can you be thrown out of uni over a l.d.?

First of all, I think that it is crazy that you even need to take math to get the degrees that you want.

Second, I don’t know. For obvious reasons, I live in another country.

But I do know how you feel. I’m so lucky that there is ONE higher education that does not require math at all. But I feel terrible about having only one choice.

It’s crazy that there is limitations to how many times you can take the class. STUPID. What do they care, as long as they get their money, right.

Good luck with the meeting. If it does not go well, remember to fight, I am sure there IS laws or an organisation that can help you, somewhere. And maybe your online teacher can put in a good word for you? Just an idea.

If you need to yell at a stranger some day, I’m here :)

merlin: I let this one sit and stew in my mind overnight before answering it because it’s a difficult issue.

First, I have come to know and respect you on this board so I take your problem seriously. Please take the following as an attempt to look at all sides of the story.

When you talk about learning and teaching and life in general, you are clearly an intelligent and hard-working person. Unfortunately when you start to talk about the math problem, you *sound* like all the whiners we have to fight with every day. This is a problem. You get classed with all the losers, and believe me, colleges and universities are swamped with people trying to whine their way out of math. The very worst case I had was an adult student, a large man, married with kids, in third-semester pre-engineering advanced calculus, who tried to whine his way out of doing the work because he was “too busy” — great, just what we need, an engineer who cannot be bothered to find time to do the math, an adult man who tries to get ahead in life by making people feel sorry for him, just think what bridges and machines he’s going to build and how safe you will feel on his structures …
I am not sure where to go with this, just that you definitely need to change your approach and your tone in order to get heard as you need. Somehow you need to change your approach to the positive, to ask for what you need to succeed, and not appear to demand to be given privileges because you cannot succeed.

I know some colleges have a policy allowing substitution of a course after demonstrated dyscalculia — this was on the books at one place where I taught. It is an uphill battle because the college (quite rightly) does not want lots of students finding it easier to make excuses than to learn, so they deliberately make it a barrier.

Your suggestion of a science course as a replacement seems reasonable to me and if you can get to the right people with the right approach, this might work.

There are lots of requirements in life for various career and non-career activities. There are lots of things that I would like to do or to have done, but couldn’t do because I didn’t have the prerequisites. There are other things where the prerequisites were very difficult for me and I had to fight through them. We all go through it.

I know you have worked very hard and put in huge amounts of time on the math. The thing is, I strongly suspect that you are still putting your time and effort into the wrong things.
For a comparison in a subject you do well, in English, suppose you had a student who found writing difficult and who wanted to prepare for the exam in the required freshman English course; and suppose this student had developed a tactic of writing up three essays with the tutor before the exam and memorizing them word-for-word. The student got through high school this way, and thinks this technique is sucessful, because the exams were very predictable and the standards of appropriateness low. Now, as a tutor, will you help this student make up and memorize essays for this exam? Or will you tell him that this is not an appropriate technique and he really needs to learn to do some writing for himself? That is NOT to say that he is lazy or unconcerned, far from it, he is spending more time and effort than most of the other students — just that he is spending it on something that is in fact contrary to the goals of the class, and as the class level rises and professors mark more carefully he is getting stuck in a dead end.
Every time you talk about your math work I get the strong impression that you have been stuck in a dead end like this. And the only way to get out of a dead end is to back up and backtrack until you get back onto the right road, then change your steering. If you insist on going the same way, you keep hitting the same dead end.

When you talked about the online course I had my questions, but you only know if you try it; well, you have found out this isn’t working for you. But can you get a tutor and get help preparing for the next exam and see if you can make it work?

There are other options. You can take a course at a junior college or by correspondence (you still have to pass tests, but maybe you can get a course more suited to you) and transfer it to your university — just check their transfer policy first. I don’t know if you need to stay full-time for student aid, but if not you can go part-time and take three courses until the math situation is resolved. Maybe you can get permission to audit a few math courses before trying again for credit.

One thing that I suspect would help you a lot would be to improve your background. You keep hammering away at intermediate algebra because that is the required course. But you need elementary algebra and even pre-algebra as foundations for that, and the reason you are having so much trouble with intermediate is very likely that the house is built on sand. If your university does not offer these foundation courses, perhaps you could take them at the local junior college or by correspondence. If you showed the powers that be at you university that you were registered in a preparatory course, you might have better bargaining power asking for an extension.

Lots of things to think about - keep working on it.

