Human brains and minds appear to be inherently capable of at least two quite different kinds of processes and reasoning, The first kind, the one we have come to regard as normal, is predominantly linear and logical. The second process is more non-linear. It is often labeled “sloppy,” disorganized, and is considered by many as slow to learn. In school it does appear to be inefficient when compared to the linear. It is called learning disabled, and specifically often diagnosed as dyslexia, dyscalculia, and attention deficit disorder.
While these non-linear processes, may be responsible for some of the disadvantages within the ‘learning disabled’ brain, they may also underlie certain creative advantages in those same brains and minds. Ideally all brains would be able to utilize both types of processes as required, employing a balancing act that keeps the mind on track. But brains differ—some are weighted toward one process, some to the other. In extreme circumstances, a brain may be uni-modal. Most healthy minds are to some degree bi-modal, but are prioritized for one or the other modality. We may advance education by recognizing that if we provide support in both modalities, we bring the potentials of both groups, and both modalities in each person to a higher level, with subsequent benefits to the whole classroom, to each individual student and to society.
Examples of these events may be found in the developing brains and life-worlds of learning-disabled children who are at risk from educational and nurturing environments that are insensitive to their special needs. All children develop with particular sensitivity to the initial conditions of their infancy and childhood environments. In the brain’s early experience, the boundary conditions of a child’s education and family nurturance may channel his or her development toward neural process and to building neural pathways that optimize support and performance for linear mentation and success in linear learning. The same conditions build resistances or obstructions to the operation of the brain and mind in the syncretic-associative mode. These forces are exerted in a combination of direct societal (exogenous) pressures, and subsequent internalized and self-regulation conditioning (endogenous) pressures.
Learning-disabled children often have poor ability to learn and process linearly, and to do so in sequence. Rote memory learning tends to be poor for this group. It appears that these children need associative non-linear and physically active or interactive learning environments in order to perform well. Given these kinds of active learning settings, they develop adaptive compensations for their linear disability, and make use of a non-linear intellectual process to overcome many of their difficulties with the more standard model of learning. If prevented from following their best development pathways, these children experience much failure frustration and disappointment in their early years, with considerable damage to their self-esteem. The current practice of subjecting all students to the MCAS tests will effectively winnow out even the most promising associative learners. In this manner, the later life-path of the learning disabled individual may be negatively determined by initial environmental conditions. Thus may an inflexible learning environment exacerbate societal biases that favor a single linear mode of learning and thinking, and in so doing cause a functional learning disability to develop in the mind of a child who might otherwise learn well and become a healthy and creative contributor in the community of minds.
When a child has been learning-disabled in this way during early experience and education, the result is likely to become a serious inhibition of his or her more native syncretic-associative thinking modes that would otherwise probably have become that individual’s dominant processing modality. Notice that I use the term learning-disabled as a verb here to indicate that society has, in effect, disabled or derailed an otherwise perfectly functional, but different kind of learning ability. Children who have become conflicted about how to think will have been stunted in the only two developmental paths available. For them, neither pathway will develop optimally because the child must overcome the stress and anxiety made necessary by this exogenously induced mental conflict. These children may develop slowly and with difficulty, ashamed and struggling against the tide of the culture, forever trying to conceal their disabilities, and blaming themselves for their problems. They will remain unaware of the possible high abilities that might have been, or might still await them (given proper therapeutic, educational, and prosthetic assistance), were they able to freely employ syncretic-associative pathways.
Individuals having high levels of talent, will appear at the extremes of the human intelligence spectrum. Some will achieve noteworthy rewards for brilliance, while at the other end of the spectrum, others will suffer only notoriety for their failures and maladaptive behaviors. Worldly achievements and mental health will vary as they are determined by early experience in combination with innate capacities. In failure, learning disabled children and adults will suffer and cause suffering. They will act-out their frustrations (another word for repressed anger and rage), steadily growing more neurotic.
At the success end of the spectrum, these individuals may lead the rest of us in discovery through invention, art, and in the sciences. Can we reshape our attitudes and educational systems to incorporate the benefits that this population can offer us so that everyone may become more complete, flexible, and adaptive?
When the individual is not ‘natively’ learning disabled during early development, experience, and education, the result may be a smooth molding or sculpting of the brain toward linear forms and functions. Aggregates of such individuals will be generally more successful in school and work, and they will uphold the culture as handed down to them in their training and conditioning. Most importantly, they will share cultural values, and biases. However, in their uniformity, they will also share limitations. The general culture will be similarly limited.
Associative and creative thought and meaning may be difficult to achieve and maintain over time in such a monculture. It will be weeded out. On the other hand, a monoculture of successfully educated associative people would also be limited, being perhaps quite creative and rich in meaning, but somewhat less likely to follow traditions. Optimal education might therefore best partake of both styles, providing support and encouragement for both developmental pathways in both groups. The resulting culture would share the strengths of both groups without being limited to the weaknesses of either.
When children are not caused to be learning dis-abled by adverse conditions in their early environment, or if non-linear ‘native learning styles have not been distorted into disabilities, we may look for a balance of linear and non-linear learning and thinking styles in the same individuals.
Dyslexia, dyscalculia, and attention deficit disorder are syndromes that are relatively recent subjects of interest for research, therapy, medicine, pharmacology and education, and for the popular press. Only a few decades ago they were mostly obscure and undiagnosed. Now we must ask: Is medicalization of these human learning styles distorting our understanding of our children? Does this same medicalization skew the results of the very research, diagnosis and treatment intended to relieve these phenomena? I suggest that some (certainly not all) cases of these syndromes are not only made worse, but actually generated by the way we educate children.