Title: The Wall

Dear Francis,

Your editorial in C Vu 12.4 ("Do Types Matter?") raises the possibility of two different types of human brain, loosely correlated to biological gender, and that the statistical skew in the genders of computer programmers might be a result of how well the aptitudes of these types fit the skills required by programming or by existing programming languages. Assuming that the experimental evidence you mention is credible and there really are the two types of brain, I would like to suggest an alternative way of looking at the consequences: that the difference is not in potential but in ways of thinking and learning.

One's aptitude for learning an art often depends on one's way of thinking, and on how well suited this is to the art. If you have to learn an art that is ill-suited to your most natural way of thinking, then you either have to adopt a way of thinking that does not come so naturally, or you have a harder time translating between the art and your model of it. Either way, learning the art becomes more difficult, but this difficulty need not remain once the art has been mastered (and becomes more subconscious).

Let us suppose that the only real difference between the types of brain is that of which way of thinking comes most naturally. This implies that any difference in aptitude for an art is due to nothing more than the difficulty of learning it, and this might be at least partially compensated for by different teaching methods.

To see how this is possible, note again what I observed earlier: To learn an art that is ill suited to your way of thinking, you have to adopt either a new way of thinking or a "translation" system. It is hard for an instructor to help with the first, but it might be easier to help with the second, especially if the instructor has the same brain type as the student and the instructor's own system can be shared. If this idea is correct then the reason why we do not see it happen much is that it is not widely recognised.

Hence we have a testable hypothesis: Students are best taught by someone who shares their brain type, but tutors of the other type can improve by not requiring a change in the student's way of thinking (hard though this can be). Notice also the symmetry; I am not suggesting that one type of brain is less capable in the art and needs things simplified down, but that if a teaching is optimised for one type then it is less accessible to the other AND VICE VERSA.

I am acquainted with only two people who have demonstrated the multitasking and interaction skills of a "type A" and who have attempted programming, neither of whom have progressed very far; this is hardly enough data, but consider the following: One of them insists that all explanations are too theoretical and would rather try to adapt an example program than struggle to adopt the way of thinking demanded by the theory, and the other is a chartered engineer and feels that the engineering course had some sort of clarity that programming lacks. I find it hard to believe that teaching methods are insignificant here.

Thanks. My experience as a teacher taught me the importance of understanding the ways in which people thought. It is a common view that all people think in the same basic way, but some do so more efficiently than others. This is untrue. I think in terms of relationships, that makes algebra very easy for me. My chemistry teacher was bewildered by my liking for organic chemistry and my distaste for quantitative work. Yet organic chemistry is largely algebra with strange symbols, the quantitative chemistry relies too much on arithmetic for my taste.

I struggle with classical geometry because I do not visualise, and have no visual element to my memory.

Good teachers understand that there are different ways of thinking and try to learn to express ideas in ways that are relevant to the specific student. But how many good teachers have you met in your life.