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Snapshots: Learning Disabilities
Video Transcript
Jamaal
Carolynn:
We first became aware of Jamaal’s special needs around kindergarten. He was having the problem of not being able to focus in and sit in his seat. So the teachers got together with the principal and me and we sat down and talked about some of the things that were happening. I was feeling frustrated and like I was letting him down as a parent and not fulfilling my responsibilities, you know what I mean? Then it was like, I knew something was wrong and I couldn’t put my finger on it.
Valerie Zoolakis:
The attention problem I became aware of when I was working with Jamaal last year as a substitute because they did a lot of cooperative learning in their regular classroom and it got noisy. He would say, “Mrs. Z, I am having trouble concentrating.” At the time, I did not know him as a special ed. student so I was not aware of what his learning disability was and when I did become aware of that, when I did put him in our group, I sat him near me so that I would be within arm’s reach of him so that if there was something going on in class that did distract him I could just reach out and touch him and get him to come back on task without having to say anything.
Mrs. Zoolakis:
Together, Together.
Jamaal:
Hot.
Mrs. Zoolakis:
Ok this one.
Jamaal:
Steams.
Mrs. Zoolakis:
He has got good listening skills when we do group instruction and he is able to give back the proper responses. He can make the sounds; he knows how to say the words the fast way. However, Jamal hasn’t been able to transfer those skills in a reading passage when he comes across an unfamiliar word. He just totally stops.
Jamaal:
Water
Mrs. Zoolakis:
Try again. Look at this part of the word by itself.
Jamaal:
Winter!
Mrs. Zoolakis:
Good!
Jamaal:
Winter’s nap.
Mrs. Zoolakis:
Good, that was good sounding!
Mrs. Zoolakis:
Writing, expressing himself in writing is a problem for him, not only in my group, but in his regular classroom and this is something we have discussed with his teacher, because even the short amount of time they spend doing journal writing he struggles. I know a lot of it is because Jamaal doesn’t have the sight word vocabulary and the descriptive words. He is very limited, although verbally because we do a lot of things verbally, he is more than willing to express himself verbally. He comes up with great ideas and is able to express himself that way, but when it comes time to write it down because his spelling is so poor. Rather than try and use invented spelling or try to write it out on his own, he just will not do it at all. We’ve got a lot of kids that [Alan Shulz] has got in his classroom that have severe learning disabilities and he is just more than cooperative and supportive in any kind of help we can give the kids.
Alan Shulz:
What is the object of today’s lesson? Jamaal?
Jamaal:
Learn to add another single digit.
Mr. Shulz:
Jamaal is a young man who lacks certain skills that students need to have at a fourth grade level. He has a hard time staying on task, he is easily distracted.
Carolynn:
One thing about Mr. Shulz is he communicates with me. On a weekly basis he is sending me notes home letting me know what he is doing and his curriculum is not rigid but it is firm and he knows what he expects from the child and everything and he is not wishy-washy, which I really do like.
Mr. Shulz:
Well Jamaal is a challenge as a teacher and to try to get to him, the important skills that he needs to be successful in fifth and sixth grade, I find that stimulating, and I appreciate that Jamaal genuinely is appreciative when certain concepts are learned and he is acknowledged for a job well done, he is the kind of young man that smiles and says, “thank you” and has learned to appreciate the efforts that others have put forth on his behalf.
Jamaal’s Sister:
Sometimes he can be really bratty, but sometimes he can be really sweet. Like he has my back if I get into trouble, he won’t tell. When he gets into trouble, I won’t tell. Then again there are times when…
Carolynn:
All the dirt comes out!
Jamaal’s Sister:
There’s times when he is really irritating and we don’t get along at all, but otherwise he is all right.
Carolynn:
I think with us getting a handle on the diagnosis and what exactly is wrong he will be able to be just like anyone else. He wants to go to Duke University. He wants to become a professional wrestler and he can do all of those things. The sky is the limit! I tell him once you believe in yourself; you’ve got to have that self-esteem. If not, hey you are just banging your head against a brick wall, because if they don’t feel good about themselves, nothing you do or say will make a difference.
