Why the Learning Styles myth spreads
Because the predominant ideas of pedagogy consist of what education academics would <i>like</i> to believe is true, rather than what is actually true; and displacing these ideas is difficult because the teachers&#x27; unions in the USA are powerful.<p>Another example: the school system in Oakland, CA, in 2015 abandoned its phonics-based approach to reading instruction, which was actually helping kids learn to read and get good scores in reading. The reason was because the teachers felt the curriculum was &quot;colonizing&quot; and they didn&#x27;t have enough agency to determine how to introduce reading to kids. The fact that phonics has proven to be a good basis for instruction in mapping written words to sounds, even in a phonetically bizarre language like English, and everything else including &quot;whole word&quot; instruction and whatever learning-by-osmosis method the Oakland district ended up adopting, has produced poorer results, was irrelevant to the school board who made this decision.<p>Which is to me unconscionable: when it comes to education I favor whatever gets kids to learn. Especially in a place like Oakland; if you&#x27;ve ever been there, you&#x27;ll know those kids <i>need</i> good education. But that&#x27;s how it goes when egos, entrenched bureaucracies, and the wishful thinking of powerful people are on the line.<p>In an unrelated field, it also resembles the fixation the biochem community had on beta-amyloid proteins in Alzheimer&#x27;s. It was an enticing theory because it seemed so simple: clear away the plaques and the brain would heal -- no more Alzheimer&#x27;s! Of course it didn&#x27;t work that way in reality, but it worked <i>so well</i> in mouse models, leading to more intense wishcasting by other researchers and on it goes.