About Learning

As an undergraduate in Child Development and education certification back in 1990 Bernice McCarthy's work with the "4MAT" system of learning was at the very core of every lesson plan we had to create. We had to think her "4MAT" every time we developed a unit of study. I, now, as a Ph.D. student bless this background and understanding. About Learning reflects her more recent work with 4Mat and what she classifies as the "Learning Cyle". It is a wonderfully well written explanation of the cycle of learning that exists for all of us. It is a non-judgemental approach to meeting the needs of all learners. We, as educators, need to stop labeling children rather we must seek to understand and accept the different ways a child perceives and processes information. This book helps us understand. It includes beautiful, thought provoking, quotes to support its philosophy. I highly recommend this book to all educators and school psychologists who work with children and seek to create an environment for all to be successful, thriving, excited, involved learners; learners for a lifetime. Thank you Bernice McCarthy!!

Based on a lot of research and well-known ideas, McCarty's book is an excellent presententation of the "how" of learning. It looks into how different people learn in different ways (4 learning styles) and how we may use our knowledge about learning styles and brain-mind research to plan and create lesson plans/training sessions that enable use of the whole brain and the whole person (experiencing, reflecting, abstracting and acting). McCarthys 4MAT system is based on a lot of research in the "learning arena" (Dewey, Lewin, Bruner and her own research that seems to be quite comprehensive) and is presented in a way that really makes sense to anybody who is working with training/education. It is a book that may be read and read again and each time something new is discovered. McCarthy has just published another book, About Teaching 4MAT in the Classroom, that expands and further develops the ideas presented in this book. Another book I would recommend

This is a beauty-full, bounty-full, wisdom-full, wonder-full, joy-full book. With McCarthy's aphoristic and poetic writing style, as well as Carol Keene's complementary illustrations, this book can rest with the easy grace on the best of library shelves or upon any coffe table. In sum, About Learning conveys both the art and science of learning. McCarthy is obviously determined to instruct the reader by making adept use of the principles of her "4-MAT" system. here is a wonderful exercise in eclecticism, borrowing as she does from a wide range of sources. Indeed, her book would be worth the investment of treasure and time many times over for the wisdom drawn from so many sources. About Learning is a complete guide book, artistically rendered, packed with solid concepts and suggestions, possessing the power to help teachers and program developers create dynamic, balanced, holistic educational programs-and in the process, help teachers help learners in the use of their God-given or genetically-conferred potential: the ultimate learning state, or what, to use Ernest Becker's marvelous term, is: homo poeta, or "man as meaning maker." In addition to serving as a blueprint for holistic learning, this book is a browser's delight-reason enough to keep it always close at hand. There is no way McCarthy can be served up in a nutshell, but if placed under extreme duress, I'd settle for the following passage, taken from page 27: Unless we move out of experience,...into ordering our experiences, understanding what happens to us by classifying and naming, we nver learn, we never grow. It could be my imagination: If I just stop reading McCarthy's book and close my eyes for a few seconds, I swear I can hear the resurrected voices of John Dewey, Willam Kilpatrick and Leslie A. Hart. In a way this makes sense; Also, in an important sense, McCarthy is, after all, a "ghost writer" for these and many other pioneers of learning and human becoming. This is a landmark book in education. It deserves the widest possible audience.