Learning differently...!

It is easy to preach but difficult to follow! As an educator I always faced this dilemma that teaching my students was easier than teaching my sons! Why do my sons don't follow all the amazing techniques and strategies which I teach them? My students follow my teachings but why don't my sons? All the notes taking strategies that my students use religiously are not followed, they don't colour code their notes, or break down their math tasks in simpler steps to get the solution! Where are the mind maps and organization tools I gave them? Still grappling with these questions, I have decided to quit my job and focus for few months on my son's education. This decision came after a lot of contemplation, confusion and the final blow was knowing that my younger son Achintia has dyslexia along with a mild ADD! People call these learning disabilities but I think an appropriate term will be learning differences! Not just to reduce the heartburn caused by knowing that your child has an LD but also there is a different thought process which I have recently developed after discussing the LD issue with my son Achintia. Yes, with a bit of hesitation I shared with him that he has some learning challenges. He was confused but he promptly said that that doesn't mean he can't do Science (he loves Science and aspires to become a Scientist!). Achintia knows that he is struggling to read and hates to write but for him it only means that he needs to work hard on reading and writing. He shared how some of his friends can't draw as well as he can or some of them can't 'floss' like he does. They need to practice it twice as harder than he does. Also he reminded me of the time when he was learning to become a gardener; his initial efforts to sow seeds and grow his own plants failed miserably but he kept trying and finally he's learnt how to do it right! 

Here were his therapists, teachers and his parents thinking about how to improve his reading and writing and here he was... my kiddo, saying, "I think I might have to work hard on reading and writing but is it the only way he can do Science? Can I not just do science experiments and learn by doing those instead of writing so much and reading what the school wants me to read?" Speechless is a word which is not enough to describe my state after this question! His question stung me so hard that I wonder as an educator have we done a lot of disservice to our young learners? We have focussed so much on reading and writing that they have forgotten to explore the world around them in a natural way. Suddenly I feel that reading and writing are very unnatural steps in the learning process almost like imposters who block the learning process and even worse they kill the joy of learning!

We don't consider inability to dance as a learning disability, or being a bad cook as a learning challenge then why only difficulty in reading and writing is so much stigmatised? Because we have given these two processes undue importance in learning. In fact reading and writing are the only two things which are happening in most schools and the students who can't do these are labelled as special needs!

Now this revelation in itself is mind boggling for me! Me who is an educator, who has conducted workshops for improving reading and writing skills, me who is a science teacher at heart, me who loves mathematics not as a subject but as a way of life ... now I have to adjust to this challenge which God has gifted me in the form of my son who is a different learner!

I don't have the answers yet to the dilemma I am facing but I am definitely on a track where I feel that learning need not be hindered if a child cannot read or write in a way that the world wants them to! May be my son can read people, read emotions, think about the why's and how's and most importantly have acceptance of himself and the world around him!

Now the question is whether to further enhance his inborn potential to do so or to keep tearing down my hair and his joy of learning in order to make him read and write in a way the contemporary world wants him to!