Have you ever felt that you were a really good learner but not necessarily in the way learning took place when you were in school? Did school sometimes make you feel stupid? Many of us feel this way, and because of this, many of us also feel that we must not be very smart. You’ll often run into this in your mentor training and coaching.

In formal education you basically learned to learn in two or three ways—the famous “reading, writing, and ’rithmetic” that are at the heart of most of the learning we did in school.

Take yourself through a quick inventory of some learning strategies in the table which follows. See what you can learn about your own learning!

When you have something that you really want to learn or something you need to teach to others, WHAT DO YOU DO? Check off everything on the list below which applies. Trust your intuition. Don’t over-analyze this!You may add some of your own ideas at the bottom of the list as well. Talk with other people to get their advice Read books or articles on the topic Listen to informational tapes or CDs Attend a workshop, seminar, or special training session Watch a video, DVD, or go to a movie Search for information on the internet Just figure it out for yourself Make diagrams, pictures, flowcharts, graphs of the information Memorize facts, figures, concepts, or statistics related to the topic Interview an expert or some other knowledgeable person Do library research or purchase books on the topic Spend time alone thinking about it Subscribe to magazines, journals, or periodicals Observe & copy a master Watch educational TV programs Seek out some kind of spiritual guidance or insight Go for walk to mull things over Meditate on it Make up a song, jingle, or rhyme to help remember Get out into nature Find a coach or mentor to consult with _______________________________ _______________________________ _______________________________

How many of the items you checked did you get to use when you were in school? In order to learn smarter, we’ve got to find ways to tap our true genius for learning.

I want to tell you two stories to illustrate what I’ve been talking about so far. Both are stories about my daughters. Neither of them learned the traditional way. They struggled all through their formal education and exasperated their teachers in the process!

Daughter Story #1

My eldest is very much a BodySmart learner. When she was in school she was always wiggling in her seat. Her teachers frequently had to tell her to sit down because she would be at someone else’s desk wondering what they were doing.

At home, when she was doing her homework, she used the “wandering nomad” approach to learning—she would be all over the house, first lying on the floor with feet propped up on a coffee table, then a few minutes later, going to the kitchen for a snack with a book in hand, reading. Next she’d be sitting on the back of a sofa. I would often say to her, “Esther, will you please get started with your homework!”

She would say to me, “Dad, I am doing it. I’m almost finished!” Her teachers often thought she was trying to disrupt the class, but at home she would always say, “If I’m going to learn this, I’ve got to be moving around.” And she was right. If I’d made her study my way she would never have gotten it. When she did it her way, she learned the required material quickly and easily.

I also discovered that whenever I could incorporate physical movement into the learning itself, using role playing, dance, physical exercise, and gestures, she would learn the required information more quickly, she’d remember it longer, and, more importantly, she’d have a much deeper understanding of what she was studying.

Daughter Story #2

My younger daughter, Naomi, is very strong in ImageSmart. In school she drove her teachers crazy with her endless doodling during lectures. Every margin of every worksheet or paper was filled with little pictures, images, squiggles, and doodles. She carried a secret supply of colored markers in her purse. When the teacher’s back was turned, out came the markers so she could add color to her drawings.

Many a teacher would say to her, “Naomi, put those markers away and pay attention!” She would put the markers away, but, interestingly enough, as soon as the markers were put away, she was no longer paying attention. There was something about the activity of her doodles, pictures, images, colors, designs, and squiggles that kept her involved in a lesson.

For Naomi to learn something she had to be able to visually represent it in some fashion through drawing, painting, sculpting or creating pictures inside her head.

“Multimodal” Teaching & Learning Is The Key!
I am suggesting that if you want to reach everyone, everytime in the mentoring, coaching, and training you provide you’ve got teach whatever you’re teaching “multimodally”. What is multimodal teaching and learning? In a nutshell . . .

The more different ways you learn something, the more you really learn it.
The more different ways you learn something, the more you will remember it.
The more different ways you learn something, the more you will genuinely understand and assimilate it.

I want you to see how easy and fun it is to reteach yourself and your participants to learn in this way. You used to know how to do this when you were a kid, so really all I’m suggesting is reawakening how you once learned!

The 8 Kinds of Smart (a.k.a. “multiple intelligences”) are already inside each of us. The 8 Smarts provides you and your participants with an easy and practical way to learn and to teach multimodally. For real learning to occur it must happen throughout your entire brain-mind-body system!

For more more information and tips about multimodal teaching and learning and how to incorporate it into your mentor training and coaching subscribe to my newsletter. I’ll also send you a free video about The 8 Kinds of Smart.