As I have been reading certain sites about the “Learning Pyramid” I was directed to: Will at Work Learning: People remember 10%, 20%…Oh Really?  and one of the statements from that particular site stated: “learning results depend on too many variables”.  As I stated before, I do believe that different individuals learn in many different ways but I think that one area that hasn’t been addressed is the variables.  When I think of variables, I think about students that are mentally challenged, or how about those poor students that come from abusive homes.  I have also had students that can’t learn because they were up all night because mom and dad are on durgs and got into a domestic dispute and was tossed in jail and it took till the early hours of the morning before they could find someone that was “willing” to take the child in.  I know that many of you have these children in your classrooms and these are very important variables that effect many aspects of the learning environment!  If you are not aware that these types of events are happening in some of your student’s lives, maybe you need to get to know your students better. 

I know that we have looked a many aspects of the educational system and picked apart things we have been taught as teachers, to be teachers, but I still believe that there is a “Santa Clause” (this was part of a comment on the following blog: » Teachers and Students as Learners Joe McConda’s Distance Learning 685) and many of the concepts are good and do work.  No system is perfect; education is just like any other product sometimes the product works and sometimes it doesn’t but the best thing is to keep trying ingredients until you happen upon a good mixture!