ם Physical and Mental Learning and Ability. I have done quite poorly when trying to learn ballroom dancing and aikido, and for identical reasons It's not just that in each you're trying to twirl around your partner at the right time. Rather, my problem is in observing a sequence of motions and learning how to replicate them. This is not the same as lack of natural ability. I am reasonably coordinated and very quick, and as a boy was good at the parts of sports that relied on unlearned skills such as running or dodging. My deficiency is in learning, in building on my ability. After the teacher demonstrates a series of moves, other students can remember those moves, but I cannot. Other students can then imitate those moves, but I cannot.
Another post might go into why I learn so poorly, because I realized driving to the office today that such analysis might help me understand my own students' learning problems. My biggest challenge is to teach them how to think. Some students have high IQ's and some do not, but even those with natural thinking ability do not necessarily know how to use that ability. I try to show them how to read a graph, but they can't remember the sequence of thoughts I am demonstrating, or imitate it later. And, going a step beyond my own dance and aikido problems, they cannot remember to apply the technique at appropriate times, even if they do memorize it. (I am not bad at that aspect of dance---once I have learned something, I am able to use it without prompting.)
So I think I had better persuade my wife to try dance and aikido again, to help me understand business students and liberal commentators. Or, since it's been a while since I last tried, perhaps I could use my four-year-old as a partner.
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