What Johnny Taught Me

Over the years I have learned more from my students than I have taught them. I’m sure of this. And they have helped me grow in more ways than I can I even remember.

One special child, a little boy I’ll call Johnny, still sticks out in my memory for the very important lesson he taught me that altered my approach to education.

Johnny had a reputation for “not paying attention” and “talking too much.” He was also having trouble learning to read. With each passing year, his parents became more frustrated as Johnny’s self-esteem crumbled before their eyes. His educational future looked bleak – and he was only seven years old!

When he became my student, I discovered it was true: Johnny did talk a lot, and he could be disruptive. He had trouble doing the lesson page in his student book.

One day as I stood behind him, I said, “Johnny, follow along with your finger as I read the lesson.” I read with a great deal of voice inflection. He followed along, and unlike previous times, he knew the answers to my questions when we were finished. I encouraged him to verbalize what he understood of what I read. Wouldn’t you know it, he remembered and could even express it back to me!

This event led us to discover that Johnny learned best when given a chance to hear the lesson and then talk about it. Johnny was obviously an auditory learner who had been taught with only visual strategies. He was also greatly helped any time he could touch something – even simple ways, as I encouraged him to do by moving his finger along the page.

Johnny was fine. We just hadn’t opened the sensory gates that helped him learn best.

This was definitely an eye-opener for me.

Like many teachers who were trained in traditional teaching methodology, I had certain expectations for the children in my classroom. When he didn’t learn with those methods, I felt disappointed. When I realized that children learn in different ways (adults do, too!), I knew I had to stretch myself as a teacher and modify my teaching style to reach other students like Johnny. For many teachers, this is the hardest thing of all to do: teach students who do not learn like they do.

As I let some kids talk more and others do more, and as I brought in things in for some of them to touch, the transformation in my classroom surprised even me. Over the years I’ve watched the talkers grow up to become lawyers and teachers, the touchers have become technicians and mechanics, and the doers turned out to be policemen and doctors. I can clearly see why God designed their learning styles in such a special way.