Learning Disabilities are a Social Construct

[Music]

[Laughter]

hello everyone

my name is trudy pooks i’m 15

and i’m diagnosed with two learning

disabilities and one attention

disability

oftentimes i’ll be asked what is it like

to have adhd

i like to think about it as being in a

science class and trying to think about

what the teacher is saying

maybe we’re talking about the force of a

falling object or momentum

but suddenly that object is a race car

and suddenly you’re driving the race car

and it is so

fun look at you go and guess what

in the future you have really cool hair

in fact

you won number one here in the world and

honestly this is way more exciting than

whatever the teacher was talking about

wait what is the teacher talking about

and suddenly i miss everything they were

saying

after getting diagnosed with learning

and attention disabilities

i got an iep iep stands for

individualized

education plan which is a document that

contains suggestions to help teach a

student

and accommodations that should be made

for the student in the classroom

these are all based off an evaluation

that is conducted for the student

which then after the evaluation there is

a cse meeting

cse stands for committee on special

education

this meeting will typically contain the

student’s parents or guardians

a learning specialist a teacher from the

student school

a person from the district who is

qualified with learning disabilities

and a person from the district who can

read the evaluation results because

sometimes it can look

complicated

now i had an iep which was designed to

help me

but i had questions

what qualifies as a learning disability

sure sure according to merriam-webster

any of various conditions that interfere

with an individual’s ability to learn

and so result in impaired functioning in

language reasoning

or academic skills but

is it common yes in fact

one in five children are diagnosed with

a learning disability

how are we preparing teachers for this

are we preparing teachers for students

with learning disabilities

no in fact only 17 percent of teachers

feel that they could teach students with

mild to moderate learning disabilities

mild to moderate one in three teachers

feel that learning disabilities are

caused by laziness

one in four teachers believe that add or

adhd

is caused by bad parenting

privilege it is one of those words that

leaves a bitter taste in your mouth

we don’t talk about privilege nearly

enough it is important to acknowledge it

right now

i had the privilege to get diagnosed

with learning and attention disabilities

which many students do not have it takes

advocating

and present parents and guardians and a

supportive household to get what you

need in the classroom

which again many students do not have

and let’s say that the school

or teacher violates your iep that takes

further support from your household

to correct that which many many many

students do not have

so now i had an iep which was

designed to help me but

i was wondering about the classification

of learning disabilities

learning disabilities are only

classified by differences

not similarities and often only talk

about what students

cannot do not what they can do

learning differences this is another way

to say learning disabilities

but somehow i always dislike this phrase

because it somehow felt worse

the word difference felt isolating and

reductive

like it was creating a separation

between the learner

who was typical and the learner who had

learning disabilities

in fact what is meant by difference

as stated before at least one in five

children

have a learning disability and this

statistic

is not even accurate because this is

only going on a basis of diagnosis

not actual learning disabilities

in order to find the meaning of

difference i looked at different

learning styles

these are in broad classification

there’s a visual learner they learn from

bright colors

graphs and visual representations

there’s the kinesthetic learner

they learn from hands-on activities

exercise

and physical there’s the auditory

learner

they learn from spoken instructions

discussion based classes

and audio books so anything auditorily

there’s the reading and writing learner

they learn from interacting with books

or texts

and notes on lecture they processes

information

better as words

i next looked at learning environments

now in

very broad classification there are only

two learning environments

the solitary learning environment and

the stimulating learning environment

the solitary learning environment is

silent

and ideally it has no distractions

while the stimulating learning

environment is trying to activate as

many

senses in the learner as possible

whether this is chewing gum

or in background noise or music or

fidgeting with something

but keep in mind that since these are

all very very

broad terms many people are combinations

of what has been previously stated

for example i still like quiet in the

background but i still like chewing gum

and listening to music because it helps

me concentrate

but what happens when all of these

different various learning needs are

overlooked

believe it or not when students are not

accommodated in the classroom

or not prescribe medication for their

learning it can have long-term effects

we all develop study habits these habits

are heavily influenced by the motivation

we feel to do our work

and how challenging the work is for

