Me: What’s it like to be dyscalculic?
Kaitlin: It’s annoying
Me: Could you elaborate?
Kaitlin: Because it takes me longer to get something and by the time I get it, we’ve already moved on or I just never get it and we move on and when I ask for help they say I should already know it.
Me: How do you think public schools handle you being dyscalculic?
Kaitlin: They don’t handle it well.
Me: What do you mean by that?
Kaitlin: I don’t think they know it exists and even if they did, they couldn’t help me with it because it seems like they’re not trained on it.
Me: What are the accommodations in your IEP that you find teachers have the most difficulty following?
Kaitlin: Extra time and correcting, if I don’t ask to correct it, they don’t give it back to me to correct because then I have a bad grade until I can fix it.
Me: Which one do you have the hardest time getting a teacher to follow?
Kaitlin: I think the modified assignments and homework because it seems like they haven’t done that at all.
Me: What could public schools do better to work with students like you?
Kaitlin: Work more individually with us because that’s how I learn better and show us how to work out the problem instead of just giving us a paper to do to try and figure out on our own.
Me: What would you like people to know about how you’ve been treated in school?
Kaitlin: Teachers just assume you’re stupid.
Me: Why?
Kaitlin: Because you aren’t learning as fast as the other students.
Me: If you could thank the teachers who have made an impact on your educational career, you don’t have to say their names maybe just the grade level, unless you want to, who would they be and what would you say?
Kaitlin: One of my teachers in sixth grade really helped me, she worked with me one on one and that’s how I learned, she taught me division.
Me: Why does she stick out in your memory as a teacher that made an impact?
Kaitlin: Because she was able to help me learn something without making me feel stupid.
Me: Is there anything that sticks in your memory that has been said to you due to your dyscalculia?
Kaitlin: In second grade, my teacher called me slow, because the other kids had finished and I was still working and she told me to hurry up because I was slow and I took it as being slow in the head not how fast I was doing the work. In third grade a teacher’s aide yelled at me in front of the class for using my fingers to count.
Me: How did it make you feel when the teacher yelled at you in class?
Kaitlin: It embarrassed me.
Me: There was legislation that was introduced in 2015 that would help define and screen for dyscalculia, do you think legislation is important?
Kaitlin: Yes.
Me: Why?
Kaitlin: Because then kids who are like me, in the future can get help.
Me: If a teacher or principal reads your interview, what would be important for them to know about dyscalculia?
Kaitlin: It makes it more difficult to learn “simple” equations because they aren’t "simple" to me and eventually I’ll get it, but then I’ll completely forget how to do it the next day but I’m not being lazy, I’m trying my hardest. It just doesn't stick.
Thanks Kate!
Click below for more Information on dyscalculia:
Article by Amanda Morin on dyscalculia:
https://www.understood.org/en/learning-attention-issues/child-learning-disabilities/dyscalculia/understanding-dyscalculia
Article by Jamie Martin on assistive technology for dyscalculia:
https://www.noodle.com/articles/7-vintage-assistive-technology-devices
Articles from Understood on dyscalculia:
https://www.understood.org/en/learning-attention-issues/child-learning-disabilities/dyscalculia