5th class

In our class today, we talked about the social problems that people with LD may encounter and how others can help them dealing with them. What I learned in the lecture is really, somehow, odd to me in the beginning, because how can someone be unable to distinguish a smiling face and a tearing face. After getting more information, I began to understand that although it sounds so ridiculous to me, it is happening to some others, and I have taken for granted such an important skill that people with LD may need pay tremendous effort to gain.

The reasons why social problems of people with LD are that social interaction is unavoidable in one's life, and social skills cannot be satisfactorily accommodated by technology or other help. When one person cannot pick up social cues, process them correctly and react to it appropriately, they are very likely to offense others and embarrass themselves. It is such a terrible feeling that you don't know the rule or cannot follow the rules. I had a lot of experience when just arriving America. For example, I don't know how to use the driving lane of a bank. I saw people drove through it, finished their business there, and drove away, but I don't know how exactly it works. But I felt embarrassed to ask because it seemed to be a common sense that everybody at my age should know. I don't want to be regarded as the silly one. Therefore, I just decided to try it out by myself. When I stopped in the lane, it took me a while to figure out how to call the bank teller in the window. However, when I tried to tell her that what I wanted to do with my account, she kept saying that she could not hear me. She repeated herself several time, and give me sone kind of instruction. But, affected by the mediocre communication technology and the pressure of being regarded an idiot, I could not understand her words. After a few minute, I just drove away while trying to hide my face from her.

I am not sure how similar it is to the experience of people with LD. They may experience something much worse. They may encounter with these situations hundreds of times everyday. And they may even don't understand why people make fun of them or shy away from them, which could be much more devastating. Again, just as I feel in other class sections, how lucky we are that we can function normally in our life. Compared with people with LD, there is little reason for us to complain about the hardship in life. It is really nice to know that there are programs and teachers (such as Lisa) that provide customized instruction for these individuals and they can be very helpful. When it comes to adulthood, it ties back to our discussion about self-advocacy. Individuals with limited social skills should let people who they trust and spend much time with know about their problems so that they can have the mirro to check and analyze their performance.

4th class

Today we shared our interview about what ordinary people and supervisors in work place know about LD. It is really amazing that people know about LD in various level and they can very different ideas about people with LD. Most of what they know is derived from what they have experienced personally. There are people who had really bad experience interacting with people with LD, therefore have negative impression about LD, such as my first interviewee. However, in Joyce’s presentation, her interviewees knows her son, who has autism, so that they know people with LD do not necessarily have low IQ. There are several supervisors that know about ADHD or ADD because they have employer with one of them. Just as Holly said, people’s perceptions, to some degree, are determined by their personal experience. We learn a lot from what we have been through. However, we cannot expect that everyone have the positive interaction with people with LD and learn the right information. As I said in my paper, “people are not ‘ having no idea about it’. They have some wrong idea about it.” Therefore, it is important to promote understanding through education and training.

This also connects with the “Self Lecture”, especially self-disclosure and self-advocacy. People with LD are usually the best source for others to learning about LD. Therefore, the more knowledgeable and honest they are about their situation, the more understanding and supportive others around them can be. During the lecture, I realized that how important it is to disclose with further explanation about one’s specific issue. Those terms about LD can be confusing, misleading and daunting. And because of the deficit model, people may go extreme and only think about what one cannot do. However, if one can articulate both his strength and weakness, and how he will deal with it, it builds up his credibility and give others reason to trust him. Just as Carol’s example, her colleague asks others to look direct into her eyes when talking with her to help her concentrate. It is always assuring to deal with someone who understand herself and can handle her problems.

As a Chinese and a non-native speaker in America, I understand the importance of self-advocacy. In many cases, I an misunderstood because of stereotypes, just like people with LD. My American friend may ask me questions that I find very naïve or strange. But those moments are opportunities for me to advocate for myself. For example, some people believe that Asians have funny eyes, which I find very superficial. I explained to some of my friends the different looks of people from different areas in Asia, and how their eye shapes vary. Also, as an English learner, I will let other know that although I do not have the intuition of English, I have learned the grammar systematically and can names the rules. Also, I have been trained to translate and interpret. These are my “niche” when compared with native speakers.

I really enjoy the class, and one of the reasons is that I can connect well with the topic we have discussed in several detentions. I think it will help me a lot if I choose to be an ESL teacher.

3rd class

In the third class, we focused on the high-achieving individuals with LD and analyzed what it takes for them to succeed. To me, the class is more like an inspiring speech. We take those out-standing individuals as example and learn from them about how they overcome unusual difficulties to proof their value. I can relate to those key elements of success very well, since they also apply to any ordinary people, especially the majority.

First, people with LD are “niche-pickers”. They understand what they are good at, and what they cannot do well. Therefore, they build on their strength and avoid the shortcoming. This is also very applicable to me. I remember that when I was in high school. I was very good at some subjects, such as English, Chinese and History, but cannot understand Math or Physics at all. When choosing my major in college, I was highly encouraged to choose accounting or finance because they were the more profitable career. However, I knew that I wouldn’t figure out all those numbers and my life would be miserable then, so that I decided to choose English, which was not recognized as promising field. Because of my passion and confidence in English, I did pretty well in college, and realized my dream to come to America. All these stories have proved again and again the importance to find my strength and stay on it.

The second key element of success of people with LD is resilience, because of which I respect them the most. They do not give up easily when knocked down. I understand how hard it is to persist in one thing that you have failed for many times, since that is the reason why I gave up playing piano, dancing and many other things. Now, I do regret that I was not hard enough on myself and was not resilient. Fortunately, one thing I have not given up is English, which is my passion and leads me to my dream. Therefore, just as Dr. Gerber said, to be resilient, it is crucial to find the niche and one’s passion. Only when the person is enthusiastic about what he is doing, can he control his frustration and stick to it.

Also, in the class, Dr. Gerber talked about the Deficit Model. I didn’t think about this before, but it is so true! We do define people as what they cannot do, but not focusing on their capability. Once heard about this model, I cannot help wondering the reason. I guess one of reasons could be that we won’t some kind of guarantee in other’s capability. When dealing with people, we want to know what is not so good about this person in order to decide how to interact with him or her. For example, if I know that a very kind, smart and nice person cannot keep secret, I will still be friend with her, but not sharing my privacy with her because that may hurt my interest. I don’t know if this make sense to others, but it is how I feel about the deficit model.