> not a inherent weakness that you can't work past.
Perhaps this is the real problem. Taking for the sake of argument that there are different inherent learning styles, perhaps the issue is that some believe that means you can't work past them. It seems much more likely that you can, with training and practice. We learn to overcome all sorts of other unique limitations, after all.
And there is some reason to believe that there are different inherent learning styles. There are many different sorts of "intelligence", after all, which implies that not everyone's brain processes information in the same way.
Personally, I don't know enough about this subject to have an opinion either way, but it's very interesting to ponder.
From my understanding the two major branches of intelligence are crystallized and fluid. Fluid being used to describes the ability to solve novel reasoning problems and crystallized being used to describe how you can solve deductive reasoning problems. Essentially how easily you can assimilate new information to a new problem and how easily you can re-apply and transform already learned information from an old problem.
Working memory is how you account for differences at an individual scale.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluid_and_crystallized_intelli...
I personally believe people might be predisposed to certain strengths, similar to how a tall person may be more naturally competitive at professional basketball. But I believe for a majority of situations, the difference is negligible. Practice is more important than any inherent strength or weakness we might be born with.
I once met a guy that could draw the most amazing things, seemingly straight out of his own imagination. I asked him how he was able to do that, and he just said "I see a picture of it in my head, and I replicate it." Try as I might, I simply cannot visualize things like that. That might explain why I struggle to draw or whiteboard anything without using a visual reference.
I think it's unfair to compare yourself to an artist at that skill level because you can't judge the amount of hours it took to get to the level of being able to translate what they imagine onto paper.
I mentor all the time and the hardest is when I have to explain to kids starting out CS how I "know" what to do when I have to go from a figma mockup to a working proof of concept code. I don't know how, other than that it feels more like muscle memory than it does actual thinking. It's hard because even I don't know all of the little things I needed to learn to accomplish my goal.
[1]>"Groot's first experiment seemed to confirm this theory: He placed twenty different pieces on a chess board, imitating the layout of a possible game. Then, de Groot asked a variety of chess players, from inexperienced amateurs to chess grandmasters, to quickly glance at the board and try to memorize the location of each piece. As the scientists expected, the amateurs drew mostly blanks. The grandmasters, however, easily reproduced the exact layout of the game. The equation seemed simple: memory equals talent.
But then de Groot performed a second experiment that changed everything. Instead of setting the pieces in patterns taken from an actual chess game, he randomly scattered the pawns and bishops and knights on the board. If the best chess players had enhanced memories, then the location shouldn’t matter: a pawn was still a pawn. To de Groot’s surprise, however, the grandmaster edge now disappeared. They could no longer remember where the pieces had been placed."
People believing their learning style is static and teachers treating learning styles as static is the actual issue.
As a basic example, if you are not familiar with how to read music, it would be hard to learn and build on music theory and harmonies. That doesn't make you an auditory learner, it just means you know how it's being taught. Abstracting the musical notes into colors or frequency isn't going to make it easier to learn just because you consider yourself a "visual" learner. Certain concepts may seem clearer and patterns could be more easily identifiable, but in practice it wouldn't be easier.