Just can't help myself

“Please, don’t write anything! Just listen to and concentrate on what I am saying. I’ve spent a lot of my time to prepare the notes and I’ll give them to you later, trust me”, said a renowned professor in our 4-5 pm-class yesterday.

My grip on the blue Pilot pen loosened suddenly and my eyes averted spontaneously towards him with a puzzled mind. I felt somewhat irritated and even more distracted from the previous focus on the lecture. What’s wrong with scribbling down? Did he think that I can write every single word that came out from his mouth? Arrggh! Never mind, I’ll keep on jotting down the main points of his lecture.

“Why you are still writing? You don’t trust me? I have 25 years of teaching experiences whereas you are only 25 years old. I know when you are writing, you can’t pay attention to what I’m saying and the message will not be communicated”, the professor said firmly when he saw there were still many students who simply ignored his recent order and one of them was me myself.

Sorry, Prof. I really, really trust you but I just can’t help myself. I know that I’m a visual and physical learner. That’s what I realized when I took a personality test in one program and I admit it. Listening is not enough for this kind of learner. The visual learner learns mostly by visualizing the information that he or she receives and relates one information to another information at the same time to get a clearer picture. In order to ensure that the picture does not easily fade away from my mind, I need pen and papers to draft it. The draft will be my reference point in the future especially during my revision period.

What about me as a physical learner? It means that I can’t stay still listening to the lecture for such a long time without doing something, at least not statically sitting on the chair. And writing is that something for me or else I’ll get bored and lose my focus easily. That would make me whiling away from one ‘fairyland’ to another ‘fairyland’ and that would be of no good!