You Are Not a Kinesthetic Learner: The Troubled History of the Learning Style Idea

A harmful pedagogical theory has reigned supreme for decades despite a lack of evidence in its favor, according to this unsettling history. Education scholar Fallace (In the Shadow of Authoritarianism) argues that the “learning style” hypothesis (e.g., “that everyone has a style of learning through which they learn best”) is grounded in racism. Tracing the history of the idea from its nebulous early-20th-century origins in the field of cognitive psychology, through its midcentury crossover into education and business schools, to its late-20th- and early-21st-century ascendance as common sense pedagogical practice, Fallace shows that the idea has never been proven or even seriously tested for educational environments. He further demonstrates that what was, at best, a humanist theory expressing a need to embrace individual difference, was from the outset warped into a means for reinforcing racial hierarchies (a core tenet became that Black and Latino students excelled with a more “physical approach to learning”). Fallace writes that, in chasing down the notion’s origins, he found the opposite of what he expected—not researchers pushing a hackneyed idea, but researchers cautioning against their theory being adopted for practical application even as educators latched onto it. He posits that educators were looking for an excuse to alleviate growing expectations placed on them regarding Black and Latino educational outcomes. Rigorous and persuasive, this is a must-read for educators. (May)