I respect your reply to my post very much. But, here is the thing. At my University, Intermeidate Algebra is a developmental studies level course. And, Elementary Algebra is as well. So, I am already enrolled in a developmental studies level math course. However, I am not capable of doing the work for the course at all. I know this and my professor knows it as well. I am not allowed to take the course again after the spring semester because in TN you are not allowed to repeat a course more than three times in a row. Also, I have asked the lady who runs the Disability Offices if I can have an Incomplete in Elementary Algebra, I asked her this last year when I was on the verge of maybe understanding a good fourty percent of the work. The lady who runs these offices told me that was not possible. She also told me that I should take basic level math even though that is the only form of math I know how to do. So, since, I am not going to be allowed to ever go to University after the spring semester, I am trying to resolve this issue now. I have a tutor and am working this subject very hard. But, I am at grade level six in math, that is why I know how to do basic level math. I have parietal lobe damage because I had water on the brain as an infant and do not have the amunt of mind that most folks have with regards to math and other things. So, I think that I have done everything short of seducing my own professor to do math and that I am not meant to do math above my grade level. I meet with the person the president of my University told me to meet with tommorrow and I am going to see what I can do because I really would like a University degree.

Also, at my University you cannot have a course ever transfer once oyu are classified as a junior, which I am. And, the developmental studies courses are taught by instructors from the local community college. Even, if any student at my University wanted to save a few bucks and take American History (whihc is required in my state to take) at a local community college and were a junior, they would not have the course transfer. I am classified as a junior becasue I spent an entire summer making sure all of my Community College Coursework transfered.

The Tennessee State Board of Regents revised their course requirements for undergraduate students last year. And that is why I am being asked to take less math than what was once required in times past. There was a meeting about these changes last year and that is where one of the deans actually told everyone about the transfer credit issues and all of that.

I have spent a very fair amount of money out of pocket working with a tutor who comes to my home. I also have faith that I am doing the fair amount of study one with an l.d. could expect. Furthermore, prior to starting University, I took a placement test to see what math course I would qualify to take and I was deemed to take Elementary Algebra because my calculator and I scored too well to take basic math. I also did a very informal review of basic math prior to taking the placement test as well as after…and this was before classes started. And, I think the fact that I am able to manage my own finances, after being taught how to do that in High School and doing real world math, really made my taking basic math to be something that was just not ever going to happen.

Now, when I was a high school girl, I voluntarily took pre algebra as a senior. I did that just to be “normal” and resource room free for a school year. My never qualifiying to have taken proper algebra as a high school girl is what the state of Tennessee calls a High School Defiencey. I have been given a good extra semester to clear this up and I am grateful for that. But, after having worked this long, I have just basically decided that I am not to push my mind past what it is able to do with math. This decision came after I made a 17\100% on an open book/note midterm. My decision was further helped by the fact that my “virtual” professor, who has a PHD in math and special ed actually wrote on my mid term that she could see nothing was making sense to me. I took my mid term in long hand and it was faxed to her, so she saw me trying to break down every equation and all of that when she graded my mid term.

I do have nothing but respect for you Victoria. And, I am really sorry for sounding like a ninny. It is right frustrating to be in this situation and it has made me very depressed. I have tried to take what my brain has and do something it was not meant to do. I somtimes wish I had epilepsy because that is what the majority of folks who had water on the brain as an infant have. But, instead I am really bad for math. So, I respect what you say about improving my background, but I am really sure that I have about all the background I am ever meant to have in math. I am proud of that because it took me many years all throughout school, back when I was a youngster, to do things like basic math. But, with algebra, I never even really progressed past the ruels of integers, but I have tried very hard to!

So tommorrow I get to meet with someone who is to help me with this. The President of my University told me to meet with this person. I hope I can get this resolved because i ahve really liked trying to get my degree and I really do not know what I could do in life without a University degree. I have, to an extent, put my eggs in one basket with schooling. And I just really do not know what I will do with myself if I cannot continue my schooling.

I fyou haven’t already found it, Paul NOlting has a couple of books out about good accommodations & substitutions for folks with Math LDs. (I have some trouble with some of his descriptions of Math abilities & disabilities… but he’s not a Math teacher.) He may have some key sentences & justifications to help you appeal for your substitution.
But the bottom line is, yes, Uni can kick you out for things that are because of your disability.

The Americans with Disabilites Act reads in part…

Section 504 mandates that a higher education institution is not to:

· Exclude an student with a disability from any course of study who is otherwise qualified;

And that is what my University is about to do. And, I am not letting that happen. It is not lawful for a student to be barred from contiuing their schooling because of thier disability.

