Fired because of LD

Sorry for lose of job. Hopefully you will be able to collect unemployement while you are search for a new job.

I probably will…however, the whole ordeal has been totally deflating. If anyone has been tested for LD in the past and has been fired because of it please email me, I would really like to talk.

I would love to talk to someone who is intelligent, but just doesn’t seem to fit in the corporate world because of organizational difficulties.

I am pretty sure that I am smart, but I can’t seem to fit in anywhere!
[Modified by: upsetwithmyld on December 11, 2006 02:44 PM]

I am sorry to hear about your negative experience. I certainly know what it feels like to exist outside of the world’s conventional domains - including that of known LDs. Many of us don’t fit into neat little categories.

However, as said by Dr. Tom Shakespeare, “People are disabled not by their bodies but by society. Society needs to understand disability and react to disabled people.”

Don’t be too hard on yourself. I know it is difficult, though. I do not know in what line of work you were operating, but perhaps it has happened this way for the best. I hope that things work out positively for you. Keep us updated about your experience.

Best wishes,

-SJ

P.S.

Here is an article written by Dr. Tom Shakespeare that I found inspiring:

[url=http://http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:SLyybJCzPo8J:socialwork.arts.unsw.edu.au/research/research/SRDRN/shakespeare.rtf+%22Understanding+Disability%22+site:socialwork.arts.unsw.edu.au&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1]Understanding Disability[/url]

[Modified by: Sacred Journey on December 14, 2006 12:46 AM]

I’m going through the same problem. I’m 28 and have gone through about 7 jobs since graduating.

So I totally feel for you. I think my time in the corporate world is going to end soon and I have to either start my own business or hit the blue collared world (nothing wrong with that as I work at a restaurant at nights).

I’ll be just happy finding acceptance.

Sorry for you misfortune. It’s rough I’ve been probably been through about 14- 15 jobs. I just got let go about a month ago. I couldn’t believe, it’s happening again. It makes feel like not wanting to work at all.
But you have too.

Here’s what I have done. I learned this from one of my career consultants. She said to take what you learn with you because it adds to your skill level. She also said, you will use that at another employer, and another employer is looking for that skill.

I would also try to work with an organization which works with employers that employ workers with disabilities. It makes a world of a difference.
I didn’t understand that for a long time.

Employers actually recieve tax benefits for employing the disabled, so it makes good business sense for them.
Check it out.

Geoff

I have been there too. But know your limitations. Find a job that you KNOW you can do and take the time to perfect your skill. This might mean going to a technical school or college. Because of my learning disability I can not just get a job anywhere. I decided that I had to narrow my career choice. I went to a LD friendly college and spent years perfecting my future career. This was a good choice because it allowed me to learn at my own pace. It gave me the confidence I need to succeed and a greater sense of job security. It helps to reduce the stress and anxiety that we often feel when trying to hold down a job.
[Modified by: lilo321 on July 11, 2007 08:09 PM]

[Modified by: lilo321 on July 11, 2007 09:06 PM]

I have LD also and two summers ago I finally got up the courage to apply for a job at a craft store since I can make anything and I figured I’d be able to help customers and give demonstrations. Unfortunatley they put me at the cash register, an old, outdated cash register that requires the cashier to fix mistakes manually. In other words, there was no way to cancel a mistake with the push of a button. I tried it with the encouragement of my family but I did terribly. Customers were upset and the mannagers were always angry. Cashiers were expected to memorize daily specials and discount percentages. It was a bright, noisy, place where customers would bring armfulls of tiny beads, paper swatches, and little paint bottles. I had to type the prices in Manually. They finally cut my hours back so much that I got the message. I think what made it so hard for me was not feeling that I failed at a job but being publically humilliated everyday. I had to stand at my register with a forced heir of confidence knowing that I was equally as smart as my coworkers yet so unable to show it. I had just turned 19 and I still have anxiety about working now that I’m 21. I’m sure you must feel some of that too…just that pure embarassment.

