Part 1: Lunch 

This past weekend, my husband and I had lunch with four neighbors, one of whom is a kindergarten teacher at a local school and none of whom I’d met previously. We got to talking about work. I bragged about the Goyen Literacy Fellows and showed off some videos. Everyone was impressed, but that’s not the point of this piece. 

From there, we started talking about education more broadly, and one neighbor (we’re all varying degrees of “in our 30s”) asks how school has changed since we were kids. The teacher responded:

"We're so much more responsive to different learning styles. I tailor instruction to match individual styles." She continues, asking me directly, "there are three learning styles, right?"

Before you read further, four questions for you to consider and four questions I wish I had considered:

1. What would you do if you were me in this scenario?

2. What considerations would you weigh?

3. What should the goal of any response be?

4. What's your script, if you have one?

Part 2: What happened?

I could hear my husband, asking with just his eyes, “How are you going to handle this one?” And then, “please, please, please don’t ruin our lunch with these nice people.”

“It’s so interesting that you say that,” I started. “While I do think teachers are much more responsive to individual student needs and differences than they were 25 years ago, I don’t think there’s a lot of evidence to support the idea that everyone has a learning style that works best for them. On the other hand, certain tasks or learning are best done auditorily or visually. Like it makes more sense to learn about music by listening to it or about geography through visuals or basketball by playing it.”

“But I think it’s really great that teachers are more responsive to student needs,” I continued. I don’t remember where the conversation went from there.

How’d I do?

I’d give myself a C+. I didn’t ruin the lunch, and I don’t think I embarrassed anyone. But I also think the “compliment sandwich” I defaulted to both confused the issue and was sort of condescending.

Part 3: What would YOU have done?

I shared the first part of this story on Twitter because I was curious to hear what other people would have done. I got several responses–all quite different, but all useful.

Response 1:

Response 2:

Response 3:

I think all three proposed responses have real merit.

Response 3 is fairly close to what I actually said: direct and unemotional. I think there’s something inherently respectful about being direct with someone. In doing so, you implicitly communicate that they can handle the directness, that you think of them like a peer. You cut through the niceties and fluff and get right to the point.

Response 2 appeals to me because it resets the conversation and invites continued conversation. Giving the other person an article or similar resource offers them time and space to marinate in the different viewpoint, to gather their thoughts privately, to prepare questions and objections, to identify places of agreement.

My favorite part about Response 1 is the push to remain present with the other person. It emphasizes growing and responding to the current relationship dynamic and centering their beliefs and perspectives.

At the same time, I also have concerns about each approach. Response 2 would make a lot more sense to me if this conversation was happening between two colleagues, but we were at a casual lunch with some neighbors. It didn’t feel appropriate to assign homework. Response 3, I worried, was too direct and could be alienating, particularly because I didn’t know very much about the teacher’s personality and identity. Conversely, Response 1 ran the risk of being avoidant. I wanted to make a minor point and plant a single seed, but would I even do that if I just asked questions?

Part 4: If I had a time machine…

As I continued to consider how I might have responded differently, I returned to several of the questions I posed on Twitter.

What considerations would you weigh?

Context and relationship, for two: I was at a neighbor's house for lunch with a mostly non-educator audience. I didn’t have a relationship with anyone there, other than my husband. I didn’t know how the others dealt with conflict or disagreement. I was largely ignorant of everyone else’s identities. I also didn’t want to dominate the conversation.

What should the goal of any response be?

The goal of my response would be twofold. One, I wanted to preserve or strengthen whatever relationship we were building over the previous few hours. Two, I wanted to plant an honest seed about learning styles. I didn’t expect to change anyone’s mind, but I wanted to directly and kindly bring in a new perspective that might start to lay the groundwork for a future mindshift.

I also kept coming back to the question of whether or not I should have engaged at all. I ultimately decided that because I was asked a direct question, it would have been wrong to lie, but if I hadn’t been, I probably wouldn’t have said anything, given the context and relationships. I’m not at all confident if that’s the right distinction to draw.

So here’s what I came up with:

“You know, it’s wild. When I was teaching, at my old school, we talked about learning styles all the time. But then I stumbled upon this article, and it turns out that this idea that we have this specific learning style that works best for us isn’t really accurate. It really took me by surprise.”

From there, I would leave space for questions and conversation.

Part 5: Why did I write about this? 

Why did I just take you on a 1000 word journey about a 2 minute interaction I had over lunch last weekend? The interaction wasn’t even about literacy and reading! (Thanks for reading this far, by the way).

Here’s why: if you work in schools or education, you are going to have dozens of interactions like this one every single day–interactions about literacy, about curriculum, about mathematics, about cognitive science, interactions with colleagues, parents, job candidates, and strangers on social media. Some will be obviously significant. Others will feel trivial and small, like the one I described might. All of these interactions are also opportunities to build relationships and to introduce new and often challenging ideas and knowledge to your communities.

What we say and how we say it matter, even in smallest, more forgettable moments. A positive interaction in the faculty lounge might mean that the first grade teacher downloads a podcast you recommended for her commute. A perceived slight might mean that the second grade teacher tunes out the next time you start talking about knowledge-building. We aren’t going to change a person’s mind in a single interaction, but a single interaction can certainly change the course of a relationship.