Holism || Perspective from the Other Side: A Message of Hope for Learning Disability Teachers and Students

Hammill Institute on Disabilities

Perspective from the Other Side: A Message of Hope for Learning Disability Teachers andStudentsAuthor(s): David QuinnSource: Learning Disability Quarterly, Vol. 7, No. 4, Holism (Autumn, 1984), pp. 295-298Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1510227 .

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PERSPECTIVE FROM THE OTHER SIDE: A MESSAGE OF HOPE

FOR LEARNING DISABILITY TEACHERS AND STUDENTS

David Quinn

I am a learning disabled adult deeply con- cerned about the education of atypical children in general and the learning handicapped in par- ticular. Now in my early thirties, I entered the school system before enactment of state and federal legislation mandating equal access to public education for the handicapped. Although great strides have been made since special education and learning disabilities were neophyte disciplines, glaring inequities remain. My purpose in writing this essay is to use my experience within and outside the educational system to reflect upon the distance we have traveled and the difficult path we still must traverse. Additionally, I will offer hope and en- couragement to both teachers of the learning disabled and their students in the form of valid avenues of improvement. My Early Years

Let us return to a time when special education and I were very young, a time when learning disabilities was still on the drawing boards. I was diagnosed at birth as having a mild form of cerebral palsy, which impairs my coordination to this day. In the course of the birthing process, my mother and I nearly perished. During the first five weeks of my life, I cried constantly. Al- though the cause was never determined, a physician suggested many years later that an ab- dominal obstruction was the culprit.

Subsequent to this neonatal boisterousness, I fell silent and remained speechless until about age three. My early speech was characterized by echolalic utterances as typified by my answering the question, "What's your name?" with "What's your name?"

My entry into the school system was tortuous to say the least. At age five I was ejected from a kindergarten classroom after the teacher re- ported that I had jumped up and down on a pile

of papers on her desk. Subsequently, I was ex- pelled from another kindergarten after having severed the head of a bird that had been fash- ioned from construction paper during an art lesson.

As one might expect, my parents com- municated with various professionals in these early years in an attempt to seek assistance. It was not forthcoming. The input they did receive was invariably negative and generally confined to morbid predictions of perpetual retardation and illiteracy. This concern with some com- ponents of the language arts (especially reading) while ignoring others that are far more important will stubbornly recur in this essay. It would be a mistake, however, to wholly condemn the psy- chiatrists and psychologists who passed judg- ment on me. Although a severe language impairment is self-evident, the cause of many of my early behaviors remains shrouded in conjec- ture. The aura of mystery surrounding these behaviors renders comparison with other learning disabled individuals exceedingly difficult, a point which will receive further treatment as this discussion progresses.

Eventually, I was placed in a special education class. I would remain in special education classes until the fourth grade.

My 1st- and 2nd-grade teacher was a gifted educator who was the first person within the educational system to realize that I had the potential to learn. She was willing to go to bat for me when the principal wanted to remove me from the premises because I was not yet able to successfully do the required reading readiness exercises. One day my teacher observed me in a

DAVID QUINN is a research assistant in Teacher Education, Claremont Graduate School.

Volume 7, Fall 1984 295



corner reading an encyclopedia. My salvation was assured, or so she thought-another example of an overwhelming emphasis upon literacy paralleled by a deemphasis on other competencies.

What might some of these other competencies be? A review of other incidents that occurred in my childhood is instructive. * When I was about 10 and living in San Diego,

I began following a group of boys over a hill at a local park. One of them exclaimed, "Look, the punk's following us."

* When I was 12 and living in Pasadena, I asked a boy in the neighborhood, "There are 35,000 kids in this town you could pick on. Why pick on me?" His reply was, "When we find someone who is as dumb as you are, we'll pick on him."

* When I was 14 and in junior high, I was thrown off a volleyball court during a physical education class for "working for the other side."

* When I was 19 and had just been accepted at a residential college in Ohio, I wrote a letter to one of my cousins informing him of the fact. Apparently the tone of the letter was unwit- tingly condescending. When I saw him some time after writing the letter, he said: "Con- gratulations on being accepted to snob."

* When I was living in Massachusetts after graduating from college, a father of one of my college friends said, "You have no leadership qualities. At least I haven't seen any."