Since then I have worked as a nanny and this summer I started my own small business, selling the things that I make along with other treasures that I’ve found. I have my store online via eBay. eBay does all of the math and when customers ask questions, they do it in an email. I have more time to process their questions and answer them intelligently. But none of this would have been possible without God. I hope you have a relationship with God. If not, I’m going to pray for you anyway, God knows jobs are important and I’m confident that theres something out there for you.

I actually have a college degree, so no sense in going to technical school. I have actually started working in the learning disabilities department at a public school…..the irony.

This is a complete career change for me (before I was in market research), so hopefully this one has a happy ending.

yes I think you should find a job that will match your disability (im not saying that it will be easy though) but also keep in mind when your employer is still in line for deciding to “let you go” because of your disability. is it because your work is affected by it or is it simply because your employer is not comfortable with you having such disability? there’s actually a big difference there… and legal remedy at hand if you know what i mean

You might want to let your new empoyer know (after they have hired you, of course), that you have an LD, if you will in any way need an accomodation. The ADA allows for that, so you have a legal leg to stand on. Of course, you must be able to do the job with the accomodations :-)

I’ve had about 300 jobs since I started working (I’m 60 now and living on a federal disability grant for a psych. disorder…I never got tested/certified for LD, therefore I officially don’t have it!!!) and I lost most of those jobs due to my LD…and yet after all this time I still don’t know exactly what’s wrong with my “wiring” (I’m really beginning to HATE that expression!!).
It just seems I can’t do anything right on the job, anything from adding up figures on an adding machne, to catching the product in a small bag on a conveyer belt, to “remembering” to latch all the cat cages at the shelter so they don’t get out at night. When studying medical coding I made more “glitch” type mistakes than logical mistakes, yet I got an A the first time around (online)and a B the second time around (regular class). When I tried to work as a coder (after the first class) I got fired before the end of the first day…for not being able to code. I also have a BA and a college level IQ. (So much for what IQ tests test for…..)
All my life I’ve been called lazy, unmotivated, degenerate, crazy, developmentally-delayed, and worse…even by my own parents. Also by co-workers. Teachers pretty much never gave a damm, and I slid through school because it’s relatively easy to “fake it” in school (at least for me) compared to on the job.
Needless to say I’ve been endlessly traumatized by this disability, totally marginalized in my social-economic life, have been homeless many times, and forced to live in extremely compromised situations all of my life. My dreams became mud. And my self-esteem…well, one can only try to imagine, but you have to have been there!!
Most things I won’t even try anymore, and the very worst thing about all this…is that THE BOSS and/or COWORKERS NEVER UNDERSTAND(S)..especially on the easy jobs that anyone should be able to do. And it’s a vicious cycle…no job equals no money therefore no money to invest in a home business through which I could hide my disability a lot more, and thereby experience more success and self respect.
There’s still no way I can get a good grasp on exactly what’s wrong, although I went for testing once (but never got certified and never followed through with the biofeedback which I considered useless for me) and my short term memory is about zero, although I got much better scores on language things (but I’m not that great that I could be a reporter or a therapist, cause I am not good at following people’s line of thinking when it achieves any level (or no level) of complexity. I even washed out as a dry cleaner clerk and as a cashier on a couple of occasions…too many things to do and remember. It’s all quite appalling. From the time I was 16 there was nothing in the newspaper want-ads that I thought I could do, and if I did, then I didn’t have the credentials. My BA is in psych, (ha ha) but I never worked one day in a professionalor semi-professional capacity because I never got that ground-level experience in…to quality (not to mention other formal qualifications). And for every job that I ever landed, I probably applied for 10 or 20 more.
Well, I have a chance to interview for another kennel job. And after a lifetime of failure and defeat and unspeakable humiliation, I have to decide how to go about telling (or not telling) them about this. I don’t want them to decide I’m too damaged, but I don’t really want them to know…if there was the slightest chance I can pull it off. All I can remember is when I volunteered at the shelter before, I ended up getting fired for “forgetting” to close about 10 cat cages….impossible I thought….they must have wanted to dump me for some other reason and made up that story….it can make a person so paranoid on top of everything else. I probably won’t sleep tonight for worry about this. And all for $7.00 an hour, 30 hours a week. It’s tempting to say no. An old friend takes care of me now, and I’d never have to try to work again if I didn’t want to. And it’s a terrible thing to have to worry about something like this. I’m seeing all these other posts about how people are finding some kind of niche in spite of their problems, and at age 60 I still haven’t found mine. Any sincere words would be greatly appreciated!!
[Modified by: stillhere on August 27, 2007 08:54 PM]

