Glycogen Storage Disease – StarchWars

Ode to Frau Frosch- and Visual Spacial Teachers Everywhere

Posted on 31. Jul, 2008 by Jillian in Glycogen Storage Disease

Hands down, my absolute favorite instructor was my High School German teacher. Instead of making us sit down and copy sentences out of a book, Frau encouraged games, rhymes- creativity in all it’s forms. And, while I’m still amazed at the German I have retained over the years, I must admit that the occasions to actually use it have been few and far between. Nevertheless, HOW she taught me is among the most important things I could have ever learned in school.

Our oldest son with GSD 1a was diagnosed at 3½ years old. Consequently he has been very delayed- particularly in speech, and was eventually referred to a neuropsychologist. In that report, the Neuropsych recommended that I get my hands on a book called Visual Strategies for Improving Communication: Practical Supports for School and Home, by Linda Hodgdon.

Unfortunately, that has been a little hard to come by, but I was able to check out a book from the library called The Visual-Spatial Classroom- Differentiation Strategies that Engage Every Learner!, by Alexandra Shires Golon. Wow. I started reading it in the hopes that I might pick up a few tidbits of how to incorporate some of the suggestions from the Neuropsychologist into his IEP (individualized education plan) at school. I have finally cracked his brain!!! Figuratively, of course.

The book explains that there are basically two types of learners, but it made it clear that everyone has bits and pieces of both. School is traditionally geared toward Auditory Sequential learners. Sit down, shut up, read this (using phonics) and follow a step-by-step verbal instruction to accomplish a goal. I, and most teachers, are Auditory Sequential learners- or at least have most of those tendencies. That system worked just fine for me, and I was able to do well in school. We think using words.

A visual spacial learner on the other hand, does not think using words, they think using whole visual images or pictures. So, every time I speak to my son, he has to take what I say and translate it into pictures in his mind, then use those pictures to form his idea and translate it back into words for me to understand him. They generally think of things as a whole, not as a step by step process. These are the people that naturally “think outside of the box” and can rarely do it sitting still.

One example the book gave was of a kid whose mom had thrown away the family vacuum cleaner. The kid got the vacuum from the trash, took it apart, oiled it, and put it back together again without any instructions. They intuitively know how, but can’t necessarily tell you how to do it. Another powerful example was computers. “Computers were built for Visual Spacial Learners, by Visual Spacial Learners”. These people are able to learn using techniques, but it’s similar to a right handed person that breaks their right arm. Yes, they can use their left hand to write, but it won’t be as fast, efficient, or as legible as using their right.

However, the most powerful case in point from this book made me literally jump out of my chair and yell, “Yes! That is completely something my son would do!” was a simple “daily life” example.

A mom was pulling out of a the driveway when her 8 year old son started panicking and telling her that she had to stop right away, he couldn’t get his “backwards seven”. The mom wasn’t very concerned about a “backwards seven” so she kept driving. Her son got more and more intense until she finally came to a stop sign and looked in the back seat to figure out what on earth he was talking about. From his perspective on the passenger side his seatbelt looked like a backwards seven. He also knew that he wasn’t supposed to be driving without his seatbelt on. Under pressure, Visual Spacial thinkers have a much harder time translating their images into words. So, since he was trying so hard to get the seatbelt on, his brain couldn’t take the time to translate the image into the “correct” word. Thus, timed tests are not going to be my son’s friend. Of course, timed tests were originally invented to increase the speed of factory workers who have since been replaced by robots-probably invented by a Visual Spacial Learner. Aaah sweet revenge.

By now you’re probably wondering why that has anything to do with my German teacher. She is the only teacher I know of that had a true Visual Spacial classroom. We weren’t given vocabulary words to just look in the back of the book for the definitions. We were given vocab words and a magazine to cut out pictures of it. Then we were actually encouraged to hit fellow students with a rolled up newspaper in my favorite game “Schlagen”. All of us would sit in a circle holding a picture of that week’s vocab word. The person in the middle would call out the name in German and try to smack the person holding that picture before they called out another vocab word. Very fun. I just thought it was “anger management” for some of the students in class. J I will always remember that the word “baum” means “tree” because of a silly phrase a classmate came up with. “Tree fall baum go boom”. Stupid, but catchy. Frau had a myriad of ways to teach us (many of which I still remember). And, while I appreciate the German my little mind has been able to retain, I am profoundly grateful to her for teaching me how to teach my sons.

I have left out sooo much that I have learned thus far from this book, and I highly recommend parents and teachers alike to read it- preferably before your next big IEP meeting.