An old adage from Shakespeare says, “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatest thrust upon ’em.” This simple truth, when combined with an awareness of the different kinds of intelligence, helps parents to understand and respect how their child learns differently.
Children may be gifted or “born great” with one or two kinds of intelligence. They may be gradual learners or “achieve greatness” with a few more kinds of intelligence. With the other kinds of intelligence, they may be late bloomers and “have greatness thrust upon ’em.”
People exhibiting these three ways of learning can easily be summarized as: runners, walkers, and jumpers. To explore these three different learning rates in greater detail, let’s take learning to ride a bike as an example:
Runners
This child sees another child riding a bike and just gets on and rides off. Children with this learning style are runners. They are fast learners, but to stay interested and involved, they need to be challenged. They learn very quickly, because they are generally gifted at what they are learning. Parents must be careful to make sure that runners get the opportunity to develop their other kinds of intelligence that may not be so easy for them.
Walkers
This child takes a few weeks to learn how to ride a bike. These children respond well to instruction and with each attempt they get a little better. They may start out with training wheels but within a couple of weeks are riding on their own. Walkers are what parents call “dream children” or “easy.” They always learn a little more, get better, and clearly let you know you are helping and they are learning. These children are so easy to manage that they often miss a lot of important nurturing and attention.
Jumpers
This child is the most difficult and challenging for parents. These children may take several years to learn how to ride a bike. They take instruction in, but don’t progress. They don’t get better, they don’t show any signs of learning, and the parent has no idea if anything they are doing is helping. If the parent persists, two years later the child gets on the bike and suddenly rides.
All that instruction was going in, but the parent had no indication of progress. Then, in one mysterious moment, these children somehow put it all together, get on the bike, and ride as if they had been riding for two years. On the surface, it may have looked as if no progress was being made, but then suddenly in one jump they get there. These children often don’t get the time and attention they need to make the jump. Without parental encouragement and persistence, they quit and never realize their inner potential.