[Modified by: stillhere on August 27, 2007 08:56 PM]

Hi Stillhere and Welcome!
While I’m 53 with a few years to catch up with you.
I know exactly what you are talking about.
Having been sacked from numerous jobs, even really easy ones?
Despite having post-graduate qualifications.

In regard to your interview for the kennel job, I would suggest advising them of your ‘disability’.
But the question is how to explain it to them?

Where it can be difficult even explaining it to ourself?
As it’s hard know what we can’t do, when we can’t do it?
But from what you wrote, you seem to have the same sort of ‘organizational’ thinking problems?
Remembering to do all of the ‘things’ required?
Though a good solution for this, is to rather than rely on Memory, to make written Check-lists.
So that you can look at it and see what’s done and what needs to be done.
Does this make any sense to you?
Geoff,

Dear Goeff,

Thanks for the advice. The problem is never that cut and dried, and this is why it’s so hard to “reach” out. No life is so simple that one only needs a list of what to do. Of course EVERYBODY starting out somewhere has their initial list…but it wasn’t cause everyone else was also LD. I have just as must problem getting the “list of what to do” down straight. And you can get so specific that the list can be literally ten thousand items long, know what I mean. The human mind does not work that way, and ultimately, every mini detail of ones life is not meant to be itemized….. anyway, things come up during the day, and no job is so simple that everything can be known in advance. Just the idea that I have to say this seriously…means I’m in too deep….I mean I know you were really trying to offer something helpful…but if something so obvious as writing stuff down REALLY made that much difference…I think I would have known it ages ago. I’ll never forget my hideous experience at a burger flipper joint. I was relying on the “cheat sheets” for so long, that I got in everybody’s way, and a couple of hours later, THAT job was gone too…. HEAVY SIGH!!! The phone is still flashing for a call I should’ve picked up 8 hours ago, probably calling me in for an interview, and I’m losing sleep worrying about it, but if I don’t pick up by morning, ane more will have slipped through my fingers. Another one slipped through this morning when I couldn’t find the road sign for how to get into the bloody place, and so I came home with the little resume (packed with lies) still in my hot little hand.
Thanks for the words though. It’s good to feel that somebody cares. Best…… Stillhere

SUE SUE SUE SUE SUE

http://www.eeoc.gov/offices.html

Hi Stillhere:
Your story reminds me of an article I read about a woman who had memory loss because of a car accident. Though it may seem unrelated, it appears that memory issues are one of the key things that have held you back in life—along with perhaps a concern that you are just going to fail no matter what so why try anymore! Anyway, you can read the article here: http://www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/9094237.html.
I think most people find their niche by taking a very honest and hard look at their life. You may not be able to do a job that requires quick service to the public or attention to detail but if a seriously brain injured woman who lost her daughter can hold down a job (granted with much help), then there is hope!
[Modified by: rogomom2 on October 29, 2007 12:03 PM]

Dear upsetwithmyld and stillhere and kind responders, I realize this is a late post, but would still like to make a suggestion. Have you considered doing some later-in-life therapy to help you improve memory and organization skills? It seems that these skills can be helped with work in visual imagery.

At this point in my career I work only with adult learners and have heard so many stories that are heartbreaking. Yet, some improvement can usually be made with the kind of determination I see in many of the responses.

Take a look at our website [url]http://www.understandMORE.com[/url] and click where it says, Why People Have Problems With Comprehension. It may help you see why it is difficult to remember and organize things. We put this little presentation on the web to help other family members understand what some of the issues are, so you may want to ask spouses, parents, siblings or even an understanding employer (Yes, there are a couple) to take a look.

