Hehir, Toward Ending Ableism in Education (reflection)

     When reading the section "Education of Students with Learning Disabilities" it talked about how much more common learning disabilities are than other things such as blindness or deafness. Many students in school may have some sort of learning disability whether it is diagnosed or not. It also talks about how these students may not get the proper learning methos or teaching that they need for them to succeed. 

    Growing up throughout high school one of my best friends had a learning disability. I went to school with him for years of school until he dropped out end of junior year because he gave up on school. He always struggled in school and was barely passing and making it to the next grade all the time. One of his biggest problems was math because he couldn't understand numbers at all and was constantly confused. About halfway through sophomore year in high school he basically gave up and didn't care anymore. He had given up because he was always struggling and none of the teachers would try different things for him to succeed. they just kept telling him the same thing and after a while there was no hope. They weren't willing to adapt for him and that failed him. This led to him dropping out. 

    This just shows the trouble some students may face if they have a learning disability. For this to change teachers need to learn to adapt and be willing to change their ways in order to help a student who may be like others. I think this can be done by being more aware of this problem. Also, all teachers should be willing to help their students because that is what their job is even if they don't think it. They should always try their best to help even if they don't fully know how to. 

   

Although still high the dropout rate for students with learning disabilities is going down slowly. It still needs a lot of improvement, but it is on the right path.