Mysteries of the Mind - Book Report/Review Example

Humans and plants have some of the same senses and reactions. The sense of Venus flytrap when to close shut to catch its prey, the knowledge embedded in flowers that spring has arrived and a willow tree’s sense of learning that its neighbors have been attacked by beetles, seem much familiar to humans. Humans also sense things and learn. The debate about ‘learning styles’ is interesting because scientific evidence supporting the claim that different people have different learning styles, is weak.

This does not mean that people exhibit similar learning behaviors. It is simply useless to blame someone’s unique learning style for poor academic performance. The senses in plants and humans operate in similar patterns. To elaborate this thesis is there is no excuse such as having a different learning style. Scientific evidence has weakened the argument for different learning styles (Pashler et al., 2009). There are several guidelines that one has to follow to get good grades. The brain is like a muscle; it learns through reputation.

Muscle motor memory is like that fine unconscious learning that comes through tying a shoe lace over and again (Chamovitz 116). Similarly, by repeating the process (a calculus problem, fixing a programming glitch etc.) the brain becomes habitual of learning it. The other explanation for bad grades is that some students are bad at learning. They do not make those necessary neural pathways in their brain that are necessary for learning. Learning involves both objective and subjective attachment to the subject at hand.

A plant is free from these subjective restrictions since it does not have a brain (Chamovitz 67). Students or learners are supposed to have a functioning brain that can make those associations between things. The brain can concentrate on one task at a time. Multitasking is an illusion, especially when it