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