Voices

Dyslexic takes on Shakespeare...impossible is nothing

This is my son's response to a classroom discussion on learning disabilities and being separated. He was a sixth grader at the American School Foundation (ASF) in Mexico City. For those of you who knew her, his teacher was Cristina Calcagno. For those of you who didn't, Cristina taught 4th grade at Graded for two years, after leaving ASF. I keep my son's handwritten original - I love it, spelling mistakes and all :)

L.D. and being separated

By Alejandro Torres Mayagoitia

            Imagine asking a hippo to fly, a dog to make a speech, a fish to take a hike up a mountain or a person to fly. Could they? Even with special help they won’t be able to. So why do so many people ask people with a learning disability to do what they can’t – a dyslexic to just read and spell correctly, a person with ADD to just concentrate, or a person with ADHD to just calm down. All I ever heard from my teachers is “try harder” or “turn on your brain” even if they knew I had LD, they didn’t see it as asking a handicap to run, they saw it as asking a fat guy to get off the couch. So how should you treat a person with a learning disability?

          Imagine asking a hippo to fly by going on an airplane, a fish to be carried up a mountain in a fish bowl, a dog to bark, a person to pilot a helicopter. Could they? Notice the commands are the same except this time they are possible. By taking a slightly different path people with a learning disability can do what they are incapable of doing. So they shouldn’t be separated, only given the right tools. Separating them is only discouraging. From the class discussion I learned many people are like my previous teachers – either thinking it’s impossible for these people to do it or it’s easy for these people to do it. Neither point of view is correct – only wrong.