Well, I never heard it before, but it sounds uncommon nonsense

Learning styles, always a controversial topic.  Kinesthetic? Auditory? Visual?  Multi-Modal?  Everyone's got a style, or a mix of styles.  That is a fact.

Now, today's blog isn't going to be a educational bit on the learning styles of individuals.  It's more about the way people see and understand learning styles.  Today, I was telling a family member about the online component of my textbook which is actually quite cool.  There are quizzes on various parts of the textbook with auditory, visual, and kinesthetic style forms.  Said family member rolled his eyes when I mentioned how cool it was that the program catered to various learning styles.  When asked why, he said "the real world doesn't offer choices, no one's going to help you out with different learning routes."
I beg to differ.
When I started out as a secretary, I knew nothing about the job.  My boss didn't come up and say "This is what you need to learn, would you like to hear it, see it, or learn it with your hands?"  Instead, she told me how to do things, I read about them in the office manual and I tried them out by trial and error.  The real world doesn't sit you down and offer you three choices, but let's face it: no matter what kind of learner you are, you can figure things out with today's technology.  YouTube videos, Google, instruction manuals, 1-800 numbers, customer support, etc.

In short, I would like to disagree with my skeptical relation and say that the real world does offer us the three learning routes, if only we have the initiative to look.

But then, shall I never get any older than I am now? That'll be a comfort, one way -- never to be an old woman -- but then -- always to have lessons to learn!

Well, after two semesters of co-requisites, standardized testing, and essay writing, I finally got into the nursing program.  The fact that I got in is not the point of this blog, however.  The point of today's blog is how silly some parts of the learning process are.

For instance, I just read one chapter and am in the middle of another on patient assessment and critical thinking.  Now, you might think these are excellent skills for a future nurse to have, and I assure you they are.  However, the book lists off all these wonderful things you should keep in mind and ties the paragraph up with this: "Practical experience and the opportunity to make clinical decisions strengthen your critical thinking" (Perry & Potter, 2009).
Now, if this had been the only mention of the importance of practical experience, that would be fine.  But it seems to me that every couple of paragraphs they say something along the lines of "This is what you're going to do, but you won't be very good until you have experience under your belt."  I understand that completely: the longer you're a nurse, the better you'll be at assessment.  Is that honestly the best you can do though?  Give us lists of common symptoms, red flags, or something!!  Honestly, telling you how to do something which you don't yet have the knowledge to do?  I understand the reasoning behind it, but it is most frustrating.

With that said, I'm off to continue reading the Fundamentals of Nursing.  To be honest, I almost enjoy reading this.  Bizarre really, but true.  Ciao!