Traditionally, students with learning challenges are labeled, stigmatized and streamed. Difference gets defined as deficit, and deficit comes to define identity. In some schools, this is still the case.
One of the most inspiring figures I learned about at teacher’s college is pediatric professor Mel Levine, whose original research and approaches have helped to redefine what we mean by special education. Levine’s research draws attention to the way that learning differences are typically framed as deficits - a logic that obscured the learner’s strengths. Levine identified how our traditional education system privileges one type of mind over all others. From Levine’s interview with NPR:
Levine’s research focus led to the creation of his own institute All Kinds of Minds and a system of teacher training that provides emerging educators with the skills to diagnose and assess learning challenges with specific strategies associated with a particular learning style. Levine contends that most teacher training programs provide only limited exposure to current strategies for cognitive and behavioral challenges.
Without properly addressing differences in relation to strengths and coping strategies, our diverse minds not prepared for life or work. And in the latter case, businesses and corporations are slow to adopt the workplace for diverse learning styles. This is changing, but slowly. If there’s a message for our time, its the opportunity for customization and specialised approaches over one-size-fits-all thinking.
Related: Sir Ken Robinson’s TED talk - Do school’s kill creativity?
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