I'm sorry but it read a bit much like 'hey if you can visualize it you can learn it' but that is a cruel joke to someone who can't visualize anything. Sort of like laughing at someone for not being able to see the number in a color blindness test.
Some people just don't visualize. Not even a little bit. And I'm not sure its "just because they never learned to." Myself, I've always seen the 'picture' in my head and even dream in full technicolor (like this means anything) but my wife of 20+ years just can't. She is definitely smart, graduated with a CS degree from USC and is a much better planner than I will ever be, but those questions where you see a flat piece of paper with a bunch of dotted lines on it and you need to guess the shape it will be if they were all folded, just can't see it.
When I was growing up I used to think they only put those kinds of questions on tests so that everyone could get a few answers right, they were just that easy for me.
So Newport's thesis that if you can visualize it you can gain 'insight' is no doubt true for some people, but it certainly isn't a panacea for teaching complex subjects.
If you've ever seen the online math courses that Stanford did [1] under the EPGY program, it has some excellent tools that seem to work well for a variety of learning styles. Worth a look, and just down right priceless if you're home schooling your kids.
Some people just don't visualize. Not even a little bit. And I'm not sure its "just because they never learned to." Myself, I've always seen the 'picture' in my head and even dream in full technicolor (like this means anything) but my wife of 20+ years just can't. She is definitely smart, graduated with a CS degree from USC and is a much better planner than I will ever be, but those questions where you see a flat piece of paper with a bunch of dotted lines on it and you need to guess the shape it will be if they were all folded, just can't see it.
When I was growing up I used to think they only put those kinds of questions on tests so that everyone could get a few answers right, they were just that easy for me.
So Newport's thesis that if you can visualize it you can gain 'insight' is no doubt true for some people, but it certainly isn't a panacea for teaching complex subjects.
If you've ever seen the online math courses that Stanford did [1] under the EPGY program, it has some excellent tools that seem to work well for a variety of learning styles. Worth a look, and just down right priceless if you're home schooling your kids.
[1] http://epgy.stanford.edu/courses/math/