Duudle May Be My Final Downfall

I am an auditory learner. A polarized auditory learner. Some more fortunate people can learn effectively in a couple different modalities; very lucky individuals learn well in all three. Those people are sometimes labeled "gifted," but I'm pretty sure they're no smarter than any of the rest of us. They just receive information effectively in every way (visual, auditory, kinesthetic), so every time something new is presented to them, it's easy to learn. I am NOT one of those people. To effectively learn, I need to receive information through auditory cues. I need to listen and talk. I don't do well in quiet classrooms. I'm hopeless at trying to read or look at diagrams to learn something brand new; I need it explained to me out loud. I need to be able to explain it back to the teacher. Yup, I'm auditory.

I have known this for a long time. When I was in college and studied education, I took the Barsch Learning Styles Inventory, but even before taking it, I knew. There are definite advantages to being an auditory learner. We're really, really good at learning foreign languages. We have only to hear that pronunciation, and we've got it nearly perfect. We also can recite song lyrics to thousands of songs, and we never, ever forget them. We just love classes like speech and drama and oral communication. We're the champions of class discussion. We have many talents.

However.

Polarized auditory learners also have some serious challenges. And one of those is playing Duudle. To succeed in Duudle, a Pictionary-type game played on one's cell phone, you have to draw pictures clearly enough that others can guess what you drew. Well this would be just dreamy for the kinesthetic learner, who needs to move to learn. Or for the visual learner, who can "see" objects in his mind and remember in detail what they look like. But for people like me, it's pretty pathetic. I didn't realize how inadequately I receive visual cues until I started playing (and losing) this stupid game. I seriously don't know what anything looks like. I mean, I have a general idea about most things, but not enough to create a representation that anyone can recognize. It's more than not being good at drawing; it's that I can't visualize the objects. Most of the time, when I get the word I'm supposed to draw, I'm totally baffled. I only have 30 seconds, and I don't even know where to begin.

I play this game with Gerald and Shulamith, and both of them take great joy in mocking me over my various drawings. For example, this was a really good one, I thought:

As you can see, Gerald (Gferic) guessed "refrigerator" and Shulamith guessed "shutter." But surely you can all tell what it really is, right? Right? Isn't it obvious? Yes, of course, it's a domino.

Then I just drew this one, which they haven't tried to guess yet:

It's garlic, of course. You saw it right away, yes?

And I'm no better at guessing. Well maybe a little better. I'm just not fast enough. Even when I guess right, I get this sarcastic message: "Shulamith was right first!" or "Gferic was right first!" It looks like this:

Every time. I'm never right first. Shulamith drew this picture, and guess what? Gerald was right first. It is incredibly discouraging. When you add playing this game to the plethora of other things I'm not good at, the truth becomes clear: Duudle may be my final downfall.