[Modified by: Jane Wilkinson on March 12, 2008 12:04 PM]

Finding jobs that match our disability. I refuse to think of myself as disabled. The day one actually lets society dictate to one what one is, is the day one is truly disabled.

Find a job you like. Find a job that inspires your mind. Don’t look for one that doesn’t interfere with the ‘disfunctioning’ of your brain. You and everyone here is able. Maybe *different* than the typical. But in no way disabled. “I think therefore i am” Descartes. however it is spelled… dyslexic i spell foe-net-ic-allee. But i still do spell don’t i? Obviously…. So my spelling is different, (it actually makes sense unlike ‘ph’ making an F sound which is totally irrational altogether.) What is odd is that they promote such irrational spellings and they call themselves typical when their spelling doesn’t even make sense, with the rules they created for it. Just look at Shakespeare, they consider him a genius yet that moron spelled his name 7 different ways…. But rather than deifying the rest of us phonetic spellers, they instead insist we are disabled…. Roight…. If i am disabled, they are all clinically insane. Hypocritical nonsense disorder, in my mind is about as vallid as attention deficite disorder…. LD=Learning Different, not Learning disabled.

[quote=Mandi]Finding jobs that match our disability. I refuse to think of myself as disabled. The day one actually lets society dictate to one what one is, is the day one is truly disabled.[/quote]

I will second that. Honestly, I think society is impaired.

I think, you are right. But i think we too are somewhat in certain areas of life somehow designed poorly for functioning within the confines of their disfunction.Some ppl’sthinking is just designed differently than ours….Not better or worse…. Just different….

America’s schools on average have scored as the worst in education based on the student’s test scores. I find it interesting for that reason that clearly every child needs an IEP but most never get one. Something is very wrong with this system where no one is learning much of anything yet a chosen few are selected to get studied and tortured and educated specially….

It reminds me of music theory at the university i went to for a short time when i was first trying to study. My music theory professor phoned and left a message stating that over 90% of the class was failing she wanted to meet with each and every one of us privately! I called her back and told her politely, when 90% of a class is failing a subject there is something wrong with the teaching of the subject quite clearly. I informed her i needed my time more for other subjects as well as hers and really had no more time for her theory class to meet every day privately. I told her it might be prudent to change her teaching method or something. Turns out, we were all failing because she was teaching the same exact stuff same homework same thing was asked on the homework of us as was asked of those 3 years our seniors. Ofcourse we couldn’t succeed. We didn’t have the background! Later i took real classes in theory…. Guess what? I understood it all perfectly and was a straight A student. So proving, it was never me. It was her and her teaching.Because over 90% of our class failed. About the same the following year too…. hehehe…. This particular professor was brilliant!!! Now i know just how brilliant she was! Because i can understand her compositions and i can take them apart etc…. She should have been writing music for royalty not teaching a bunch of freshmen. Seriously…. One of the most incredible musical minds i have ever seen…. But truly miserably terrible teacher. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. It is how we use them to contribute positively to the world that is what matters. I am not saying find a job to match your disability. I am saying, find a job that matches your mind. For this unlabled professor, writing symphonies would have been better than teaching. So look at yourself and figure out how your mind can do the most good for society. Challenge yourself and find something that interests you. If you do that, no matter what you may or may not be labled with becomes…. null and void on the grounds that determination and desire to overcome and think creatively come into play. When that happens, i believe there is nothing most of us can’t do.

Mandi said “I find it interesting for that reason that clearly every child needs an IEP but most never get one. Something is very wrong with this system where no one is learning much of anything yet a chosen few are selected to get studied and tortured and educated specially….”

I was not tortured by being specially educated; it allowed me to succeed where I would otherwise have failed. On the one hand, you feel everyone needs and IEP, on the other hand, that such education is torture. That seems me to be contradictory.

I agree that your music teacher was not approaching things right. I teach, and if the majority, or even half of my class, fails on a test, I know I have not done my job right (assuming, of course, that they were all doing their work, and paying attention, which on occasion has not been the case). In that case, I re-teach the topic in a different way. I too have had brilliant people who are poor teachers on the college level. I learned over the years that if I cannot learn from a teacher, I am not stupid, the teacher is not LD friendly or simply not good.

