The Old Schoolhouse Magazine

Smart, but Feeling Dumb

You can use the same curriculum, but just by changing the teaching method,
you can make a huge difference in the life of a student.

“My child hates school. He doesn’t feel as smart as his siblings and friends. What can I do to help him feel smarter?”

There are many bright, hardwork- ing kids who have to work too hard to learn. They dislike school because they don’t feel very successful. These kids have not learned to use both sides of their brain for memorizing and understanding material. We, as teachers, can change a frustrating, unhappy year to a successful one by making them feel as smart as they really are. How do we do this? By teaching them to use both sides of their brain for more effortless learning, using alternative teaching strategies.

Plan A and Plan B Teaching
Methods

Plan A is the method that schools and
curricula typically use to teach. It em-
phasizes more left-brain learning and
auditory learning strategies, such as:
memorizing math facts with black and
white flash cards, spelling by writing
words repeatedly or memorizing the
phonics rules, making outlines for pre-
writing, and using workbooks to teach
and reinforce lessons. All of these more
left-brain methods do not work well for
these students.

To help these struggling learners become more successful, instead of using Plan A teaching methods, we need to look into using more Plan B teaching methods. This will require a “paradigm shift” on the part of the instructors.

Plan B is a method of teaching that involves teaching practices that ultimately train the student to use both sides of his brain. How does this work? It’s easy.

It involves teaching the student visual memory strategies while teaching the lesson. Visual memory strategies make learning so much easier, and take much less of the student’s learning “battery”

because they employ right-brain teaching strategies. One such strategy is “ imbedding” the data on a picture which places information in the brain in a unit. Using this technique for memorization along with other visual memory hooks such as color, humor, emotion and picture, more information will be retained. Plan B involves putting aside the workbooks as teaching and reinforcing tools, and doing the work of learning together on a white board as much as possible. Peter Russell, author of The Brain Book, says, “Visual Memory is far superior to auditory memory. It is essentially perfect.”