us personally for example

if i was given an english project and

the teacher was generous with me

and accommodated me in all of my

learning styles and the learning

environments i needed

i would most likely understand the

basics of what i needed to do for this

project

and therefore i would hopefully do well

on it

in fact i may even feel so encouraged

that i may even want to go above and

beyond i may want to do

extra because i feel the motivation to

do so because i’ve been accommodated in

the classroom

which is great that’s awesome

but what about classes

where you’re bored or challenged a

degree

where it is easier to zone out and brush

it off as i am just

bad at this

this will not only affect your project

grade

but this will affect all future topics

that are related to this project it will

affect how you do in the future of this

class and how you relate to future

projects

and this reaction to work will become a

habit

which is bad

self-esteem and learning is also

massively important

so the more self-esteem you have the

better a learner you are often

times if you are taught

to work harder and do better and

advocate for yourself when things get

hard

suddenly the world becomes an easier

place

but unfortunately the educational system

is not built around this philosophy

and therefore many students are not

doing well

are not taught to do well and the

educational system

is not there to support them

and the curriculums the curricula

and the teaching style is very

limited in how much it wants to change

which leads into lecturing this is

a very ordinary type of way of teaching

classes

if not customary way if any of you

remember being in your science classes

you’ll often remember remember that you

had to lecture

and you had to take notes

which is can be very problematic

for some students in fact in the 1970s

david hestness was a teacher at arizona

state university

his classes were not doing well the

class average on tests was

40 percent which is a failing grade

so he developed the fci

forced concept inventory with ibrahim

halloon which is a multiple

choice test that you take before and

after

you take this class in order to test

theoretically how well lecturing would

work

and how well his class was doing and if

they were learning anything

from being in his class

they tested this on a thousand classes

and overall their scores only went up by

14 percent

david hessness was quoted later saying

this theory of learning only seems to be

working for about ten percent of the

students

and i think the evidence indicates that

these 10 are the 10

of students that would do well even

without the instructor

this is why it is unrealistic to expect

students

to sit in class and take notes and

listen vigorously for six hours a day

so this led me to think

what is the ideal learner because

after looking over different learning

styles and categories

i had this question in my mind what is

the ideal learner

there’s a whole system built around the

ideal learner

so what is it there’s not an ideal

learner

after conspiring for quite some time

i found a big problem in the system in

fact

possibly the biggest problem in the

system

the educational system when testing

a learner for learning disabilities they

have a standardized score

that they compare their evaluation to

however if there is no ideal learner

which is what i found there is no reason

to be doing this

except why don’t we just start

accommodating students in class

without having to get diagnosed

why do i have to be diagnosed as if i

have an illness

for my learning needs to be met

because looking back on getting an iep

and getting diagnosed with learning and

attention disabilities

i felt validated because

i finally was starting to get what i

needed in classes and i was able to get

medication

but i realized if that’s the key to what

i need

that’s not the right answer because it

isn’t accessible

when a student is diagnosed with

learning and attention disabilities a

student is ostracized

when separated from a class setting that

by default

is against people with learning

differences and disabilities

a student is put down and taken away

from that setting and isolated

often times students and teachers will

view that student as

different or broken

if you do not believe me i have heard

the word used in many

conversations i have had

constantly in fact 90 percent of teens

and adults

have heard the r word used in

conversations they have had

we should start building a system that

is based around inclusivity

we should be changing curricula and

teaching styles

built around the students needs

56 percent of teachers think that ieps

help students

because what an iep does

is it helps keep the system in place

it helps keeping

teachers to teach students the same

thing in the same way

even if you have a learning disability

with a little bit of extra help maybe 10

minutes more on a test

or maybe you get notes in a lecture we

are still getting taught

the same thing the same way we need to

be teaching the same thing

in different ways we need to be using

ideas and teaching concepts that are

adaptable for everyone

we need to be finding motivated teachers

who can make a change

we need to be educating ourselves and

others about the importance of in

classroom

inclusion and most importantly

question the system question solutions

question labels question ideas

question everything thank you