Gaining Knowledge By Myriad Means

For 25 years as a professor, researcher and author, Mel Levine has been studying how people learn. As director of the Clinical Center for the Study of Development and Learning at the University of North Carolina and a professor of pediatrics at the university's medical school, Levine co-founded All Kinds of Minds, a nonprofit organization that works with thousands of schools to help educators understand different learning patterns. Levine was in Washington recently and spoke with staff writer Valerie Strauss:

What is going on in schools today that you find troubling?

Treating everyone the same is to treat them unequally, and that is what we are doing. To give every kid the same test, to assume that children all have the same strengths and weaknesses and need to be educated in the same mode is going to hurt many, many individuals. I think our society pays a really high price for that.

What is the most common mistake schools make in this regard?

I think it is neglecting the child's strength. One of the major missions of education ought to be dealing with their strengths, because what really counts is how strong are your strengths. There is nothing more tragic than capacity that never got developed.

Second, I think schools, without meaning to, will humiliate certain kinds of individuals. I think public humiliation is incredibly lethal.

What form does this humiliation take?