One little secret about universities and state boards of education: it may appear that those rules are written in stone. But, when you work up to the top, you find that every rule has a loophole. I do not generally encourage people to look for loopholes instead of learning, but that appears *not* to be the issue here. Talk to the person you have the meeting with, if that doesn’t work go back to the college president, if that doesn’t work the state secretary of education, and so on. You have a clear medical issue and all sorts of records on it, and you should be able to get somewhere with that. Just try to keep on the positive, ie what you can do to improve your education, and avoid the negative.

I had the meeting today and was told that I can maybe be allowed to take Intermediate Algebra a good two more times. But, I do not find out if this is certain until next week. So, I do not know if I am going to be allowed to take any courses in the spring or ever again as of right now. Also, the person I spoke with was basically saying that there are never going to ever be math waivers at my University because they consdier mathematics an essential skill even if it is not relevant to your degree program, he was hesitant about this and claimed that there were record of people requesting such things but would not mention specifics when I asked him. I was also told at this meeting to consider looking into a University that did not have math requirements for people who wished to learn of Literature, so that I could one day be a Uni graduate somewhere. The lady who runs the offices of student dsiability at my university has a ba in drama and a ma in childhood growth and development, she spoke with this person prior to my speaking with him and said that they need even more time than has been given for them to learn of my ld and learn to help me. I do not think that a person with no background in l.d.’s has any reason working with thsoe who do. So, I am to wait and see if I can go the spring and summer, and take other classes. But, I am also going to look into transferring to another University where I do not need to take math because this is what the fellow told me. I assume there are programs out there like that, but I do not understand why I was asked to leave the Uni in that way. Why can I not just at least stay and do what I need to do? So, I shall see.

Which day is it you find out?

Crossing my fingers for you :-)

Well, I’m hard-headed Scottish-Dutch and I stick things through long past the point when ohter people quit. But now and then there comes a point where I say “if they don’t want me, I don’t want them either.” Check out those other schools and see if you can find one with good standards but more flexibility. Almost all of your course work should transfer — check that first.

Victoria, Sue and Ellyodd; I appreciate you all very much. I have a certain sense of solace in knowing that I can virtually “converse” with you all about my l.d. And, I also like learning of things pertaining to l.d.’s and try to help any other posters with anything I know. So, GOD bless you all.

I do not yet know if I will be allowed to be able to go to University in the Spring. But, I think I more than likely will be able to. I just do no tknow yet for certain.

I am half Colombian half German and folks of my lot are about as hardheaded as anyone can be! So, I am totally going to be looking into other course programs so I can get my degree, but I will nto be getting a degree from where I am at University now.

What is frustrating is that I personally feel that if I had more time, I cold do more math. Like, sometimes it takes you a couple of semesters to learn something it might take some folks one semester to learn. What ets me really upset is that I spoke with the big cheese at my University and he was going by lies that the lady who runs the Offices of Student Disabilites told him. Things like miracles take place and happen in her offices every day! Really far out things. To an extent, my educational future oculd be in the hands of this lady, but I am not allowing that to happen. As she has no formal schooling with l.d’s I am mad at her. I am really mad to be told to go somewhere else for schooling and all of that. But, you havve to keep your head on straight and just keep on keeping on. I hope you all pray that I can go to University at least in the Spring. I guess if I can do that, I can spend all summer applying elsewhere!

Kill me. This is one last thing. I am sorry. Earlier this evening I was thinking about what skills I have with Algebra. And, when I say Algebra, I am speaking of good old fashioned Remedial Algebra. Not, Univeristy level at all. I would like opinions on how I can progress past what I know for certain I know now.
I know, without any question the following things…
Linear Equations With One Variable.
How to simplify roots in long hand.
The basic level (non scientific) rules of scientific notation.
I also know how to do basic math; like add, multiply and divide…subtracting is hard for me, but I am just slower at it than the other basics. Fractions are really nice, to me. And, I also know decimals, but not percents. I can only do percents on a calulator.
The most basic geometry, we had to learn in Elementary Algebra. I liked that, but learned to draw the figures off of my TI 83 plus because I have a very nice instructional program on there for that that covers areas and it traces out like a cartoon the shapes of basic geometry, but I do not know the rules of basic geometry by heart. The areas I do because I practice that from time to time, and have had to do that in my own personal life.
For tests, I use a Ti 83 plus calculator. If I am up a creek without a paddle, I use a TI 89 for homework because it has a symbolic math guide that shows you the steps to an equation. I NEVER use the TI 89 on tests, even on open book tests, because it is too advanced! I have deemed it to be unethical to use on tests.
This is all I know for right now. I mean this literal like, I mean this. I have just typed out all the math skills I know.

