The either-ors of learning styles

Either learning styles exist or they don't. This seems simple enough. Since learning styles have been disproven, we have shifted from believing that they do to believing that they don't.


There's a big problem with this argument. Learning styles have not actually been disproven. The evidence against learning styles has actually been focused on the flawed idea that people learn either through sight or sound.

This is where an either-or mentality can cause problems. The idea that people learn through sight or sound has essentially been established as our definitive learning styles. The real argument that people seem to embrace is that people either learn through sight and sound, or no learning styles exist.

Part of the reason that I find the belief in learning through sight and sound to be so absurd is because of the either-or mentality. With billions of people living on this planet, how can we insist that everyone learns in one of two ways? When you think about it, variability in how people learn is the heart of real learning styles.

Disproving flawed perceptions of learning styles is certainly insufficient to disprove the existence of real learning styles. We shouldn't allow a shallow either-or argument to manipulate our own viewpoints. It is perfectly acceptable to reject the idea of learning through sight and sound while still rejecting the idea that everybody must learn in identical manners.