of
and the distances between the notes on the piano by touch, must have a
keen ear, etc. These faculties can be developed through regular practice
of finger exercises, by playing scales and arpeggios and by doing ear
training exercises. Through regular and sustained practice of these
sub-skills of the main skill of playing the piano, a person eventually
acquires the ability to play the piano.
Now, it so happens that I
can also play the piano a little, but only a very little. I doubt,
however, whether anybody listening to my clumsy efforts would ever
describe me as having a piano-playing-disability. Any reasonable
person would understand that if I regularly practice the sub-skills of
playing the piano mentioned earlier, I shall eventually lose my two left
hands on the piano.
When we observe the
clumsy efforts of a child who tries to learn, however, we readily diagnose
him as having a so-called learning disability. The point is that
there are also sub-skills of learning, and regular and sustained
practice of these makes a vast difference to a person’s learning ability.
If little or nothing has been done yet to help a child to practice and
develop these sub-skills of learning, it is just as illogical to refer to
him as having a learning disability as it would be to describe my
efforts of the piano in such terms.
This idea seems to
present a logical alternative to that of differences in intelligence and
so-called learning disabilities when considering discrepancies in
learning ability. Its plausibility is strongly substantiated by the
enormous successes that have over the past years been achieved with the
Audiblox program, which is a program of exercises for the sub-skills
of learning.
Simultaneously, this
theory suggests that learning does not take place on a single level, but
is rather an action which is accomplished in a sort of layer-fashion.
This happens because the acquisition of one skill often makes it possible
to master another one. In fact, the way in which our school system is
organized is an acknowledgement of this fact. We cannot send a child to
university first. He must start at the first class, and then progress year
after year to the higher levels of education. At the end of every year the
child is also expected to provide proof that he has mastered enough of the
knowledge that was presented to him during the year so that it will form a
sufficiently firm base on which to start building the knowledge of the
following year. The reason for this is that most of what we learn is based
on something we learned before.
An example should make
this clear. Suppose there was a child who has not yet learned to count. It
would be quite impossible to teach such a child to add, subtract,
multiply, or divide. This would only become possible after the child has
leaned to count. This suggests that counting is a lower-lying skill
than calculating, and that mastery of a lower-lying or foundational skill
is a prerequisite for mastering any higher-lying skill.
In the same way there are
also skills that form the basis or foundation of skills like reading and
spelling. If a child, for example, has not adequately mastered the
foundational skills of reading, he would be a very poor reader, and there
would be no way in which he could be turned into a better reader other
than by first practicing and developing these foundational skills of
reading. Unless this is done, every other effort is doomed to failure, and
doubtless such a child would then be categorized as dyslexic.
The Audiblox
program is a program of exercises intended to practice and develop all the
foundational skills necessary for school and after-school learning. The
correct time to start developing these skills is the preschool period,
preferably from about 3 years of age. However, because it is possible
through constant and sustained practice of these exercises to develop
these skills to a remarkably high level at any time of life, thereby
increasing a person’s study ability, persons of any age can benefit from
such a program.
Sub-skills of Learning
The Audiblox
exercises require a great deal of concentration. A person who
regularly does exercises of this nature, will thereby improve his powers
of concentration tremendously. Many parents and teachers nowadays complain
about the fact that children cannot concentrate. This is usually
regarded as a disability. However, if one questions what has been
done to teach the child to concentrate, one invariably finds that
nothing has been done. Remember the truth about learning which I stated
earlier on, that a human being cannot do anything which he has not learned
to do. Concentration is a skill, one of the sub-skills of learning, and
any skill has to be acquired, after which one’s proficiency at it can be
constantly improved by regular and sustained practice.
A further sub-skill of
learning which is very heavily emphasized throughout the whole Audiblox
program is perception. As a matter of fact, the Audiblox
program is a very comprehensive and extremely effective program for
perceptual development. Before we can learn anything, we have to become
aware of it through one of our senses. Usually we have to see or hear it.
Subsequently one has to interpret whatever one
has seen or heard. In essence then, perception means interpretation. Of
course, lack of experience may cause a person to misinterpret what he has
seen or heard. Perception is therefore a skill which can be
improved tremendously through practice. A further important point about
perception is that it is a skill which is by itself made up of a large
number of sub-skills. One of these is, for instance, the ability to
distinguish left and right. One frequently comes across children who
confuse a b with a d, or who read no when the word is
actually on. This does not mean that there is anything wrong at all
with such a child. He has simply not yet learned to distinguish well
enough between left and right. Invariably such children are also very poor
readers and spellers. Once they have learned, through the regular and
sustained practice which the Audiblox program provides, to
distinguish between left and right, they will stop confusing b’s
and d’s, and words like now and won, and at the same
time their reading, and later also their spelling ability, will improve
immensely.
