Visual-Spatial helps

I ordered two books recently, they arrived the other day.

Raising Topsy-Turvy Kids – Successfully Parenting Your Visual-Spatial Child

and

If You Could See the Way I think – A handbook for Visual-Spatial Kids

both by Alexandra Shires Golon.

They come on the heals of Linda Kreger Silverman’s book: Upside-Down Brilliance.

All three books are useful for anyone who thinks they may be a visual-spatial learner. They are also useful for anyone who lives with or works with a VSL and needs to get along with them better.

Though the handbook is written to “kids” I find it useful for adults as well. It has much of the same material as the first book I listed above, but it’s different, expanded, and might be suitable for any adult. I don’t think it’s “dumbed down” that’s not what I mean, it’s only written on a different level, really just moreso expanded to explain some of the ideas further than they are in either of the other two books.

I really have enjoyed all three books and look forward to the day when they come out with a book targeted at how VSL’s grow up to be adults and what it’s like and all that. I know what it’s like, I have grown up as a VSL. I didn’t know I was VSL though until recent years. I didn’t know that others weren’t like me. I did know it, yet didn’t know. I did know I was different.

Some women that are VSL’s have a phenomenon of feeling they are “fake”. It’s not anything that I’ll go into detail about, but Linda Silverman’s book does talk about it. It was a nice thing to read, to see that I wasn’t the only one.

One thing I will say about that is that I am venturing a guess that every VSL woman who feels like that must be an Introvert, as in what an MBTI introvert is, or the true definition of Introvert as being someone who loves to be alone, is very reflective, thinks before speaking generally, gains energy from being with own self, loses energy with other people, likes to socialize but likes to socialize with particular people; extroverts gain energy socializing, and can socialize with almost anyone, big or small group, and usually lose energy being alone, don’t like to be alone. Everyone is moreso one or the other, some may be more a mix of both, in varying degrees, but generally one is basically “an extrovert” or “an introvert”.

This is something that is different for a VSL than is for an ASL (auditory-sequential learner), being an introvert, that is. That’s my opinion, of course. It’s different since being left-brain is different from being right-brain, and the world today is more left-brain than right-brain, in expectations of how a person thinks.

One thing that I know about myself is that I am very VSL and I have good sequential skills, but I am very VSL and so I am a messy perfectionistic introverted VSL. I learned long ago not to be a perfectionist in all, but to look for excellence in all, but to not consider all things as being to the nth degree do-able. Like organization. It’s a struggle for me if I don’t have the right tools. I can create tools if I have materials to do so with, but given no materials, forget it! 🙂 That’s the VSL in me, I don’t have a cleanie outlook, I have a I-live-with-in-it outlook. 🙂

The reason I think I’m able to have come to that place is because of my belief in Jesus Christ, acceptance of myself the way I am and what is what, and because that primarily means I know that I am different from most folks, I don’t mind, I have a VSL way of learning, and a partial-left-brain ability with some things secondarily, I am the sort that says of themselves “dabrowski overexitabilities are what I have” it’s how I am. I have super sensitivities in many areas, and so I know I am not ‘normal’ by any stretch of the imagination.

VSL’s are often creative or gifted. I nearly had that label on me when I was in primary school, gifted, but my math scores were not good enough. Well then, I’m lefty-intellectedish, but not mathy-so. I am mathy-minded, but not lefty-mathy-minded. I’m right-mathy-minded. Because High IQ is only part of the “gifted” testing that was done in my childhood, I was left to stew in my boring classes. I got worse and worse in school from that point on. It’s typical of someone in my case nature. I didn’t rise to the challenge, there wasn’t any challenge usually to rise to.

So I grew up and didn’t succeed in school. I did learn though. I was a voracious reader, old movie watcher, thinker, doodler, music listener, singer, nature lover, cat lover, etc. I had aquariums of fish, a pet blue crab, pet frogs, pet tadpoles as well, through the years. I read encyclopedias, dictionaries, living books, reader digest condensed books (my dad brought home a host of those from the 60’s and 70’s sometime in the early 80’s, he worked at a condo and people got rid of stuff and gave it to him) I read every single one of those we had. I love National Geograpic. I inhaled information that I was interested in.