Bridget
Bridget:
There was a situation and there was a kid and he said something about “dyslexia kids” being stupid and he didn’t say he was better than them, but that’s what I felt he was saying. Well I have dyslexia and he was just totally shocked. He was done and he didn’t know what to say so he said, “well that’s cool. That’s cool” He was trying to act cool and stuff and I thought it was pretty funny, but I actually felt bad because people actually think that if you have dyslexia you are just stupid and you can’t do anything. They think if I have reading resource in writing they think I have resource in math and that’s not true, just because you are stupi- well not stupid but just because you can’t do one thing doesn’t mean you can’t do another thing and that’s what bothered me.
Robin Collett:
She is really aware of her learning disability. That’s one thing that I thought was really interesting when I first met her. A lot of children try and pretend they don’t have a learning disability; she was really upfront in the beginning. She said, “look this is my problem and this is what I need you to do to help me.” Which I thought was terrific.
Joan:
Bridget was born smiling. She has the greatest smile and when she smiles her whole face just lights up, it’s just charming. Even as a little tiny baby people would comment on it. She was always happy. She hardly ever cried.
Bridget:
Spelling I hate so I avoid it as much as I can. Reading I avoid as much as I can, but teachers help somewhat, but I would rather ask my students. I don’t know; it’s kind of confusing.
Joan:
Well first and second grade wasn’t too bad. It was the third grade, maybe the fourth, where she would not want to go to school. She didn’t want to get up in the mornings and I thought she was just being lazy. It went on for probably a year and I would talk with teachers and they would tell me these wonderful things about her but she just didn’t want to participate in class and we decided to have her tested for…She would have a real struggle reading, didn’t want to read, like to have me read to her, but she didn’t want to read any type of books that type of thing. So it was probably about third or fourth grade we noticed it; we decided to have her tested and discovered it was dyslexia and we had her put in resource.
Bridget:
When you are in resource class you kind of feel like an idiot; just secluded out. When people say, when they see you walking to this class and they are like, “eww that kid’s in resource,” or something like that. People just have a bad attitude about it. The thing that gets me is the kids act different from the other kids because they are not normal. They have something different than everyone else does. They have a reading disability or a spelling disability, dyslexia actually. I am just glad I am out of resource because I felt like I accomplished something, like I overcame something that I needed to do. I still have that spelling disability and I still need to work on that.
Matt Clark:
Bridget is a very contentious student. She is meticulous almost to a fault. She does have a reading disability and I think that frustrates her to some extent, but as far as her work habits are concerned, she is very thorough, very neat, and she worries that things aren’t done exactly the way that they should be done or that they are not done to the teacher’s satisfaction so she is meticulous to a fault.
Ms. Collett:
Bridget is mainstreamed because of two reasons. One is because she is very motivated and she does have a real desire to be in main stream classes. She has a lot of friends and she also has the skills. Her reading level is a little low but she knows what she needs to do in order to succeed in her mainstream classes.
Secondly, because Bridget is so good at advocating for herself, going to her teacher and saying, “I have a really hard time, when I take a test reading the questions and comprehending it, so these are some options. Which one of these can I do in your class?” Because she is so good at doing that, we know that she is going to be successful out there. We have a real focus on mainstreaming the kids because there is no resource in life.
Joan:
I have a fear for her future in college, myself. I don’t think she fears it, but I do, because I feel like we did depend on the resource. The resource was a time to do her homework and do her assignments and just have that extra instruction and help, but in college it won’t be there.
Bridget:
Mom! Look what I got today! Twenty out of twenty on an essay.
Joan:
Is this the essay you did over again? Twenty out of twenty.
Bridget:
It says, “Looks good!” This is college stuff. This is the type of stuff we will have to do in college.
Joan:
Then I won’t have to worry so much.
