I'm going to tell you a little story about myself and then I want you to guess what kind of learner I am.

When I was in 5th grade, Rubik's Cubes were all the rage. Naturally, I needed one. I loved that little thing. In the first minute I had it cut open from the its plastic wrapping, I had turned it every which way. I liked to solve sides at a time and make little checkerboard patterns. The ultimate solution always eluded me, however, which frustrated me to no end. My dad bought me a Rubik's Cube solution book. It was about 60 pages long with diagrams, none of them color. I didn't get past page two. 

One day at recess I noticed one of my classmates with a perfectly solved Cube. I knew he'd had it a while, so I asked him to teach me how to solve it. He got out his pocket knife. We could carry pocket knives to school then. "I pop out the pieces," he explained. I asked him to pop out my pieces because I wanted a perfect Rubik's Cube again. He complied but managed to break one of the little squares a bit, so that it always fell out if tipped the wrong direction. Also, he scuffed up the white stickers so much that we had to take them off, creating one black side. 

But I had my perfect cube again. I loved making little checkerboard patterns that were mirrored all over the Cube. I didn't twist it every which way again, though I had kids grab it and do that (a yellow piece always dropping and the kid crying in alarm, "I didn't do that!"). But of course by then I knew how to reassemble my little broken Cube.

I did feel guilty about tearing it apart and "cheating." I felt that I was punished for that when the one little yellow piece breaking. It also wasn't so much a puzzle as a gadget to make colored patterns with. However, I was no longer frustrated. Only defeated.

So, the moral of the story? The type of learner I am?

An impatient one, for starters. I like to start out by doing and then stop once I get the feel for something to read up on it. I like big picture somewhere along the way to help me understand why I am doing the small steps. Unfortunately, with Rubik's Cube, I could never see the pattern of the twists and turns: why when I twisted it this way, that would be the result. I suck at spatial orientation. So I sucked at Rubik's Cube.

If I had ever seen an animated video showing me the Rubik's Cube pattern, I may have done a little better, as I am a visual learner far and above verbal and tactile. But I doubt it, because it would still involve too many moving parts (literally), something I have trouble with when learning a concept. However, I do remember the animated TV show Rubik, the Amazing Cube, in which three Puerto Rican kids fight bad guys with the help of Rubik, the flying, talking crime-busting cube. It must have been the absolute dumbest TV show ever. Good times.

So I try to take advantage of various videos, diagrams, and images to help me understand a little better and see the patterns that help form the big picture. Sometimes it works, sometimes I have to talk my self out of mind-implosion from TMI and not enough patience to let it settle in. 

I wonder if Rubik knows how to convert decimal to binary, or create a subnet ID? Probably.