Adding Ability to Learning Disability

[Rick]

How to Find Ability in Learning Disability.

Gen·ius n 1. The tutelary spirit of a person, place, or institution.
—The New Oxford American Dictionary, 2001

Jane has learning disabilities. She has always had trouble with reading, spelling, arithmetic, and most especially forming letters. A psycho-educational evaluation in first grade attached some names to these challenges and all through elementary school she had specialists working with her outside of school. But she never seemed disturbed by her disabilities, and this was the secret of her success. Her self-confidence was the result of a parents-teacher collective that understood a “challenge” to be simply that: something she could master with perseverance. Though realistic about the shortcomings of her peculiar neurological make-up, parents, teachers and (therefore) student never saw Jane as disabled. In school teachers tried to make the activity inherently worth doing so that Jane would have some internal motivation to engage in it, and she continued to make progress.
By seventh grade, school was still a challenge, of course. But then isn’t that what we want school to be? One day when I dropped by, Emily the English teacher was walking among the tables saying:
“…O.K. Let’s get down to work. Be Nordic poets and start making your own kennings. See how creative you can be.”
Four to a table, the students started talking. They wrote down lists of nouns on two sheets of paper. When all tables were finished, they traded one of these lists with another group. Then each student got out their own sheet of paper and began making their own kennings, selecting one noun from each list.
Soon Emily said, “All right, I see that each of you has a pretty good list; pick your favorite, decide what it means, and raise your hand when you are ready to sell your word to the class. Pretend you are a salesperson trying to convince a roomful of poets that they should use your word.”
Jane’s hand shot up. She went to the front and began to write her fifteen-letter word. She seemed to chisel it onto the whiteboard, it was so difficult for her, but she pressed on. I could read most of the letters.
When she was done, she turned around and saw that one of her classmates was waving his hand at her. When she called on him, he said: “I can’t read it.”
She smiled her big, broad smile and, apparently undaunted, turned around. She didn’t even sigh. Everyone was silent as she erased not just the letters I couldn’t read, but the whole word and, agonizingly (for me at least), wrote the word out again. She seemed to go a little faster this time, and this time we could read it all: MOTHERINGENUITY.
“What is your word, Jane? And what does it mean?” asked Emily.
“Motheringenuity,” said Jane. “It means the cleverness of mothers, and you need this word. You can use it when you want to show how a person solved an impossible problem, you can use it when anyone solves a problem in that clever way mothers sometimes do—like magic—and I think the best thing about it is its versatility. You can use it anywhere under any circumstances, referring to the way someone solved their problem—as long as they did it cleverly.” She “sold” her word with great gusto and enthusiasm, and received applause from the class.
I had never known just how intransigent Jane’s dysgraphia was. Seeing her so unself-conscious in this activity was impressive. Many students would not have participated for fear of embarrassing themselves in front of their classmates. Her pride in her word and the joy she got out of “selling it” was a delight for all. The applause was quite appropriate.
All students are trying to avoid embarrassment, but they also don’t want us to waste their time. Our job is not to give them challenges that are no challenge at all because we have already assessed their abilities and “readiness” and know they can succeed. Nothing succeeds like success? Carol Dweck points out that success can just as easily breed arrogance. My experience with over 1000 students is that arrogance is a more serious learning disability than dyslexia or the dreaded ADHD; it is more intransigent, and the fixed mindset it reflects can send people (from Napoleon to “straight-A” students) down a slippery slope to disaster.
The correct formula for sustained success is sustained struggle in a mental state focused on learning. The adult’s role is to communicate: “I love you. You can do this. We have a pact: together we will make sure that you keep growing and learning. I will give you feedback.” (Dweck 2006)
“Genius,” today, means a rare intelligence as in “Jane is no genius.” The mindset that produces this modern meaning is educationally detrimental. Jane’s genius is the engine of her success, the source of her inspiration, and a little oblivious to “ability.” It gives joy to her teachers and parents. Educating this inner teacher is a matter of believing in it, engaging it, and acquiring the disciplines for focusing it to achieve goals. Students for whom academics come easily might very well be more at risk than Jane if they come to see themselves as “abled” rather than marvelously quirky humans struggling to make their way in the world.

References

1. Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck, Random House, 2006
2. “The Secret to Raising Smart Kids,” by Carol S. Dweck, Scientific American, Nov. 28, 2007.

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