My Education — A Retrospective
As the understanding and language of disabilities, particularly learning disabilities, changes it allows for better conversations to be had. A flow on effect of this is that children’s individual needs will be catered for. This is great but as this change has happened it has made me reflect on my own experience with education. Though it could be seen as a form of jealousy, for me it is more a matter of a whole lot of ‘what if’s’.
For context there are a few things that need to be stated so a fuller understanding can happen. Firstly, I graduated in 2006, this means that throughout my entire educational experience the understanding of physical disabilities let alone learning disabilities was at a minimum. Secondly, though it relates to the first, my accommodations to my education came in the form of physical not learning adjustments.
I was seen as having a physical disability rather than a learning one. I suffered a stroke at 3 days old which caused me to have paralysis down my right side. The stroke took out most of my left hemisphere and a touch of the right. So, although half my brain was (and still is) dead — I was treated like a student who had a normal functioning brain.
Throughout my primary school years there was another disabled student in the same year level. I was never aware of what specific disability they had; however, I know…
