33. How do they learn about the world? What is their preferred learning style? Hands-on learning with trial and error? Research, reading, and note-taking? Observation or rote memorization? Inductive or deductive reasoning? Seeking patterns and organization? Taking things apart and putting them back together? Creative processing via discussing, writing about, or dramatizing things?
his preferred learning style is shadowing someone who knows more than him and learning by watching, as well as lessons. he's a very obsessive learner, more terrified of failure than out of genuine interest in most subjects he has learnt. there are exceptions, of course — languages are something he's always found joy in, and he's willingly learnt more dialects than anyone has asked out of him or that he can reasonably use on a day to day basis. he's mostly learnt them from teachers, from books, although ideally he wants to travel to the free cities once he's older to be able to practice the accent hearing it from natives who speak it as a first language. he knows, from his experience learning high valyrian, that knowing words in a page does not necessary translate to speaking it correctly ( ideally, he'd probably have liked talking to diplomatic envoys and ambassadors sent from the cities, but he was far too young for that except short pleasantries, and he was hardly at court after he was four, so the chances of that are low if not zero ). art he's learnt by trial and error, and is largely self taught as he sees it as a hobby.
he likes listening and observing, but he may use reading if that is not available. he doesn't particularly enjoy reading as a hobby, and he is hardly reading as a way to pass time. he may bring a book with him somewhere if he has no other option, and his other ways of pass time are not available, but reading is mostly reserved to studying and research. still, if he needs to do reading, he is likely to stay lighter than not in the reading and then jump into trying to solve it himself ( he is not hugely into anything that would require him to "tear things apart and put them back together", but for something like that he would likely do more reading than not before forging ahead )
there are limitations to this — there was only so much watching he could do for weapon training, and the "learn by copying and doing" started very early on, almost from the first classes. of course, those classes were not particularly chosen by him, and he simply followed what the master at arms at dragonstone ( and at the red keep, back when he attended those for that year or so he did ) told him to do.
by the time he was thirteen, however, he was more ready to actually do things, rather than simply learning and watching. he was starting to become antsy in doing something he could see, something that would require action from him again. it was easy to ask to be a diplomatic envoy because he wanted to do something at the very least
( his opinion towards debate and discussion depends strongly on what he thinks about the other person he is talking to. someone he appreciates, respects or loves, or even mildly likes ? he can enjoy discussion, to exchange ideas. he may change his mind on things, he likes hearing what others thing. the handful of people he dislikes or if it's on one of the topics he's extremely white and black about ? he knows there's no point to it. if he does not respect them to being with, the conversation is pointless )
