I’d like to reiterate and expand upon the post I mentioned in the forum this week to define the nature of a human. (Written by shipperx and quoted from here.)

I think it may be in what meaning one assigns to the term “moral compass”. Insofar as to vampires know right from wrong, I agree that they do know. On an intellectual level, they know. So if using “moral compass” in the since of delineating direction, I can see that point. On the other hand while having an intellectual construct of right and wrong, on a visceral, instinctual level they don’t ‘feel’ something is ‘right.’ That gut-level empathy is missing. So inasmuch as one ascribes a ‘compass’ to mean a integral property of a compass to point towards magnetic North (or in the case of a ‘moral compass’ an inherent bent towards visceral/gut level feel for morality or difference in moral direction ) then I do think that “moral compass” entails a sense of right and wrong that is different from an intellectual understanding of right and wrong that vampires possess by right of simply having a brain.

I propose that humanity is defined by the moral compass. So long as we have that gut feeling of right and wrong, that need to do what’s right regardless of what we feel that “right” is- after all, less than a century ago, many Eskimos resorted to female infanticide because in order to keep the rest of the family alive. Morally, that was right for them, so their innate need to do the right thing, and therefore their humanity, is still intact. Rationalization, too, is a major human trait, as the need to justify actions as “right;” as is guilt, which is a result of not doing something “right.” Animals, as far as we know, do what they do instinctively, unrestrained by right and wrong, and even what we might construe as shame is simply behavioral conditioning at work.

And what about aliens? Machines? Robots? Would aliens feel pain? Can robots be programmed to feel? Star Trek, significantly, addresses these issues time and again with their diverse group of aliens and artificial life forms, and though these can’t actually predict anything, science fiction presents us with sometimes plausible images of the future.

Data is an android from Star Trek: The Next Generation created to simulate (though never quite imitate) humanity, who spent many years striving to understand and emulate people. However, I don’t believe that he’s human, regardless of the many episodes spent attempting to prove his humanity and rights. He can’t use contractions because he’s been programmed not to (There are some exceptions to this, but I’d attribute them to writer and actor error). He can only feel emotions when he gets an emotion chip installed. His feelings and desires are all artificial, and because of that, his moral code is, as well. He has no gut feelings pulling him toward what he perceives as right; in fact, in the series he’s been manipulated by his fellow android Lore and his ethical program deactivated. Data is therefore not a person.

Interestingly, The Doctor from Star Trek: Voyager is merely a hologram, but is probably closer to human than Data. Modeled with a similar personality to his creator and similar ethical programs as Data, the Doctor has instead foregone his programming on various occasions to ally himself with other holograms, to fight for what he believes in at the cost of violating his first order of “do no harm,” and has striven to change his very nature (to the point of fighting for a position in command instead of medical) in a further attempt to do what he feels is right. Is he a person? It’s still debatable, of course, but he possesses more humanity than Data.

Next come the Vorta and Jem’Hadar, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s cloned minions of an advanced race. The Vorta have been created to serve as manipulators and diplomats; the Jem’Hadar as soldiers who blindly follow orders. To some degree, they lack humanity despite their status as thinking, breathing individuals capable of intelligent thought. They’ve been programmed to act as they do, and rarely vary from their programmed behavior. However, on various occasions these aliens, too, have proven that they’re beholden to what is right in their eyes; one Jem’Hadar sends his troops into a death trap because his Vorta supervisor orders it, and another does the same and then turns and kills the Vorta for doubting his loyalty. The variation in reactions to similar situations implies that the Jem’Hadar are capable of deducing what the right thing is, regardless of its programming, and selecting whichever action feels more correct to him. The Vorta, meanwhile, seem to be far more self-serving than the Jem’Hadar- in one episode, one Vorta is willing to lie to its creators to the point of killing one of them rather than to allow him to get in the way of the conflict at hand. Another one, labeled “defective,” chooses to defect to the enemy, believing that they are the right side in the war. Though I don’t believe that all Vorta and Jem’Hadar use their moral compasses, I think that they possess the ability to do so as a race, and therefore qualify as people.