I do not know how to do the integers, so I use a calculator for those; even if I am doing a linear equation in long hand, I will stop and use my calulator to do -5+7 because I am incapable of doing that in long hand. I am also incapable of doing the number line and anything else for integers. I know this and have known that since I was in high school, so I use my calculator for the integers.

I wish to learn more. Like, if I have no choice, I am more than willing to make a continued fair and honest and true attempt to learn more.
I am totally going to be transferring to another school, and the bulk of this thread speaks of why I shall do that, even the “big cheese” at my University told me to do that. But, in the meantime, if I am given permission to take more math over, I need to continue to make a fair attempt towards my learning.
But, if you had my math skills what would you do? I am asking this because I am curious and am not aksing for like an internet miracle. It took a lot of courage for me to write out what math skills I have.
Like, to learn linear equations with two variables? Or graphing? I am in this one course now where it is very heavy on the graphing.
I understand that the graphing is a very important thing to learn because it is what unites all forms of higher math, like Calculus.
I am really certain I messed up my mid term because I graph horribly. It is as hard for me to comprehend the slope intercept formulas, and the equations behind them and all of that as it is to graph. Inequalities are something I do not understand at all either.
Have any of you helped a student who could not write out a graph well and who could also not understand the equations behind them? Like, I graph backwards or something, and it is realyl hard for me to draw the graph and count out what you need to count out and so on. This is horrible.

Well, first of all your math skills are above a lot of people I work with, and way above a lot of people I had in my remedial math classes. And knowing what you know and what you don’t is the first step to true knowledge.

I keep getting the strong feeling that there is something counterproductive going on here. If you can deal with equations in one variable and with areas, then negative numbers and graphing should not be a great leap. Now if you couldn’t visualize geometry at all, I’d say aha, that explains why you are missing on graphing. Or if you couldn’t deal with what equations do and how they work, then I could see how you couldn’t calculate for graphs. But since you can get the diagrams and areas, and you can calculate, you have the basics needed to get graphs. I get the strong feeling that when someone tried to teach this subject to you they made it much more complex than it has to be.

I keep wanting to invite you up to Montreal to sit down and work with this. Got some vacation time and a warm coat?

Well you come to Memphis, and enjoy some warm weather. It is currently 80 degrees for the highs, for the most part, and like 60 something degrees for the lows. Come to Memphis, my pal! Were I wealthy I would beg you and Sue both to come to Memphis and I would buy you both separate houses that were utterly splendid and give you handsome men as personal assitants to help you with every whim and “what have you.” And all I would ask would be for y’all to help me learn math for a few hours a day. But, I am not wealthy at all, my pals! So no dice there.

But, the graphing is like the one book that was used (before I did this online stuff) it did not really explain graphing in a nice fair minded way. You know, considering the level of the course and all of that. It had this spiral learning approach where you basically had no solid explinations or examples and were given a very small amount of informative reading that pertained to the graphing. Other things too, but the chapters that “taught” the graphing and those inequalities and linear equations with two variables hadn’t the sort of substance to them that a student who just never learned that sort of stuff should have had. The book for the online course is better. Especially since it has a detailed answer key. But with graphing, it is like my hand eye co-ordination that works against me because I can always either do or be able to read the way to write out the graph and/or the equation that causes the graph to occur. That makes no sense!

It is cool, though. I repsect all of you. Even young Ellyodd. And I hope to at least have one fair last attempt and be able to take a few more courses also. I wrote a very super honest letter thanking the big cheese I spoke with for having the tolerance for meeting with me and that it all I can do until I have word if I can at least be permitted to continue one last semester. This letter, this e mail, actually. Was heart felt and totally honest, just like how the lot of us who try our best to help others out on this board are heartfelt and totally honest.

well…I need to go for right now.

We could all convene in Chicago somewhere … though frankly, with the way politics is heading here…

I have the same feeling about those integers — though I can understand the idea that if it’s not positive it’s not “real” and thus has to be understood in an abstract way, or perhaps you have figured out how to assign a meaning to “8” but not to “-8.”
In our Math 094, which is a required prereq for the maths for the “non-math” degrees (I’m not exactly sure which ones but it’s not *just* auto mechanics :-)), they take great pains to *NOT* make students do equations with two variables, even though they do teach the infamous “one number is four more than another number, and their sum is 12; what are the numbers” problems. That and my experience say — yea, there *is* a quantum cognitive leap between them.
How are you with coordinates and graphs?

