Dianeisms

Education for Dummies

Posted by Dianeism , Thursday, May 27, 2010 5:09 PM

D is for Dummy and F is for failure, these are the grades I came to know well while in school. While I have a few bones to pick with the Educational System, I do want to say that being a teacher is such a respectable and underpaid profession. I’ve had so many teachers over the years that really cared and made a huge difference in my learning life. I thank them all for that. It must be so rewarding to finally see that light bulb go off. Having stated that, my difficulties in school started in the second grade. I was labeled LD (learning disabled) and was sent to LD classrooms where kids misbehaved from lack of self-esteem about their place in modern academia. This label is so detrimental to the delicate minds of young children. It has a negative connotation and we got made fun of for our “below average” grades. I was given different pills for dealing with my concentration problem and depression pills to deal with the ridicule I undertook in school and the self-esteem loss for feeling stupid in comparison to the other kids.

You are setting children up for failure when you label them an LD. They won’t put much importance on education and depending on their nature, they just might simply give up. I gave up which is why I spent most of my life trying to catch up to everyone else. What I’ve learned now is that Attention Deficit Disorder, in my case, is code for creativity. My mind wandered during class because I have an imagination and introspective mind. I may have never made good grades, but it took spending 50 G’s at Clemson to realize that I am smart. Just not in the way that the educational system measures it. I realize life isn’t fair, but what if we could change the way we see academics and grades. What if we removed D’s and F’s from the grading scale? What if we tailored different programs in the education systems that spoke to kids with different types of smarts. I realize every child needs the basics, but will I EVER need to know what the square root of four is? No, probably not and at least I haven’t yet and honestly who cares! I’m not a mathematician and never will be. You can’t force a square peg in a round whole.

Art classes are electives, which makes it seem like they are less important. I think if your artistic, then in high school you need to be exploring that avenue rather then taking the wasteful chemistry class. I know there are private schools for these types of things, but honestly who has the money for that sort of thing. We rely on the government to make such decisions and so far they’ve been mute.

It was so difficult growing up with a learning disorder. Not only did I experience some traumatic experiences, like boys in the LD classes grabbing my chest with my hands tied around my back, but also I rebelled and got angry because of it. It seemed like everyone was working against me. I even had an authority figure tell my mother I shouldn’t go to college due to my 8th grade writing capabilities at the age of 18. I wasn’t really sure if I’d ever go to college or amount to much because of all of this. I have since then come to my senses, but it’s because I have a lot of support and insight. Had I not, who knows where I’d be. The future is the most important thing to protect and if we don’t protect the minds of children who face issues like this, then your future congressman could be sitting in jail right now because he/she never saw his/her own potential.

Educational reform is scary and cost money, but the cost of losing one brilliant mind in a crowd is higher than any penny spent.