I think every student should have the help they need to succeed, which is why many teachers answer questions in class, give time to start homework to allow for needed clarification, and even offer their time after school, even for students not on IEPs.

Take care.

Oooh! You misunderstand me a bit i think….

I agree with you. Every child should get any and all help they need. I just feel there is less gained by labling a child and more gained instead on focusing on how the child’s mind works so that one doesn’t make the child ‘other’ but rather, only speaks to the actually needs of the child. I think a new aproach to testing is necesary. Rather than ‘diagnosing’ children strengths and weaknesses and the whole child need to be considered and understood. Then i also feel too the school system needs to change. So that there are classrooms geared towards every type of learning style. For example in one school 4 or 5 4th grade classes. None of them being ‘remedial’ in nature and no one being inferior or superior, just different styles taught in each class rooms. In this way children get what they need without being abused by a very broken system.

You sound like a very good teacher and a very rational person. Which is why, i know you will find my thoughts at least interesting to say the least. You will think they are unrealistic. And again i would agree. They are unrealistic because there isn’t money there isn’t time there isn’t this that and the other thing. But just imagine that all those necesary things were in place. Imagine how much better all children would be educated and imagine how much safer every child’s psyche would be.

As a teacher you must teach african american children? There was a time in history when they were viewed as less worthy of an education and less intelligent than those white children in your classroom. I personally think such ideas are disgusting and disturbing. But i have to go right now and will continue to answer this later because there are a number of things i want to say.

Compared to the rest of the western world, our education system as a general rule though not in every case, is quite inferior. Our children are also ranking least happy in the western world. This situation, must be adressed. Clearly all our students and not just those with LD are not getting from the current system what they really need or they would be scoring as high as the students in Finland for example. When a system doesn’t provide a child with what they need, in the system that we have, an IEP is made. So that the student may have what they require. Though i mention an ideal world earlier, we don’t live in one. So in our broken system, in which in general our students are getting the worst education in the western world, to me it seems reasonable and rational to put them all on some sort of special program designed for their needs. In the future, they will need to compete with their western peers. This is a fact. What is also a fact, is that as it stands under the circumstances in most areas of the usa they will not be able to compete. No child left behind in a sense becomes rather amusing as a statement, as in this case ‘all children left behind’ as a plural will be the more real situation arising. This is my concern. As an educator it should be your concern as well as i am sure it is. You don’t sound like many teachers i have met in passing. You sound intelligent and like you genuinely care.

But back to my point about racism…. Today we know, that though there is a microscopic difference in brain size the likelyhood that it affects the intelligence of african americans is non existant. African americans are in all point of fact as highly intellectually intelligent as white americans. However, as late as the 1980s a doctor Rushton an anthropologist has been using scientifically questionable methods calling them science and stating they prove african americans are less intelligent. Pigmentation of skin does not reflect intelligence. The true differences genetically between the races is not sufficient to even say that color and race are the same thing or are even related. We know better than the bogus hype being sold by Doctor Rushton. He ‘proved’ blacks had an IQ of right around 80. His studies, are total bullox his methodology complete crap. I have actually read several of them myself as a scientist and found so much information and evidence lacking that i think calling his studies studies gives them too much credence.