Here, students who really learn differently can do the math independently with the Cooperative Learning Center and take the exam whenever they’re ready. It’s not done often because most people don’t have the discipline, and I’m not sure it’s really set up well for people who learn differently or more slowly, but I’ve got a couple of people set up doing that who come to me for instruction between the formal “instruction sessions.” If you could find a place that took transfer credits tha tcould be your key. On the otehr hand, I think it’s definitely worth pursuing a substitution of courses, especially if you can argue that you have the skills necessary for the career in question — though if the place has a history of Never Allowing Such Things, it may not be worth the fame and fortune you’d get (NOT!) for the struggle to be the first

Oh, one more thing:

I’ve found that the developmental teachers are *much* stricter as far as making sure everybody is proving their competency. The “higher” level college courses are less mathematical because htey’re more field-related, *and* the teachers are more likely to curve grades and let students do things to make up for poor test grades and, to be honest, pass without really having learned (forget mastered!) what’s been taught.

merlinjones, thank you! It’s nice to have people to talk to about this, can’t really say that is a hot topic with anyone that I know.

Sue… yeah, let’s all go to Chicago, crash the Oprah show and tell the world about dyscalculia and ld´s… and cry our hearts out in After The Show. Oh. I’ve been up way to long.

merlin wrote:

Well you come to Memphis, and enjoy some warm weather. It is currently 80 degrees for the highs, for the most part, and like 60 something degrees for the lows. Come to Memphis, my pal! Were I wealthy I would beg you and Sue both to come to Memphis and I would buy you both separate houses that were utterly splendid and give you handsome men as personal assitants to help you with every whim and “what have you.” And all I would ask would be for y’all to help me learn math for a few hours a day. But, I am not wealthy at all, my pals! So no dice there.

Good Lord! We are at the end of fall already and having highs in the 40’s or barely 50’s and lows skimming below freezing.
We usually have highs of 80 and lows of 60 in August, but this year we had cold fronts and rain five days out of seven and summer just didn’t happen.
Plus a promise of handsome men — if my car could be trusted I’d be there next weekend.

Seriously, on the math, I have had the experience a couple of times of having truly rotten teachers and professors who went out of their way to make the subject difficult and unpleasant — and I am not talking just strict, I mean people who were decidedly personally hurtful. I got stalled in my math progress a couple of times in this way (and note that I started a PhD program and didn’t finish it, same issue) — and I am a person who is good at the subject and likes it! So I think you probably could deal with the graphing and the rest of intermediate algebra, just that you got stalled by a bad program and some unhelpful people. Once you get frustrated and blocked in a topic it takes a little boost to get out of the rut. Don;t give up on everythig because of one rut, please.

merlinjones —

thinking, thinking about your issues.

When I have a student who has hit a stall like this I try to analyze the problem and get a grip on how and why it is going that way.
Thinking that you say you have difficulty with subtraction and then that leads to problems with negative numbers, and then that messes up three-quarters of the graphs … Tell me, do you have trouble with the conceptual side of division too? (Not the mechanics of put the numebr here and do this, but the why of it all) How about square roots?

I am wondering if you have a general difficulty with inverse operations, or “thinking backwards.”
This is not at all unusual; these operations are much more difficult than the direct forward operations, and have a lot more special cases and exceptions to deal with. When I first “got” logarithms and inverse operations in general, I had this feeling of turning my eyeballs backwards and looking at the universe inside-out.

I was suggesting before that you might do better on passing this stuff if you got some foundations straight. Well, now we’ve put a finger on *which* foundations, the negative number problem and the confusion with subtraction; and possibly a big picture issue of doing and undoing operations. A little work on these could reap huge benefits in passing those tests.

Sue, as far as the reality of negative numbers, come up here in January and I’ll show you that minus thirty is pretty darned real! Or of course you could look at my credit card statement, unfortunately all too real. We could also get some scuba diving lessons …

Ah, but why do you call it minus when there is still some temperature? Why is zero where it is if you could still go down more?

http://www.resourceroom.net/math/integers.asp has some of the things I’ve used for teaching negative numbers.

Well, after going to Miami and having to deal with miles and Fahrenheit, my German student suggested we should all just use Kelvin temperatures and you wouldn’t have any negatives… .
But that does still leave my poor credit accounts and the Titanic.