Avoid, Conquer or Adapt to Learning Disabilities in Public Schools and Beyond

When I was in high school I played flute in the band. I did pretty well except when I took the occasional written test. I could play notes but I could not name them. It was a mystery of sorts. But it didn’t keep me from making music and the band director didn’t care. So I moved on. I didn’t pursue a career as a flutist, but I enjoy all kinds of music, and I adore James Galway and Jethro Tull. And when I hear the Boston Pops play Stars and Stripes I stealthily tune into the piccolo part. I am grateful that band enriched my life in many wonderful ways.

I will also tell you up front, that I am pretty sure I have a few learning disabilities, and in school I worked to avoid, conquer or adapt to them. It wasn’t always easy. And it certainly must not be easy for students today. With Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and other harsh standards, the goals are all the same. Conquer is everything. You definitely cannot avoid, and all adapting means with CCSS is getting pushed to meet the standards. It is harder than ever to find out who you are in that kind of setup.

We know school reformers want everyone to master the same stuff. They never discuss the kids who will not be able to reach the CCSS standards. They will say the expectations weren’t high enough, or the teachers didn’t know how to teach it. And this revolves around their arbitrary goals—what Hirsch and Coleman et al. decided was important for kids to know. Of course, why a select group of people get to decide what is important for students to learn in a free country raises all kinds of serious questions. But I digress.

One way for a student to succeed is to minimize the problematic area. Do what can be done to adapt and/or conquer, but pay more attention to what students do well. Many students thrive in the arts but do not excel in reading and math. The arts might be their ticket to a great career. Yet, many schools have eliminated art programs. No escape hatch there.

So how many artists are never discovered? How many students with disabilities are labeled as failures because the only route to success involves goals that are at the end of one road? They can’t zig to the left or right on a different path where they might succeed. What a real loss this is for America’s kids and for the country and the world in general.

For example, Timothy Eagin discusses creativity HERE and how getting off the road can lead to innovation. One of the examples he describes is Steve Jobs and the off-beat calligraphy class that inspired him [Jobs] to create the Apple typeface. For kids with disabilities, being allowed to go in a different direction can turn out to be their salvation.

The reformers will state with Common Core, that students with disabilities can learn in different ways, in order to reach the same goals as everyone else. They talk about students with disabilities doing Universal Design for Learning (UDL). This sounds like adaptation. Some students might be able pull this off, but where will it get them? The problem with Common Core, in general, is that the goals don’t lead you to the promise land no matter who you are. It doesn’t highlight the different strengths a student brings to school. It doesn’t allow them to really adapt by going after a different, but equally important goal.

Why, in a country that prizes diversity, do we want common goals for everyone?

Putting aside CCSS, there is nothing wrong with adaptation. And certainly conquering for a student with learning disabilities is a tremendous feat. There are times when teachers and parents should push for this for a student when it comes to regular subjects. But there are other times when students need something very different, and no one should be ashamed of this. Common Core (all harsh standards) ultimately indirectly (or directly) humiliates students if they can’t master set standards. With no real adaptation or avoiding, students are lost.

Learning disabilities are fascinating because we still don’t know a lot about them. That makes them a target for the school reformers. They like to say that there is no such thing, because they don’t want to deal with differences in children. If they did, it would be a whole different ballgame. It would be a school system that valued students first. Any kind of standard would serve the students, not the other way around.

It would help to eliminate labeling too. If we accepted differences, avoided, conquered or adapted, even extreme differences, perhaps we would be more accepting of each other.

For example, check out all the people claiming to have attention deficit disorder. Would they all have become the celebrities they are today if they had to master Common Core Standards? I wonder. My guess is some of them probably didn’t like school either, because schools, even in the past, didn’t focus on individuals like they should have. Public schools have always been in need of improvement, but Common Core is not the answer to the old problems.

Most of us who admit we have some learning disabilities tucked under our belts know we cleverly learned to adapt throughout the years. Or we chose an area to work in that demonstrates our strengths and not our weaknesses. At least we could do that. Fortunately, we were able to find our way.

When I was studying learning disabilities in college, we were provided examples of what it would be like to have a certain disability. Seeing letters jumbled up, for example, could be what a child with dyslexia saw in a book. Recently, CBS News described auditory processing difficulties in regard to students with autism. Such children react badly to noise. It was discovered that when they watch people talk it isn’t in sync with what they hear. CBS provided an excellent video-taped example. Can you imagine how confusing having this disability must be?

Learning disabilities have a lot of names. We know what some of them are. Students could easily adapt to some, and conquer if the disability doesn’t give them trouble. But learning disabilities can trip you up plenty in school. If they aren’t discovered, students can appear lazy. Or if they have social disabilities (very real) trouble might be on the horizon. Frustrated students could eventually act out.

If schools were doing the job right, they would be seeking ways to individualize teaching for students in positive ways that focus on the student, and they would be studying the mysterious phenomenon behind learning disabilities and trying to help children who have them, and their families more.

And don’t say technology is the answer. There is nothing to suggest that sticking anyone on a computer is going to solve all their educational issues. It might supplement what a teacher does—but it is just a slim part of the overall solution.

Public schools need to not just reflect the differences that children bring to school—but celebrate them. I mean, do we really want a Common World? There is nothing joyful in that. Public schools should reflect the differences in students and provide the options to make all children thrive no matter their learning disability.

While I’m on my soapbox, here is a book that might help a child with disabilities adapt to school in general.

It is called Learning Outside the Lines by Jonathan Mooney and David Cole (not Coleman). It is full of helpful strategies for students with learning disabilities…to help them adapt and conquer, if they can’t or don’t wish to avoid.

Thinking about this made me get my flute out and play a few old songs. I can do it, even though I nonetheless still can’t tell you the name of the notes.