The brain is the organ of learning, just as the heart is the organ of pumping. Thus the brain will learn, one way or another, because that's its nature.Now, with the findings of this research, whether the brain learns in the classroom or on the street is up to the school and its response to this little mantra: "Teacher, if I don't learn the way you teach, why don't you teach the way I learn?"The writer is a religious education teacher at Bishop Kearney High School, a girls Roman Catholic secondary school in Brooklyn, New YorkARE YOU A GLOBAL, ANALYTIC OR INTEGRATED LEARNER?WHEN YOU have to do new and difficult work at home, do you:1. prefer to sit on something soft, or the floor, OR sit on a hard chair at a desk, OR doesn't it matter?2. prefer to have some music playing, OR insist on silence, OR doesn't it matter?3. prefer to have the lighting quite low, OR have very bright light, OR doesn't it matter?4. prefer to be doing several projects at once, so that with this assignment, you will occasionally move to another project for a short time, and then return to the main task, OR do you stay with it through to the end, OR doesn't it matter?5. want to have something to nibble on as you work, OR is your preference to have nothing to eat at all, OR doesn't it matter?If you answered yes three or more times to the first part of each question, you are probably a GLOBAL learner and learn best in an environment suggested by the questions; if you answered yes three or more times to the second, or middle, part of each question, then you are probably an ANALYTIC learner.

If you answered yes three or more times to the third part of the question, then you are probably an INTEGRATED, or flexible, learner, and are able to learn in a variety of different environments.. SOME THINGS at the Masters never change. The prize fund for the 63rd playing of the tournament will be released quietly by officials of the Augusta National Golf Club over the weekend. Players know what Mark O'Meara won last year - $576,000 - but this is the only event of the year where they tee off without the up-to-date prize breakdown.

Even if the prize fund reaches the level of the Georgia State lottery this week - $190m (pounds 120m) - they would not care. Winning the title and getting to wear the Green Jacket denoting membership of the club is far more valuable. Few other sporting events play on the aura of tradition as much as the Masters Yet it is all an illusion. Changes happen all the time at Augusta but, like the new cluster of 18 trees between the 15th and 17th fairways, they appear to have been around forever.It is less than 20 years since the greens were switched to bentgrass, the fastest putting surface, and 26 years since the dramatic 12th was shown on live television for the first time. This year marks the 50th anniversary of Sam Snead becoming the first player to be presented with the Green Jacket upon winning the event, while it only became the Masters in 1939, previously having been the Bobby Jones Invitational.One tradition has come to an end. Jack Nicklaus, who underwent replacement hip surgery earlier this year, is not playing after 40 consecutive visits in which he won six times and provoked an outpouring of nostalgia with his sixth-place finish a year ago. "It is like your wife losing the diamond from her wedding ring," Greg Norman said of Nicklaus' absence.But, in the great man's place, comes a contest to savour between Tiger Woods and David Duval.

It is almost as if the rest of the field does not exist, which is as good a reason as any for getting a bet on an Ernie Els or a Lee Westwood.The leading two stars are inescapable, however Even Duval admits Woods is a star and Augusta is his patch. Having helped his mentor, O'Meara, into a Green Jacket last year, it is safe to assume that the 1997 record- breaking champion would like nothing more than to have O'Meara put a jacket on his shoulders.Duval, the new world No 1, appears the man to stand in his way. Nothing seems to bother the man, not even being called a "dullard". "That's the way I like to play my golf, stress-free," he said.