* Some time later I was working as a development secretary for a nonprofit organization in Los Angeles. The vice-president for development, my boss, had resigned and a new one would shortly replace him. Three days before the new vice-president arrived, I was in his future office straightening out the files. An ad- ministrative assistant who worked on the same floor walked by and asked sarcastically: "Pretending?" The implication was that I was pretending to be the vice-president for development. The thread that unites these incidents is a lack

of social skills. Social development was the ele- ment that was conspicuously absent from any attempt to educate me. Literacy carries little weight in situations that either do not require the manipulation of written symbols, or that require

some degree of social awareness to be used successfully. Occupational Frustrations

Before discussing my current status, I will deal with the long years of occupational frustration and failure. I spent a goodly portion of my working life in difficult, nonrewarding, and/or un- challenging positions. I have worked in car washes, driven a taxi cab, washed dishes, been a checker in a toy store, sold real estate, been a telephone solicitor for a vending machine company, a Fuller Brush salesman, loaded and un- loaded trucks, processed orders for a garment concern, picked up and delivered materials for a janitorial supply firm, and performed secretarial and clerical tasks for various organizations.

I was fired from many of these positions. A manager of a car wash said that, I "didn't cut the mustard." An assistant manager of the toy store said I was too nervous, the president of the vending machine company decided that they "wanted a stronger person in the office," and a manager of a department store cafeteria said I was too slow.

Why? Occupational success or failure is tied to the acquisition of social skills. It is through social interaction that we learn who we are and, more importantly, what we may become. Of course, the coordination impairment alluded to earlier in this essay played a significant role in some of my job failures. It does not, however, adequately explain my lack of success in occupational pursuits requiring higher degrees of social awareness (real estate). Current Status

Before discussing the educational implications of my experience for other learning disabled individuals, I will briefly outline my current status. I am in the master's program in education at the Claremont Graduate School. I review books of general interest for the national Council for Learning Disabilities newsletter. I am also preparing a paper with two other researchers for presentation at the Conference on Learning Dis- abilities to be held in Dallas in October of this year. (I was also a presenter at the 1983 CLD conference in San Francisco.) In addition, I belong to a local self-help organization known as ALDA (Association for Learning Disabled Adults).

Currently I am self-employed as a researcher. My professional research activities include all

296 Learning Disability Quarterly



areas of education including educational sociology. Most recently I have worked as a research assistant for Dr. Charles Kerchner of the Claremont Graduate School investigating the sociological aspects of teaching as a profes- sion. Implications for Learning Disability Teachers

A number of important considerations affect- ing teachers of the learning disabled and their students emerge from the foregoing. First I would like to address teachers.

Initially, I would like to develop an idea that may seem educationally blasphemous to the reader: Literacy will not, by itself, confer unlimited benefits upon the learner. Reading is not a panacea. It is wrong to view it as a magic elixir that will cure all the educational and social ills of learning disabled students. Consequently, it must not be overemphasized to the detriment of other academic competencies.

Equal treatment of academic skills is, however, not enough. Many current definitions of learning disabilities, including that published in the Federal Register, view academic deficits as the sole descriptors of learning disabilities. It is apparent that social and occupational issues must be addressed if there is to be any improvement in the way the learning disabled are edu- cated. Five hundred years after the invention of movable type, one truth remains self-evident-we do not communicate primarily through print. Verbal communication is the in- dispensable tool of life adjustment. This fact becomes readily apparent in the case of learning disabled students who have not mastered obvious cues that emerge in conversation.

Additionally, we must recognize that the learning disabled do grow up and must eventually grapple with the exigencies of occupational adjustment. One area of education for the learning disabled that has been sadly neglected is vocational preparation. Underscoring this issue is my own labyrinthine journey through the occupational maze. Many learning disabled individuals (including myself) are channeled into menial labor and assembly-line type jobs in which they are highly uninterested and for which they are poorly qualified. Adequate vocational guidance is necessary if the learning disabled are to avoid some of the countless blind alleys in the occupational world.