I may have gone a bit off-topic here. 😀 In short, the most essential quality, the one that is the root of the nature of humanity, is the moral compass. It leads to rationalization (this is what’s right) and guilt (I didn’t do what’s right), to philosophy (what is right?) and originality (I will do what I feel is right, regardless of what those around me might believe).

What can school do? A school that encourages people to think, instead of just obey, can nourish and develop that sense of what’s right. A child might think that “right” is “what I want,” and it takes years before a higher morality emerges- mostly as a natural progression from interaction, but also from being taught by family and mentors to put others before himself, and what’s right above it all. The instinct to do right does emerge no matter what, but it can be suppressed, to some degree, in a restrictive educational setting. Remember the Hitler Youth? They were taught a different doctrine of right and wrong, to the point that most believed it whole-heartedly. It’s easy for a school to dictate right and wrong, and for people to act based on that. But do they lose part of what makes them a person then, by blocking out their personal, inner moral compass? Arguably so. Sending a Jem’Hadar to a school where it learns to play nice and obey teachers instead of its creators might destroy what it is, by forcing it to accept someone else’s “right” instead of its own. Conversely, a school where it learns to express itself and is accepted as is, without someone else’s values, would allow it to flourish.

And sure, that means that the Jem’Hadar will grow up believing that killing others because its creators have told it to is the right thing, but that’s not our decision. Introducing different ideas for it to contemplate is all right. But brainwashing them into it can strip away its humanity.

For those of us in the education field (well, you’re in the education field, too, but from another side), there’s been a lot of talk over the years about learning styles.  Most of this talk originates with the landmark study from 1999, How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience and School.  That study drew heavily on Howard Gardner’s earlier (1983) work on Multiple Intelligences, and it served an important purpose because (at least to some extent) there was a prevailing view that everyone could, or should, learn in pretty much the same way.  If students weren’t learning in the style that was taught, it was because they were just not very capable of learning (I’m doing some exaggerating here).

We’ve come a long distance since then, and it has pretty much become part of accepted common sense that different people learn in different ways, and that teaching should work to support those different styles.  And those styles have become codified, and in fact turned into a bit of an industry, which classes students into their various learning styles, and prescribes teaching techniques to help meet those styles.

The definitions of the specific styles vary somewhat, but the general outline that is used most often defines these seven styles (sometimes the names vary, sometimes there are less than seven):

• Visual (spatial). You prefer using pictures, images, and spatial understanding.
• Aural (auditory-musical). You prefer using sound and music.
• Verbal (linguistic). You prefer using words, both in speech and writing.
• Physical (kinesthetic). You prefer using your body, hands and sense of touch.
• Logical (mathematical). You prefer using logic, reasoning and systems.
• Social (interpersonal). You prefer to learn in groups or with other people.
• Solitary (intrapersonal). You prefer to work alone and use self-study.

You can find all kinds of graphs and charts on the web about how these relate, and what teachers can do to help determine which styles their students are using and how to help them.  If a student is an aural learner, you’d better not try to get him to understand a text by reading it silently! Students who are social learners should be working in groups, and if they’re physical, too, it’s a good idea to have them moving around the room or manipulating objects.

You can even find some tests or quizzes online which let you determine your own learning style.  Now, I think that these are not very useful for any real analysis (for that you need to have a real study with interviews and multiple evidence, not just a few questions on a website).  But they can be a bit funny and entertaining (like those facebook quizzes: “What kind of underwear are you?” or “What Hollywood movie is most like your life?”).  There’s one fairly good one here, but they are all over the web (be cautious–some of them will want you to enter your email address, and send you plenty of spam afterwards).

But when I tried one of these recently, I got these scores (out of a possible score of 20 for each):

• Visual 3
• Social 0
• Physical 3
• Aural 1
• Verbal 1
• Solitary 3
• Logical 3

I seem to be a little bit of everything (except social) but not much of anything (remember, 20 would be considered a high score on this scale–I didn’t score over 3 on any category).