I have also been researching the actual studies on some LDs as well… Such as ADHD for example. What i am finding is highly alarming to me as a scientist. (archaeologist epigrapher)Many of the so called studies on ADHD for example are atleast as questionable as those done by Rushton. In the cases where full and proper records are available, it’s interesting to note that not one study lends credence to any of this hyper surrounding ADHD at the very least. I have not had the opportunity as of yet to read further into studies done on LDs, but it seems too from minor prelimary research there are questions about atleast OCD as well. If the data is not provided by the scientist to prove his methodology etc is correct and to standard and based on relevant hard evidence, then it is not science. Declaring someone mentally or intellectually inferior with no hard evidence based on totally subjective methods of interpretation of behavior in a specific environment and the input of terrified parents all hyped up and some teacher that for whatever reason may not care for that child so much…. (Or may care too much) seems to me less than adequate to diagnose anything at all. But the evidence out there that has actually been presented and published in its complete entirity paints a very different picture than this pseudo science which in my opinion as a scientist (weather i have LD or not is irrelevant i would view this the same either way the discrepancies are so severe and major.) I can say i find this stuff to be a big fiction, based on what these experts propose as fact. However, to deny my mind wraps around ideas a bit differently than is typical would be as full of it as the lies they tell. So, i think to call someone broken brained as that was the original name for ADHD, one should have evidence of the brokenness of the brain one is diagnosing. If one can not produce such evidence one should then be sued for slander in my opinion.

I am glad you got the help you need and that your life was very pleasant. Please understand, that happens to some but many of us are abused. Severely abused. Sometimes the road to hell is paved with good intentions. All that help doesn’t always actually help. I am glad to know you didn’t go through what i did and what many others went through. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. But please understand that after my experiences, i feel strongly that those of us who have LD need to protect the future children like us from these potential abuses.

When i was a kid, one of my best friends had ADHD too. Her story is even more sad than mine. She went to a different doctor. But your parents wait out in the waiting room for you to come out. Her doctor molested her behind closed doors from the time she was 5 until she was 13. He used to tell her if she told anyone he would declare her completely insane and have her locked up for life. She believed him…. how could she not? He had labled her ADHD and gotten her placed in special ed hadn’t he? This example is one of the most infuriating. But i have been to many shrinks that are more interested in lining their pockets than in curing their patience. To me this is less offensive than child molest but please understand it does damage of it’s own kind as well. I knew several children who went to that friend’s doctor….. The heart break i feel for what happened to them…. Most of them were not even messed up until after he got his hands on them. No i think any doctor who wanted to test my kid would have to put up with me in the back of the room quietly sitting and just being present to protect my kid, just in case.

Many of those with LD got put under a microscope as kids. If that didn’t happen to you then i will admit i am jealous. It means they are watched much more closely and over analyzed till the truths get lost. Soon, the fact that they are even human is lost and they are studied coldly by these strange people in these strange settings and it is scary. They see their parents crying and scared. They don’t know what to make of it all because they are still just children. Then as they get older and try to learn about themselves, they discover papers all over that are written by alleged experts, in which the expert so very sensitively compares their intelligence to that of a dog or a cat. Or the expert in all point of fact calls them retarded. Or says a whole host of critical stuff and never for one full sentence says anything not negative about them. Sorry, but this IS damaging. I still haven’t talked about the over medicating that is so standard and i am much too lazy to get into that. But please understand for many this process and everything related to it is abuse. I am glad it was npot for you. I am glad i can read today rather than being illiterate. I am glad someone figured out how my brain works. I am NOT glad for all the rest of it and the labeling etc…

As for teachers, i still send the one who taught me to read christmas presents and birthday gifts every year. Just something small and a card that says thank you. We keep in touch after all these years through email. I can’t ever thank her enough for what she gave me. And i will never stop trying to thank her adequately. I have had other teachers who have gone out of their way for me too. Had a fabulous teacher my junioryear of highschool…. And one science teacher who i can never thank enough as well. These people gave me something that they didn’t have to. They gave me their time, their attention, their help, their understanding and both the gifts of their knowledge and wisdom. Teachers like that, they deserve a hell of a lot more than they get both financially and in just common gratitude. The service they do is priceless. So if you are one of those teachers and i suspect you are…. Thank you. If i can ever be of help to you please let me know.

Lastly, i am not sure if you have ever heard of this site but if special ed is an interest of yours and stuff…. Maybe you should atleast check this site out…. www.ablechild.org maybe you have heard of it? I find it is a fabulous reseource as is this one.

Mandi,

I think what you might be looking for is response to intervention (RTI), it is a way catching any child who is struggling, before the fail. It is relatively new, and implimentation is somewhat spotty, but the principle is that any child who needs help should be helped now. There are 3 tiers to it, with the last tier being special education if needed. You might do a search for this through the main page of this site.

