You are not a kinesthetic learner The troubled history of the learning style idea

Thomas D. Fallace

Book - 2025

"The notion that we all process information in one of three distinct modes--visual, auditory, or kinesthetic--is familiar to all of us; indeed, it has shaped teaching practices for decades. It may be surprising, then, to learn that the notion of learning styles is in fact widely debunked. So why does it retain such a powerful hold on us? In this book, historian Thomas Fallace traces the origins, evolution, and history of the controversial learning style idea. He shows that the research supporting the learning style idea was problematic from its inception in the 1910s as a strategy for teaching students in remedial reading classes. Decades later, as the Civil Rights movement demanded government solutions to racial inequality, scholars o...f education began to look for tools to address discrepancies in schooling outcomes between white children and children of color. Cultural differences perceived as deficits in Black and Brown children were taken to justify teaching with a different learning style requiring a distinct approach. In the 1980s, many scholars and educators determined that students of color were 'kinesthetic' learners, an idea used to label and justify a diminished curriculum for Black and Latinx students. In our era of high-stakes testing, administrators and teachers have eagerly embraced learning styles as a common-sense approach that seemed to promise positive outcomes. However, research increasingly shows that empirical studies do not find the approach effective. Rather than labeling students as visual, auditory, or kinesthetic learners (along with the hidden value judgments in each category), teachers ought to be labeling activities and then using the most appropriate method for the content or topic at hand. Ultimately, Fallace issues a full-throated call for the end of learning styles as the basis for an instructional tool kit. The danger of the learning style idea lies in the act of sorting and labeling students with permanent style identities"-- more