Different Brains

Today I asked my students to draw a diagram that illustrated the way they spatially understand the year.

We can all agree that a year measures one trip around the sun.

We can all agree that a year contains 52 weeks, each of which has 7 days.

We can all agree that there are 12 months and that 365.25 days fit into them.

But how we see the year when we picture it in our minds is entirely different.

And this tells us something about our brains. It tells us something about the way we think.

One student explained that they see the boxes of a calendar extending like a number line, beginning in January and ending in December.

Another admitted that they associate each month with an image and an animal (May, for example, is mist and morning doves).

Yet another sees the months like a circle, but September through May appear larger than the other months.

Finally, a student sees each month as its own color!

In all, we had 15 different perspectives, each fascinating and unique.

This got us to a conversation about our minds and the ways that things make sense. Eventually, we found ourselves discussing note-taking. There are hundreds of ways someone can take notes. As a visual learner, I know the impact that writing something down (and revisiting it afterwards) has on my life. I walk around constantly jotting ideas and observations into my notebook and I sometimes find myself stricken with fear by the possibility of not having a notebook or pen when I have an idea or insight.

I know, deep down, that if I don't write it down I will forget it.

I even take notes on family life and relationships with friends. I jot down the names of my friends' kids. I jot down reminders about how to care for each of my kids and my spouse. I want to study them to better understand them...and not in a creepy, weird way, but in an authentic exercise of understanding them better and evolving my ability to love them well.

So today, we discussed what it means to take notes and the ways it can be done.
-full sentences
-pictures or images
-diagrams
-fragments
-bubble charts

The list went on and on...and for each of us, the ways we make sense of external stimuli is different. Some of us need a graphic organizer to make sense of information while others among us need to follow up with the teacher the next day.

The key here, though, was not really about note-taking. Rather, it was about holding space for students to embrace the ways we all learn differently, and the variety of needs each of us has.

We are all learners and we all have specific needs. Talking about our differences and the ways we learn best is a trait that will help each of us to learn better and to hold space for the ways others learn as well.