I think, really, that these learning styles might be present in everyone all the time, and it’s a matter of degree, or individual context, or even time of day or season of the year, rather than being real permanent or definitive traits.  Sometimes, in fact, I’m social and want to be with other people when I’m learning.  Sometimes I like to dance or whistle or sing while I’m studying, while other times I like to learn by sitting and thinking quietly–or thinking while I drive or work on restoring an antique radio.

What about you? Do you have a learning style that is singular? Or multiple styles? And…can you connect this to culture(s)?  And is/are there (a) teaching style(s) to connect to your learning style(s) (those parentheses and slashes do get awkward, don’t they? :-)).

Like Sharon and Jacquie, I’ve also grown up in an Orthodox Jewish family. My mother was raised Modern Orthodox, and my father with no religion at all, and both eventually turned to the Orthodox Jewish lifestyle instead. Because of that, I was raised in an environment where I was always comfortable asking any sort of questions and with a tolerance for irreverence, and I was therefore sent to schools with the same ideals.

The school where I spent third grade through twelfth grade was the one large ultra-religious, all-girls school in my neighborhood, so they had no choice but to accept all kinds of students. I don’t know how much any of you know about Orthodox Jewry, but there are many divided sects that come into conflict elsewhere, and they all came together in my school. There was no real judgment there, not when we’d all grown up together. We had a strict uniform in school, but no one really minded when we were younger, and by the time high school came around, we’d all found ways to express ourselves through accessories and makeup (which was against the rules, but that stopped no one). I never really cared much, and it actually took me a long time to adjust to being in schools where I had to have a new outfit every day.

In elementary school, we had a double curriculum, in which we learned Jewish subjects (we called them “Hebrew classes”) and normal, secular subjects. In the mornings, we studied things like the Hebrew language, Bible classes, and Jewish laws. After lunch, we covered math, science, grammar, history, and all the other standard subjects. I developed a healthy love for all of it, whether Hebrew or English.

In junior high, things changed quite a bit. While before then, we’d only had two teachers- one for Hebrew classes, one for English- now, we were departmentalized with different teachers for different subjects. While before then, the teachers were viewed as distant authorities, no matter how “nice” they were, now we were encouraged to build relationships with our teachers. We joked around with them in class as we reached our teenage years; I guess that it was because we had decided that we were old enough now to carry on mature conversation with our teachers. Classes went more in depth and questions and philosophical discussion were as common as simple text-based lectures. We also put together many presentations and activities based on what we’d learned.

High school took this a step further. Most of my teachers were respected members of the community, and many took on a “mentor” role for students. There was a potpourri of teaching styles, as is common in any school, but we were generally encouraged to ask questions and we were given satisfactory answers. One thing my school did lack, though, was many options for English classes. We took the requirements and there were few classes beyond those, not including Advanced Placement courses. We were encouraged to go to college, but they wanted us to get through it as quickly as possible, so only non-Regents courses through which we could get college credit were offered. (I understand that the new principal has changed that, though, and there are now many other courses offered, but that was after my time.) I was fortunate- the principals encouraged me to skip several English classes and take all my twelfth grade courses a year early, so by the time that I was a senior, I was able to take only Advanced Placement courses, and permitted to take several extra ones on my own.

After high school, I spent a year abroad in Israel, in a Hebrew studies program that really emphasized introspection and individuality above academics, even though we did have a six-day week with more class time than ever before. That year really was about understanding myself and where I wanted to go with my life, and I probably learned more then than I did during any other school year.

Now, I’ve been in Brooklyn College for almost two years, and I’ve really enjoyed it. I love the variety of classes in particular- I’ve been able to take classes on everything from Japanese to counseling to Harry Potter! I do miss the Hebrew subjects, though, and I’ve encouraged my family to engage in absurd Bible trivia games at the Sabbath table so I can still enjoy them.

Interestingly, I think my enjoyment of certain subjects faded once I took them in school and turned fun into work. Now that I no longer study physics, the Bible, philosophy, or even math, I love discussing them and reading books about them during my downtime. Although there are some classes that have increased my interest in subjects (for example, I didn’t like philosophy or Harry Potter until I took class on them), I’m generally happiest when I’m learning on my own, via the internet or even a debate with my brother. And when I’m happy, I learn best.