Bridget:
The future scares me because I am not going to know exactly where I am going to be, because I don’t know what I’m going to do because I am scared of my disability. I am scared it’s going to hold me back. When I go in for a job I want to tell them, but then again, I don’t. I want to tell them that I have dyslexia and I will have trouble spelling, but I don’t have a job now and I think I should get a job. I think that one of the reasons that I am scared is because of my dyslexia; I am scared that I will read something wrong and then ruin the business or something. I am really scared of that, but in the future I am planning on going to college.
Joan:
She keeps us all going. She has explosive energy. She is very vibrant.
Steve
Steve:
In my business here we sell all your major appliances, washers and dryers, your refrigerators, your ranges, your T.V.’s, V.C.R’s, microwaves, camcorders. I am in business with my brother and we sort of divided up the responsibilities somewhat. I work on the retail floor selling items and I work in the warehouse organizing and delivering, anything like that and he does more of the paperwork and the book keeping, keeping track of that sort of stuff. I do know a little bit about the book keeping, it isn’t like I don’t know anything about it. In my everyday business, I can be writing tickets, four and five thousand dollar tickets and dealing with contracts with people that we are signing up on 90 day contracts, year contracts, two year contracts, that I just have had to sort of cope with and just sort of go through it and learn that there are certain things that I need to do just to get this thing done.
It’s so hard to be put in a situation where everyday someone could ask you to read in front of them and you can’t say no. How do you get up and say, “No, I can’t read!” in high school? As you can see, even today it is very hard for me to talk about. I wish every teacher would understand how hard it is. Some days I would act sick because I just didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to be made fun of, everybody wants to be accepted and it is really hard.
Jackie:
He just didn’t have much self-confidence, though I think it has come up a long way because I think he is a successful man in in his business and whatever he has felt some accomplishment. School was such a bad thing for him, you know now I think that pressure is off.
Steve:
I was in first grade when I first got held back and from then on I had summer school every year all the way through high school and usually tutors in the morning, during the school year and after that much of being told that you cannot read and you cannot write even though everybody kept saying, “well Steve you can do it. We know you can do it, you are smarter than this.” Deep down inside I knew I couldn’t and they didn’t understand. They just didn’t understand.
Jackie:
When we talked about marriage, he was really reluctant for a long time. Then finally he came to me and said, “I’m really stupid and I don’t know if you want to marry me.” I couldn’t understand why he would feel that way, but it really bothered him. He was worried about responsibility, I think, taking care of other people financially and whatever.
Steve:
I remember telling her because, boy it was hard, but I didn’t feel like I could marry her and not tell her. As far as what I was going to do for a career I think I was in seventh or eighth grade I remember I was tested and I remember the counselor calling me in and telling me that the only thing that I was ever going to be good for was being a garbage man and it devastated me. I wondered, “What am I going to do?” I didn’t know.
Jackie:
I think he was kind of glad to learn that it wasn’t, I don’t know, he is not stupid, but there is actually something wrong. There is something in his brain that maybe didn’t connect or just wasn’t quite right.
Steve:
When I got through with the testing I found out that I was normal as far as intelligence, that I must just have a learning problem that for some reason it just doesn’t click for me and I don’t know why. It made me feel a lot better about myself; it made me feel like I could accept that this is a true handicap like anybody else might have. I felt a lot better knowing this, than going through my life thinking that I was just dumb.
In high school, I found it easier if I could just go to most of my teachers and ask them if I could just take an oral test. I would go in after class or whatever and take the oral test. I found that I could do fairly well in that. For not taking home any books in high school and not reading in high school I will tell you that for literally not reading at all in high school, I did fairly well. I got a lot out of the lectures and I was able to retain enough from out of the lectures that when we did take the test I could do just as well as any of the other students. I don’t know I have a pretty successful life right now, I have a beautiful wife, I am very happy. I’ve got three kids and I guess, actually, you can say that I have done pretty good.