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‘No Matter What’ Learners

Today I turn my attention to a specific kind of learner that I think every teacher must know: the ‘no matter what’.

The ‘no matter what’ learner is that kid or grown-up that no matter what methodology, strategy, content, skill, approach, and so on you use, s/he will strive. Yes, these learners exist in every possible scenario. If you are teaching physics, quantum mechanics, wormhole concepts, one, or luckily two of your students will understand every single thing you explain, every complex problem you present.

But let’s go back to basics. Let’s look and think about the kindergarten learners that are entering the world of letters, the world where all the messages and stories they want to learn about are to be deciphered, the world where to be able to share the candy bar, you need to know fractions. Oops, I went too far. Back to the first literacy events in someone’s life.

Learning how to read is one of those amazing things in life that catches my attention. I love when I see the sparkle in a kid’s eyes when they are reading their first words. And the ‘no matter what’ learner makes it look so easy. They grasp the phonetic system as if they are eating a piece of bread. They understand the letter-sound correspondence so easily that every teacher’s work look like a piece of cake. They understand one-to-one correspondence in Maths as if it was a summer breeze. 

I hope that right now, with my analogies, you got to where I want you to be. If you are thinking “Oh, now what do I get from these ‘no matter what’ learners? Let me try to put this into perspective. You get whatever you want. If you want the easy job, you will think, plan and lead your classes just thinking about these learners, because they seem easy to handle. But if you want to excel, if you want to be challenged, you will have to think about all the other kinds of learners you have.

I’m pretty sure, right now, some of you are thinking “Oh, but I have some learners that no matter what I do they struggle and seem not to learn AT ALL!!!”. Stop, breath, take a moment to reflect. Go back to the beginning if this text, to the 2nd paragraph. Read again the definition I gave for the ‘no matter what’ learner. S/he is going to learn despite the way you lead/take them. But some learners, the majority of your students, will need one, two, five, fifty different strategies to be able to solve that math problem, s/he will need 10 different Dr. Seuss’ books to start understanding what rhymes are and how to rhyme with cat. 

And some of them will just need more time. Five or ten minutes, 1 or 2 extra days, maybe one whole year. And that is because we are human beings and not machines. We mature at different rates and show different outcomes depending on how we connect with each other and the world. We are not hardwired to succeed in every single task we attempt. And let me tell you a secret: not even the ‘no matter what’ learners are fail-proof.
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