Perceptual skill is
extremely important in order to become a good reader. As far as reading is
concerned, perception is a foundational skill, just as counting is for the
ability to calculate. A person who cannot learn to spell, or who cannot
learn to read, a so-called dyslexic, is frequently simply a person
in whom one or more of these sub-skills of perception have not been
adequately developed in order to make it possible for this person to
acquire the skill of reading. The fact that already many so-called
dyslexics have with the help of the Audiblox program succeeded in
acquiring a normal reading ability, must be adequate proof that it is an
extremely comprehensive and effective program for the development of all
the sub-skills of perception.
The Audiblox
program is an extremely effective program for memory training.
Memory is, of course, a further sub-skill of learning. Having perceived
something, we have to be able to store it, that is, remember it, before it
will become knowledge. This is a skill which is of special importance in
the so-called learning subjects at school or university, where information
is presented to the learner, and it is expected that he be able to
reproduce it as accurately as possible. However, memory
is a skill that is also of great importance to the reading act. For
example, recognizing the shapes of the different letters comprising a
particular word is an act of memory. Every word also consists of letters
in a particular sequence, and one has to remember what word is represented
by the sequence of letters in question. Simply by changing the sequence of
the letters in name, it can become mean or amen.
Memory is a sub-skill of learning which can itself also be
subdivided into a number of sub-skills, for example short-term visual
memory and long-term visual memory, short-term auditory memory and
long-term auditory memory. All these receive attention in the Audiblox
program.
Having stored information
in one’s memory, it is sometimes required that a person be able to process
it in some fashion. This is of importance in subjects like mathematics or
language. Such processing of information usually requires the ability to
see relationships or correspondences, or to draw conclusions. This
requires an ability to reason and think logically, also a very
important sub-skill of learning, which is heavily emphasized in the
Audiblox program.
Returning to the matter
of learning disabilities, it must be clearly understood that it is not my
intention to imply that the theory expounded in the discussion must be
regarded as the only cause of all learning failure. There certainly are
other factors which cause children to be poor learners. For example, there
are many children who cannot cope due to emotional instability. In many
cases such emotional problems are brought about by the fact that the child
has already experienced so many failures that he believes himself to be
inferior to other children. By helping the child to improve his learning
skills, and thereby to start experiencing the satisfaction of success,
such emotional problems are frequently alleviated. It must be understood,
however, that there are many other causes of emotional problems, which
cannot be dealt with here.
A further cause for
learning failure is the fact that the level of difficulty of the subject
matter that the child is expected to master becomes higher and higher
every year. In each new grade to which a child is promoted he has to be
able to master work which is more, and more difficult, than that he had to
deal with the previous year. Of course, as a child gets older, his
intellectual ability also grows. Sometimes, however, the increase of the
level of difficulty of the subject matter from year to year occurs at a
faster rate than the growth of the child’s intellectual ability. It is
then that the child starts having difficulties. The only solution is to
develop the child’s learning skills by means of a program like the
Audiblox program. This will improve the child’s learning ability, so
that he will be able to keep up with increasing pressure. Because all
children run a risk of being overtaken by the level of difficulty of the
school subject matter, it is therefore wise to take timely precautions.
Nobody would ever gamble with a child’s physical life and well-being. Why
then gamble with a child’s learning life and well-being? By teaching the
child to learn, any future mishaps will be prevented.
Even a child who is less
gifted can benefit greatly from a regular program of exercise for the
sub-skills of learning. A comparison with the physical counterpart should
make this clear. If a very big man takes up weight-lifting, he could
become very strong indeed. A much smaller man can also increase his
strength considerably by exercising with weights, but he will never be
able to match the strength of the big man. If the big man does not
exercise and the smaller man does, then of course there is the very real
possibility that the strength of the smaller man will in time surpass that
of the big man. Similarly, a less gifted child will derive a lot of
benefit from the mental exercise provided by the Audiblox program,
and may even in time exceed the achievement level of an initially more
gifted child who does not take part in any program of this nature.
In the determination of
man’s behavior, there is no process more important than learning. One of
the most worthwhile enterprises a person could engage in is therefore to
help unravel the mysteries of this process. No final answers concerning
the nature of learning have yet been presented. The existing theories on
learning all leave too many unanswered questions. The approach offered in
this discussion is an attempt to find logical answers to some of these. If
learning is a skill, as is suggested by this theory, then a solution
immediately becomes available for all the many children who battle with
co-called learning disabilities.
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