In school, try to get me interested in something that I couldn’t, then you just couldn’t. The backside of that is, try to get me interested in something, if you can, I will and then I’ll be full mach speed ahead and be done with it before you could blink. That’s half the trouble with things, I read ahead in the school books, out of boredom, inability to “listen” so well when bored. Like in 7th grade, a class that was reading the textbook about serfs in the ancient days … It was mildy interesting, but not to read aloud as teacher made us. We sat in order of last name spellings, A’s by the door, the right side of the room, and trailing back, then going up to the next row, first seat, and down the line and back to first seat next row, etc. Teacher started every class with reading aloud one paragraph, the students, starting with the first desk and going down as described with the seating plan earlier. My last name began with SH, so I had a long wait. I counted out the paragraphs, held my finger on my paragraph, and read ahead silently. I was chapters ahead. I just couldn’t sit there listening to the struggling students reading haltingly aloud, or with no inflection. Ugh. It worked though, I just read out my paragraph when it was my turn.

I didn’t succeed in school though, I fell worse into trouble with not wanting to do things. When I was in 8th grade we moved to another State, and that was the toppling of my school career officially. I never did so good as I had before. I never did really try hard though. It wasn’t worth it before or after the move.

In my new school I was in misery since the way they did things was really experimental and totally humiliating for an introvert. I had no creative outlet in music there. Their chorus program was a joke and they didn’t even allow me to participate. They had no clue what they turned down. I had ability to read music, sing different parts, act, and more. Other teachers did recognize my creativity in other future years though.

My next year of school I abhored and didn’t stay long in it. I dropped out eventually. Before I did though our literature class moved to another building for awhile with a different teacher for some kind of “reading lab”. I was tested on something and given some things to read and answer question to. I recall the lab teacher talking to me and being astonished at my ability to read and comprehend the things. It was no big deal to me. I guess I was something special there, but I dropped out soon after that, the school started at 12 noon, and my first class was PE and we had to run a mile around the blazing hot S. Florida track, every other day, I think it was. I got so sick if it wasn’t raining. It was horrible. That was the catalyst for my quiting. I was only in 9th grade, but no one could convince me to go back. It was a couple of months before a truancy officer checked up on me. He found me at home. I was reading. He said that’s fine, basically he had bigger fish to fry, kids out causing trouble. 🙂

I did a ton of reading and watching classic movies the rest of the school year.

I had bad experiences the next few years then too, when we moved to a new town and I had to go back to school. I had the ear of the music teacher at the next public school. She liked me and helped me get involved with things my grade wasn’t all allowed to do, I was very experienced and had a better ear and voice and eye than the older classes even. I didn’t like my other classes, of course. I often found that teachers attitudes just set me off inside. I couldn’t function to give a care about their classes at all. I was nice though.

I also went to a private Christian school then. It was a better environment, but then again, in some ways it wasn’t. I eventually quit entirely at the end of 11th grade, I had been mocked by teachers for too many times, and I just had enough the last week of school before exams. I quit. They said later I could make it up, do some papers and take summer school and continue on to 12th grade the next year. I had closed myself down though. I had no desire and was done. I got my GED later on. That was a boring experience. It was a timed two-day test. The sections were divided up so that half were one day and half the next. Me and one other person were allowed to complete more tests the first day, but I was forced to hold out and have 2 left for the last day. Very frustrating, I could have done them all in half-a-day. 🙄

Did I ace them? Yes. I did. I didn’t get super perfect score, I didn’t care. I didn’t study, I just showed up and took the test.

It’s just exactly the sort of life that convinced me that my children wouldn’t go to school. I could teach them myself. Guess what? I’m VSL, and VSL’s don’t usually do so well in school, if it’s left-brain-oriented. For me, the highlight of all school was music class, chorus, choir, orchestra, musicals, drama, etc. I would have gone into the arts, if I hadn’t been shuffled all over from where I was most comfy in the first place, in PA where I was born. Ah, well, I just ended up as I was intended to though. I’m married and have children and they are at home and learning in an environment that is beneficial. That’s what I must do. Stop the cycle of dumb life. So my own talents are just poured into my family, and as the children get older I’m hoping we can use even more of them.

I’m glad for the books that I mentioned in the beginning of this post. They are what I can use to show my children what they are like. I have other knowledge then of how people are that will aide them in being who they are, not stumbling around as much as I did. They will know themselves, how they think and be able to harness their talents from a young age. 🙂

No, it’s not perfection. It’s only a step in the right direction. Know Thyself.