Mandi, I am sorry for your experience with this area. The psyciatrist is the exception, rather than the rule.

I underwent testing at various stages in my acedemic career, all by school psycologists or special ed teachers. All were above board, thankfully.

By definition, people with LD are of average or above average intellegence. However, with someone with LD, such as myself, the IQ test may underestimate the IQ, as the LD can interfere. If, knowing what the learning disability is (or disabilities are), the tester could make the appropriate accomodations, there would be a truer picture of a person’s IQ. Anyhow, I don’t believe skin color determines intellegence.

The high school I went to recently won an award for its high graduation rate of African-American males. They have two programs working to encourage scholarship both among African-American women and men. I think this is excellent, and wish other schools would use it as a model.

Amen to the last bit. Every person is valuable. Anyone who says anything else is a liar. The differences between people are small…. The fact that we are all here together right now is huge. There has to be some reason though reason is a bad word for it….

My experiences were regular and numerous. More than every 6 months they put me through hell. I was more of a lab specimen like some piece of something that they would put under glass and look at with a microscope and then over analyze till they missed me entirely. Forgetting i was human.

Anyone, who forgets anyone else is human needs some special educating i would say as they have missed the most critical lesson of a life time.

I didn’t tell you that bit because i wanted pity. I told you, so you would understand more of the dangers that lurk in these issues. I am truely greatful to whatever you choose to call sacred that you were not treated like i was. I am greatful i never saw my friend’s doctor… I am sorry the SOB didn’t catch AIDs from one of those children though i would be sad to know one of those children had AIDs. You are right. That my friend’s doctor was a rare exception….

However you are wrong if you truly believe all these doctors are so altruistic. Some of them truely are. Some of them are the sort that want to do good while more interested int heir own proffit. And still fewer simply don’t give a crap about anyone but themselves and don’t care who they hurt. Some a very very small few are even as vile as my friend’s doctor….We are all human and varying shades of grey.

I used the example of african americans to make a point. I could have just as easily used the suffrage movement, the salem witch trials, the european witch hunt, Mcartheism and even to some degree the holocaust. I am glad you feel as i do about that issue of equal intelligence. Sick though that anthropologists from Harvard have questioned it in recent and semi recent history. Honestly, as a caucasion, it makes me sick to my stomach that anyone the same ‘color’ as i am could be as stupid as that old fool Coon and the more recent fool Rushton. As an archaeologist, i find their idiocy fascinating in its lack of anything vallid. I find the ignorance mildly amusing as atleast one of those 2 had a PHD from Harvard. If the intelligent pp go to harvard and Harvard spits out Coons, then seriously…. What kind of lessons must it be teaching??? And who wants to learn such bogusness anyway? and if they would give Coon a degree…. I have a black lab that also could use a degree with their name on it. He has a legitimate right to such a degree to, since he is far superior in intelligence to Coon. (and Rushton) But these 2 men have intrigueingly insane and deluded views on evolution also which is why i just gotta love em so much. Well, more like i love hating them….

You should be very proud of your school. That is quite a nice acheivement.

As for if that system is what i was thinking…. Not exactly but similar….. It is getting near it…. What i was thinking is that the purpose of testing needs to change so what is discovered is how the child’s mind works and what teaching style is most helpful for them and what other things they need. So that a class room is then developed for every type of learner and within that there are sub categories none of these being better or worse than any other or for superior or inferior intelligence. All solely for the purpose of providing every child with an education which they could make the most of. Where they would have the help they need as a standard to the class….So that each child could excell in whatever way they needed to. But yes in a sens similar in that is would apply to all children and it would protect them from doing too poorly.But i am surprise someone in education grew a large enough brain to even walk part way down that road…… I am impressed….

As for you, i wish you had been my teacher i think i would have learned alot. So, you keep doing what you do and help kids that really need you. Don’t think it will ever be forgotten. We need some special award system that is televized like the grammies for good teachers. They do not get the recognition and thanks they deserve