(Comment on this article)Just Suppose - An Alternative Perspective on LDArticle Topics: Learning Disabilities,
Article types: Editorial, Point of View,
Submitted By: Ann Thompson View Submitter's Profile (annja) | Just Suppose - An Alternative Perspective on Learning Disabilities
You ask someone to wiggle their ears. They can't. I can't. Doesn't matter how long I stand in front of a mirror and tug at them to find the right brain connection to make them do as I do as I say... Pratice hasn't helped, and, as a teacher, that is worrisome! <p>
There are people (I have personally met four) who can wiggle their eyeballs sideways in tandem. I remember my gob-smacked reaction the first time I saw that! Unbelievable! Cartoon stuff! Wow!<p>
There are adults who say they have "gaps" in their vision when they scan the horizon. Always have had, they say. Wouldn't they have skipped words and lost their place while reading? <p>
Eyes, ears, even limbs have individual control mechanisms. I cannot twist one foot all the way around to face backwards, or bend my fingers or shoulders or legs in ways that make others cringe.<p>
All of the above traits have been displayed to me by students/adults who are "Learning Disabled". All are also ambidextrous or had mixed lateral dominance. Huge problems with Math, or with Reading, or organization (written and oral thoughts often included), or second language, and/or with handwriting.<p>
But. Many have also been "gifted" in music, in creative (visual and performance) arts, science, problem-solving, leadership, and in athletics.<p>
Now suppose, just suppose, that it's just about wiring? (And chemistry, of course because we know Omega 3-6-9 helps...)<p>
What if, when Jacob says he can't read, he really means he CANNOT? Lord knows he's tried! He's sixteen and, if you watch him carefully, he is still occasionally trying. Within two or three minutes he squeezes his eyes shut and looks off to the side. He doesn't WANT to be illiterate. He is sullen, angry and - yes - APPEARS to be LAZY because his printing "sucks", too. I have seen him develop a painful cramp in the arm just below the elbow, trying to write a full page to pass a test. Keyboarding doesn't help; correct finger, but wrong hand. (He recalls and uses Tolkein's descriptor "confusticated" from three years ago!)<p>
His gifts are: incredible listening skills, abstract manipulation and understanding of scientific concepts, and mechanics. He fixes, drives, (and sometimes deliberately wrecks) trucks and snow-mobiles. Sometimes wonder if he'll live to attempt the grade 10 literacy test; chance of passing without major accommodations is minimal... So, gifted mechanic potential, but unable to take the required courses for certification.<p>
Just suppose he is like Doug, in his forties and ambidextrous, who wrote to say it took him decades to figure out that other people did NOT see absolutely everything three-dimensionally AND in colour. Only HE did. And he had massive problems in school. But Doug was tenacious; he struggled, he figured himself out, and he finally achieved a post-secondary education. He is home-schooling his children.<p>
Jacob hears, he understands, but he needs time to organize it into sentences, and he certainly cannot put it on paper. His vocabulary is good and he can read lists of words. Only lists. He is ambidextrous.<p>
When we tried very narrow reading columns, so that he could grasp the phrase and read downhill instead of across, he said it was easier, but "just something else to learn". He had been trained to look at every single word and just couldn't allow his eyes to relax and read one phrase at a time. And I didn't have the time to re-teach him individually in our public system. He is jaded and defeated and leaning toward a highly anti-social attitude.<p>
Knowing what we know now about eye-function, what if Jacob's "sin" has simply been that his wiring is different? Suppose he gets "eye-cramps" the same way he gets other muscle cramps? He told me three years ago - when a few good elementary teachers still believed in him - that "eye-cramps" was "kinda right" about what he felt when his eyes locked on a word (always slightly to the right of centre) and "lifted it off the page" if he tried to continue.<p>
It appears to be too late for Jacob now. Schools (myself included) have failed him. From everything I've known about Jacob, he's just not "wired" for school. And, while elementary teachers made the effort to support, to encourage, (even giving him the leadership role of going to younger classes to explain science), high school has been devastating. His "dyslexic" label - with "average IQ" - means nothing here. Unable to read; unable to write. Throw him in with our other "failures". Create a gang. Then complain when it acts like a gang.<p>
Now, what if MRI's reveal what many of us have seen for some time - that there is no "stupid" and no "genius" - just synapse patterns and chemistry? How will our school systems change? Or will they?<p>
With what we already know scientifically about brain function, why are we not explaining to youngsters that everyone has a unique "brain-pattern" - just like a fingerprint, but much bigger with so many more unique possibilities - some of us can wiggle our ears and/or our eyeballs, and some of us have eyes that physically cannot easily move back and forth and back and forth across a page. It makes reading hard. I have tried this explanation of learning differences recently with grade 5/6/7 students and they seemed very receptive...<p>
There are alternatives to labelling and demoralizing. We just have to have a willingness to try. |
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