May

24

Be successful on the job despite having learning disabilities

Filed Under "At-risk" students, Special Education 

I’ve been working on a unit for my grade 12 students that helps them prepare for the world of work. Many of them have learning disabilities and/or attention deficits and frankly have a harder time at school because of it. I just want stop here for a moment to comment about the terminology used in Special Education to identify kids who have a learning disability. Some people prefer not to use the term learning disabilities, and instead prefer to use the term learning differences. I can understand that. I been thinking about these terms myself for a long time and have been trying to decide which one more accurately describes the condition. Is it a learning difference or is it a learning disability. I’ve concluded that it is both.

A person who has a learning disability has a brain that is wired differently. So, the condition could be called a learning difference. However, since the brain is “wired” differently, it makes it more difficult for these students to do things that other students can do easily. Having a brain that is wired differently is not enabling. That’s for sure - at least the way I see it everyday at school. Students struggle to read, write, remember, think, etc. Their differently wired brain is in effect disabling them. It’s making things harder for them to do. When people having a physical disability that makes it harder for them to walk, we don’t say that they have a physical difference. We say they have a physical disability. I know that having a learning difference sounds much better than having a learning disability. I don’t mean to offend anybody. I’m not an expert on naming these conditions but since I use them I want to make sense of them. To be honest, I like SchwabLearning’s term for learning disabilities. SwabLearning uses the term learning difficulties. I like that term because if your brain is wired a certain way you do have learning difficulties.The term learning difficulties makes more sense to me than learning disabilities or learning differences because if your brain is wired differently then learning is difficult.

You know what, in the long run it doesn’t really matter what we call it -disability, differences or difficulties. Kids don’t want to be different; they don’t want to be disabled; they don’t want things to be difficult. It doesn’t matter what we call it. They’re not pleased either way. Kids want to be the same as everyone else, and they can be. They can be successful just like anyone else. I want to shout that out everyday. Kids or adults ,for that matter, who have learning difficulties can be successful at school and in their career. When I talk to kids I encourage them to focus on what they can do, not on what they can’t do. I encourage them to use their strengths to help them be successful. I tell them if they’re not good at math, it’s no big deal. Find someone else who is and get them to help you. There are all kinds of people who love math and can help. In turn, you can use your strengths to help other people who need help because your strength could be their weakness. It’s a case of “I’ll scratch your back and you can scratch mine”.

I’m always talking about how my students can be successful if they develop certain characteristics such as self-awareness, goal setting , self-advocating , perseverance, and emotional support. It doesn’t really matter if they have a learning disability. What matters is that they have the characteristics that lead to success. After talking about these characteristics, I have students do activities that help them develop these characteristics. One activity I especially like is one that helps them be aware of their strengths and weaknesses . I have them complete a self-check list to determine their multiple intelligences and thereby making them aware of their strengths and weaknesses. They then can use their strengths to begin to set career goals. I tell my students, if you suck at math , don’t plan on going into engineering. No matter how much you want to be a successful engineer, it isn’t going to happen. After my students become aware of their strengths and weaknesses, they are ready to begin to set SMART goals. A smart goals is one that is specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely. Smart goals are ones that have a better chance of being met. I also have them complete a self-advocacy checklist to help them understand the concept of self-awareness and to determine what things they need to do to help themselves achieve their goal. There are many self-advocacy check lists on- line. Just type self-advocacy check list into a search engine and you’ll see plenty. I also talk about the need to persevere until you’ve reached our goal. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. I use the story of the Little Engine that Could to make my point, and I give them challenging tasks , usually a puzzle of some sort, to complete to practice their perseverance. Of course if they have problems with perseverance, they can call on others for support to help them. Finally, I talk about the need for emotional support and having someone there to celebrate during the good times and encourage us during the bad. I talk about how to develop and nuture friendships. I truly believe this unit helps the kids more than anything else I do. They come away more confident and know that just because they have learning difficulties it doesn’t mean they will be failures. They can use the characteristics of successful people, the very characteristics they have and can develop, to become successful themselves and be like anyone else- successful.