Further, the learning disabled population is not a homogeneous mass about which comfort- ing generalizations may be safely made. One of the frustrating realities of this exceptionality is the high degree of variation among learning handicapped individuals. For example, some may have no obvious social deficit but may find it exceedingly difficult to balance a checkbook or drive a car. The wide diversity among the learning disabled in terms of both strengths and weaknesses requires that educators avoid the tendency to view academic progress as a set of subtest scores that conveniently conform to an obligatory number of standard deviations from the mean. The academic profiles of learning disabled children often produce a wide scatter. One wonders what would have become of major historical personalities believed to have learning disabilities (e.g., Churchill and Einstein) had they been subjected to current achievement bat- teries. The extent to which numerical measures of progress dominate our thinking is revealed by the story of the professor who asked his students to examine a set of grades and then evaluate the future prospects of the child who earned them. The consensus was that the child's prospects were rather poor and that he/she would un- doubtedly come to no good. The professor later announced that the grades in question were those earned by Winston Churchill while he was a student at Harrow.

Related to the diversity of impairment is the diversity of ability. The purpose of education is to develop talents, not to reinforce weaknesses. As teachers you should not waste precious instructional time in an attempt to identify the academic shortcomings of your students. Some problems that are burdensome in childhood may be sidestepped in adulthood. For example, the learning disabled child who does not do well in physical education classes may choose to for- sake athletic pursuits as an adult. However, no individual may ignore his or her talents. Conse- quently, you should not discount the abilities of your students. Implications for Learning Disabled Students

I would now like to address learning disabled students. Many of the problems you have en- countered academically and/or socially are dif- ficulties that I have faced and overcome. You can too. Some of you experience difficulty with

Volume 7, Fall 1984 297



math or find it hard to categorize your thoughts. I do too. Many of you have been hurt by unkind remarks made by other children or adults. I've been there too. Some of you have been rejected by relatives. Long ago I learned that blood is not always thicker than water. Those of you who are old enough to have part-time jobs may have to cope with job-related frustrations and failures. It need not be a permanent condition. You can learn from my mistakes. You can minimize frustration by making an honest assessment of your strengths and weaknesses before you begin your job search.

Mark Twain informed us that a cat who sits on a hot stove will not do so twice. He will also refrain from sitting on a cold one. Do not emulate the cat. Life is not a series of "hot stoves" upon which one is perpetually burned. Defeat is not compulsory. We are not measured by the number of times we fall down, but by the number of times we get up.

You must not succumb to what I choose to call "the four great myths of the learning disabled." The first myth is: "This is the worst thing that ever happened to me." The worst thing that can happen is to believe that the worst thing can happen! In the throes of a devastating experience it is difficult to see that every disaster contains within it the potential for survivability. After sur- vival, the nature of one's predicament is trans- formed from a liability to an asset making possi- ble a more effective mobilization of inner resources to meet future challenges.

The second myth sounds something like this: "My fate is determined by forces beyond my control. Because I was kicked out of one volleyball game I will be banished from all future games, world without end." You can control

your fate but not by constantly replicating your weaknesses. You can determine the direction of your life by emphasizing your strengths.

The third myth is the fallacy of unlikeability ("I can never get people to like me"). If the use of the word "get" is meant to suggest a manipulation of others' likes and dislikes, the answer is yes. You cannot make a person like you. That does not mean you can't be likeable. You are more likely to receive a positive response if you do not try to force others to make up their mind about you.

The final myth is one of presumed exclusion ("I never quite fit in"). What are we really saying when we utter those words? Are we saying, I set myself up for exclusion by physically distancing myself from others, by not becoming actively in- volved in conversations? Who is excluding who?

In conclusion, I believe there is reason for hope. Teachers, your students can learn if you instruct them according to their strengths, not their weaknesses! Instructional technologies for the learning disabled have attained a great degree of sophistication since I was a child. The misdiagnoses that plagued my early years are less likely to occur in today's special education environment. The risk of misdiagnosis may be further reduced by avoiding the tendency to evaluate weaknesses instead of teaching strengths. Students, you can succeed! You need not expect to be proficient in all areas. You have every reason to believe that areas exist in which you can demonstrate excellence. Do what you can. That is how your lives will ultimately be measured.

Requests for reprints should be addressed to: David Quinn, Claremont Graduate School, Claremont, CA 91711.

PLEASE NOTE

Due to space limitations, the title/author index for Volume VII, 1984, does not appear in this special issue on holism. Instead, it will be

published in the Winter '85 issue of the Learning Disability Quarterly.

298 Learning Disability Quarterly



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Holism || Perspective from the Other Side: A Message of Hope for Learning Disability Teachers and Students