I had a teacher “who’s name I can’t currently remember” whom had this idea that people learned in one of three different ways. Audio, Visual and very rarely both. She would ask series of questions and depending on which way the eye would look she could tell you which way would be best to help you learn. I have come to find over the years this to be true.
Some people can remember every single detail told to them after hearing a brand new story only once. Others can read a book once and remember every single detail written. Some people are good at doing both. Personally I know I am one of the people who can read something and remember it visually. Like you can actually take me a place One time and I will remember exactly how to get back depending on the changes of that place.
I never needed a map walking around Brooklyn, NY. I was always very good at going too and from places. To this day I think I could probably still find my way back to Staten Island from Brooklyn by bus..”depending if the same buses run the same lines.”. I could “and have” walked from my parents old house in Brooklyn all the way to my sisters house in Far Rockaway. I remember Visual details of places and markers some of which are probably long long gone.
I have never been good with music lyrics. I could hear a song a thousand times and still not remember the words TILL.. only a few seconds before the beat. So like I can sing along to songs but I have to hear the rhythm for me to pick up the point to say each word. Like I can’t sing a song without something triggering that memory to come up. I was never good at remembering things being told to me. Even to this day names are hard for me to remember unless I see them or if I am forced to repeat it over and over.
In 4th grade probably the scared est I have ever been of my father was the day he asked me to spell my name and I couldn’t. Like my entire name.. The reason for this was because I had never until that day seen it written down any place constantly . Schools only required me up until that point to spell my name Alex and being in the 4th grade no one had ever asked me to spell my last name or even my middle name. Hell they don’t even give you Identification cards till High School.
He was so angry at me that he actually did shout at me and forced me to spell my name 100 times on a sheet of paper. Good thing is it worked and I can now spell my entire name NO PROBLEM..Alexander Glen Gonzalez… hehe.. Fun fact to the story is that it might actually be wrong.. lol.. but that’s another story all together. .. in truth that is my OFFICIAL LEGAL NAME ..but my dad might have issues at some point in time in the future.
Currently I keep thinking about places that I have been. Places that I feel comfortable being. I have traveled to a few places and honestly I would say 75% of them I could probably go back to and notice many of the changes. I know I could still travel around Brooklyn, West Allis, GWL, Warwick, some of Monroe,Staten Island, Queens and probably still Ocala without thinking much about how to get back to old places I have lived.
I know one of the hardest subjects for me to learn was Math. This was mostly cause it didn’t have any real visuals to it short of the same symbols over and over again but in different combinations.
12 x 3 =… 36?…”checks math….correct”…but keep in mind I only got that correct because I deal with numbers FAR MORE TODAY.. than I ever did in the 5th grade. Visually I can see things which I think also made me a really decent artist in my younger days. Today I haven’t practiced nearly as much and what art I do now is mostly coloring so I am not as good as putting lines on paper as I once was.. but I am sure if I wanted to pick it up again it wouldn’t take me long to get good at it again.
It’s funny to me how things in our brains work. I find that as I get older things stick more. I miss things more because of what I guess I have adapted to be constant is what I adapt to be correct. Like walking down Kings Highway I probably could do today but i am sure it would be a different experience. Funny how we learn and how things change over time.