Well, this started off as notes, which of course became a blog entry, but I realized that it really warranted a podcast as well. There aren’t really show notes, there’s basically an accompanying blog entry instead. If you read or listen to one, you don’t necessarily need to check out the other, there’s a lot of repition there. Anyway, it’s a little personal, but I guess most of my podcasts are personal in one way or another. Enjoy the show!
Accompanying blog entry:
I feel really foolish right now.
I have always had a hard time remembering faces. They just seem to slip away from me. Consequently, I’m horrible with people’s names. It is a tremendous challenge for me to remember a person’s name, in particular someone I don’t know very well. However, even with people that I do know fairly well, I do have problems associating a name with their face.
I found out about 10 years ago that I actually have what they call a processing deficiency in my visual memory. Basically, I have trouble holding images in my mind. It’s why I have trouble describing people. I could meet somebody, talk to them for 20 minutes and five minutes later I would be unable to remember if they had blonde or black hair. Even right now, I have trouble picturing people very close to me. I know what they look like, but it’s a difficult to hold an image of them in my mind.
It can really be embarrassing at times though. I thought that the presenter we had this morning was the same one we had yesterday for NeuroTechnology. After lunch, I pulled her aside and asked her if she normally taught that session because I saw a dramatic difference between the way she presented yesterday versus today. After a moment of confusion, she informed me that it was a completely different person doing that session yesterday. I felt like a complete moron. She pointed out that they don’t even have the same color hair. Really, the only two things they have in common was a semi-similar body type and they both wear glasses. I ran into the presenter from yesterday a few minutes ago and they really do look completely different.
It completely drives me crazy. After a day and a half of this workshop, I wonder whether some of these exercises might help me some. I would love to be able to remember images better, in particular the faces of people I’ve met.
Situations like what just occurred really make me feel like a moron. It’s not that I don’t want to remember people’s names and faces, I just seem unable to be able to. However, even knowing that it’s a problem, I have never made any effort specifically to address it. I wonder if there’s something I could be doing to ‘correct’ this problem. Perhaps there’s been a breakthrough in this area and I never knew because I never took the time to look.
It really makes me think about just how many subtle, elusive problems our students could have that might influence their education. My eyesight is 20/20, but there’s no question that I have a very real problem. Perhaps something I learn here may help. Either way, I’m going to have to pursue this. I’m tired of being embarrassed and feeling foolish for something that I can’t control.
Steve,
I’m wondering if maybe what you suffer from might be a form of Visual Form Perception.
Visual Form Perception – consists of four visual abilities called figure-ground, form constancy, visual closure, and visual discrimination. Figure-ground is the ability to recognize distinct shapes from their background. Form constancy is the ability to recognize two objects that have the same shape but different size or position, identify or recognize a symbol or object when the entire object is not visible. Visual discrimination is the ability to discriminate between visible likeness and differences in size, shape, pattern, form, position, and color.
That coupled with Visual Memory…
Visual Memory is the ability to recall and use visual information from the past. This skill helps children remember what they read and see by adequately processing information through their short-term memory, from where it is filtered out into the long-term memory.
One symptom of poor visualization is:
Difficulty recalling what was done or what was seen during the day.
If not, then get “The Memory Book”
by Harry Lorayne, Jerry Lucas
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In my case, I can only attribute my inability to recall faces as just plain-old old age.
Seriously, your mention of your, for the lack of a better word, disability and how it affects you and the disabiities the children have and our need to understand. There are odd disabilities that we have no idea how they affect our students and as long as we, as educators, can just be aware, then we are better educators for doing that.
Casey
I have the same problem with faces and names. It even happens with people than I know fairly well. Oddly, I can remember huge volumes of biographical information about people whose names I can’t recall at all. I just figured I had a problem similar to, but to a lesser extent, a person from the book “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.” Which is a very interesting book.
Let me know if you have any luck fixing your problem. I’d love to see something that works as the problem is often very embarrassing and has lead me to avoid most people’s names completely for fear of getting them wrong.
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