I often wake up to my alarm after a short night and step out of bed to a day I’ve fought through countless times. I rush my morning routine and sprint to my car to avoid being late. My radio switches to my favorite song, but I have other obligations—an audible book for an assignment due tomorrow. I’m only halfway through.
When I get to school, I start with Spanish, my hardest class. Despite being around all year, I have no clue what’s going on. This isn’t my fault—I’ve done what I can to stay afloat—perhaps something about how I learn just isn’t a match.
I then walk to Advanced Placement U.S. History, which I was told would be my hardest class. Here, I am in my element. Despite being three assignments behind, I’m actively engaged. Yes, my passion for history sparks my focus, but my teacher’s willingness to work with me and accommodate is what allows me to flourish.
In English, my mind is bogged down to its most rudimentary systems. The assignments take a certain amount of energy that my perfectionist nature is unable to take on in such an environment, and so I save them for later. After school, I have track practice or a meet, in which I stay until sunset pushing my body to its full extent. I get home for dinner and start my homework as soon as I can: 8:00 p.m.
This is my reality as a student with dyslexia: assignments that take three times as long as they’re meant to, late nights and early mornings to even slightly keep up with my classes, and teachers who think I’m just lazy despite the overwhelming workload.
The truth is that this disability manifests when there is a mismatch between teaching and learning styles. As a kid, I could not access the way reading was taught in school. I had to seek private, specialized reading instruction that my brain could comprehend.
There are ways of teaching that could work for everyone, based on the science of reading, but this wasn’t the practice at the time. Now, many schools are shifting to a research-based approach in early literacy instruction that meets the needs of all kids. However, advocacy work can still be done to support the educational experience of students with dyslexia.
A bias against learning differences remains prevalent in many classrooms. It is for that reason that in a difficult class like AP U.S. History, which involves hours of reading and writing, I’m able to excel, compared with a moderately less rigorous classes in which I struggle. It comes down to how the lessons are structured.
Teachers need to be aware that certain styles of teaching don’t work for every kid and they need to offer alternative structures that make learning more accessible. I’ve had teachers who teach exclusively lecture-based classes where students are expected to take notes and listen. As a student who is unable to take notes because of my disability, this doesn’t work. A fix for that is as simple as providing alternative resources alongside the lectures: a worksheet to follow along with, a slide show students can go back to after class, or perhaps even an activity that further plays with the concepts.
Many of these alternate resources can be guaranteed by federally mandated 504 plans; however, if someone is unable to access constant support from family and outside services like I was fortunate enough to have, 504 plans may not be enough. Education that is inequitable in structure leads many students to struggle anyway. We need to shift our thinking from creating accommodations that patch over the flaws in our current system to instead designing classrooms that create universal access for all types of learners.
This can prevent students from being sucked into academic tracks that don’t push them to their full intellectual potential—if school systems are willing to provide support and education by creating an equitable and accessible class structure from the start.
Everyone is different in the way they process information and learn. If we only teach content in one way, we are discriminating against students whose brains work differently. We must take note of this bias and implement more accessible instruction in classrooms to guarantee these students the right to their deserved future.
I have an invisible disability. It exists from 8:40 a.m. to 3:15 p.m. It’s brought into reality by the biased nature of our current educational system. I am going to graduate soon and move on. I’ll be fine.
But I don’t want you to forget the 3rd grade versions of me who may not have people in their life advocating for them. If we acknowledge these inequities, we can formulate more productive structures that can help all students equally.
We must provide education that works for everyone because we don’t want these students to be sucked down into a track that prevents them from engaging in the academics that push them to their full potential. These are smart kids who just happen to learn differently. Why would we make them suffer in school for something they cannot control?
