My Boggled Mind

Educators have a system, a system that through specialized testing, measures how difficult something is for a person and determines if they have a Learning Disability, are ‘Normal’, or on the other hand, are Gifted.  Let’s say that the score for Learning Disabled is a score between 25-40, 41-70 is ‘normal’ and over 70 is gifted.  I know this isn’t quite how it’s done but I’m not an expert and this is purely to illustrate the boggle in my mind so bear with me.  If a child ‘passes’ the learning disabled test – they become eligible to receive assistance based on an Individual Learning Plan or (iep) which, for a reading/writing LD might consist of  someone to scribe a test or essay for them, verbal instead of written tests or special devices like laptops with specialized software.  All of these can help a person get the knowledge that is in their head, out on paper.

Now consider the possibility that each and every one of us is gifted – and each and every one of us is learning disabled.  Consider that there is one or more things that for each of us is more difficult to grasp than other things – and for each of us there is one or more things that come easily, or naturally to us.  Perhaps you are a person that can throw ‘anything’ together with a pinch here and a tad there and make a meal that could compete with that of a world renown chef.  Perhaps you can sing or write poetry beautifully or carve anything out of a piece of wood.  Aren’t these all samples of giftedness?  You may have done average at school, or even be Learning disabled in one way or another, perhaps you, if given every available artist material were only able to make a mess.  Would that not be a “Learning Disability”?

Now what of the child that back at the specialized testing, scores a 41 on the test.  That’s not in the range of learning disabled but I’d hazard a guess that there is still frustration and tears during homework at night.

What if we taught every child the way they need to be taught and focus less on if John can spell (does he know the answer to the question?) or Jane can read (can she comprehend and learn from the words if they are read to her?) or Sally can recite the multiplication tables from memory (give her a calculator, can she arrive at the correct answer?).

No, I’m not suggesting that we find ways to make everything easy for everyone, just that we not keep things harder than they need be for anyone.  There’s no better way to turn someone off of something than to make it frustrating and difficult to understand.  A child learns from an early age “I’m no good at math” and avoids anything to do with math.  That could be changed.  Hand her a calculator, show her how to use it and continue teaching her math.  The part of the brain that has difficulty with the calculation can relax a bit while the part that can understand the big picture can focus on that instead of the sum of 6 x 9.  This would be the ultimate in teaching to learning styles would it not?

For those of you that would argue “But what about the real world???” I have a few words. 

Spell Checker – for those who can write but not spell.

Calculator –  for those who aren’t good at math.

Accountant- for those who need help with their income taxes or business finances.

Seminar –  for auditory learners.

Computer -  for those who want do more in less time.

Personal trainer –  for those of you who need help sticking to a plan.

Computer technician –  in case you don’t know how to fix your own computer.

Chef- if you need a gourmet meal and don’t know how to make one.

Doctor – if you need medical help.

Veterinarian – in case you don’t know how to neuter your dog.

You get the picture.  No matter how intelligent, no matter how much education and training you have, you can’t do everything without help.