I was delighted to come across an article that supports the notion that people can be successful in their careers despite having learning difficulties. The article talks about people like Richard Branson, chairman of Virgin Group PLC who is wildly successful despite having dyslexia, problems recognizing and understanding written words, and Mr. James Cincotta, a program manager at an community resources centre who has dyslexia and dyscalculia, difficulty understanding or using numbers, as well as having an auditory-processing deficit. Why are these people successful? Because they know their strengths and weaknesses and get someone else to use their strengths to do what they cannot. They stay positive because they know that they don’t have to be able to do it all themselves. They only have to do the part that they are good at and pay someone to do the part that they aren’t good at.

OK, not everyone is in the position to pay other people to do the part of the job they have difficulty with. There are other strategies you can use to help you overcome your personal difficulties . Just look around. Successful people are using strategies that help them all the time. Look and learn and then use them. Keeping organized is my personal challenge. I used a Palm Pilot for a while to help me organize my day and remember things. Although many people swear by it, I went back to my old paper planner. For some reason, I prefer using it to the electronic one. It doesn’t really matter. Use what works. I’ve seen very successful people use colour coded sticky notes to organize their day at work. Who cares what you use. As long as it works.

I guess my point is that a person can be successful despite having the challenge of having learning difficulties. The key to success is

  • having enough self-awareness to know that you can use your strengths to get around your weaknesses,
  • having SMART goals that are achievable,
  • persevering until you’ve reached your goals,
  • advocating for yourself so that you are in the best possible position to reach your goals,
  • having emotional support available when things aren’t going well and to celebrate with you when things are.

Really, the suggestions I’ve can be used by anyone, whether they have learning difficulties or not-at least the way I see it.

At this point I want to say that I like my new time line for posting podcasts. One every two weeks, give or take a few days, instead of once a week takes the pressure off. I am passonate about producing Teachers At Risk. Don’t get me wrong that’s not the problem. The problem is that I’m also passionate about doing other things as well. I can’t do all the other things I want to do if all I’m just doing my podcast. So, I’ve put it all into perspective and have decided to be relaxed about doing everything I love doing. Well, at least I’m going to try.

I want to thank Jason Jarrett from A Buddhist Podcast for helping me with my steep learning curve whens it come to the technical aspects of producing a podcast. Jason and Karen do such a wonderful job on the technical aspects of Buddhist Podcast but what is even better is the message that they send out. So much of what they say makes sense and is helpful for dealing with the vicissitude’s of daily life. I’ve been listening to it for a long time and look forward to every new show.

I want to thank Jason for helping me understand how to use some of the post production tools in Audacity. We talked on Skype, and he used the built in camera in his Mac to show me some hardware I might consider using. I found that so cool. There’s an ocean between us and yet we could talk to one another ,and he could show me the hardware as if we were sitting next to each one another. Then later he scanned some information and sent it to me via an e-mail attachment. How cool is that! I know some of you who are into all of this new technology might be yawning, but me I think it’s so cool especially when I remember I thought the Underwood portable typewriter my mom bought for me was so cool- except in those days it was neat. I still have that typewriter kicking around somewhere. Maybe I should see if a museum would be interested in it.

In my next podcast I’m going to revisit the topic of bullying and explore other ways that bullying can be stopped. Since only 15% of anti-bully programs are successful, we need to find other approaches that work.

Theme music- 3 feet up- Podsafe Music Network

 
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Comments

2 Responses to “Be successful on the job despite having learning disabilities”

  1. Bill on May 26th, 2007 8:47 am

    I think you’re right about how we label differences. It’s a little harsh to label something like ADHD a learning disability, when many people with ADHD are incredibly successful. Regarding your paper planner, don’t feel bad about going back. I use a combination of Outlook and the Bubble Planner and it works great. There’s just something special about writing things down.

  2. Elona on May 26th, 2007 1:05 pm

    Bill, thanks for the heads up about Bubble Planner. It looks really cool and I’m going to show it to my classes. Thanks.

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