No Picture Needed
Aphantasia, Students, and the Way We Learn
For Educators
What happens when a teacher asks students to picture something in their minds, but some students cannot? This is a site that will help you explore research, classroom observations, and resources that encourage teachers to question assumptions about how students think. Teachers, looking about information on aphantasia in the education? Please start here to read about aphantasia in the classroom.
Take me along on your next commute.
Listen to my story by downloading the podcast below.
In part one with Paul Bogush, a visualizing middle school teacher, he tells how he discovered that aphantasia was a thing and how it immediately explained so much about his life experiences with his daughter and his students. He goes on to explain how learning about aphantasia has helped him better reach the small percentage of students that he was missing before, because his previous teaching style was focused on using visualization. We also discuss the education system in general, mislabeling students with aphantasia, why working harder is not the answer, having a photo album vs filing cabinet, younger children vs older children, the red square test, and more. Oh, and shocker, he just recently discovered that not everyone visualizes the same way he does. Even as someone that has been studying aphantasia for over 3 years, and claims to have listened to this podcast, he still made that assumption. So crazy.
In part two with Paul Bogush, a visualizing middle school teacher, we continue our discussion about his experiences trying to understand and help his students that have aphantasia. He explains how aphantasia is not a diagnosis or a disorder and we get into the ever complicated question of "what is imagination?". We also talk about sympathy vs empathy, advantages, labels, anxiety, multi-step directions, creativity, reading comprehension, art, personal organization, decision fatigue, validation, and the apple test vs the square test. Oh and in case you missed it... when it comes to our internal experiences, everyone is different.
Get in Touch
No Picture Needed was created by Paul Bogush, a Connecticut middle school educator with more than 35 years of classroom experience. Drawing on investigations involving more than 1,000 students, classroom observations, and published research, this site explores aphantasia in education and what differences in mental imagery can teach us about learning, instruction, and the assumptions we make about students. Everything on this site is living and will be changed as I learn and grow. You can help me do that. Please don't hesitate to contact me. My mind is always open.